Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
(Dí Rénjié Zhī Tōngtiān Dìguó)

A key figure in Hong Kong action cinema from the 1980s until today, Tsui Hark is a fine example of how Asian cinema and Hollywood films have influenced each other. Based on a typically Chinese tale set in the distant 7th century during the Tang dynasty, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame could be seen as a way of acting out in other climes the adventures of Indiana Jones or Jack Sparrow. Yet, the fantastic arsenal deployed by Tsui Hark (martial somersaults characteristic of the Wuxia genre, games of masks, seemingly spontaneous combustions, etc.), rather than tipping the film into a mounting disorder, constructs an increasingly concrete allusion to China’s large building projects, and the power games behind them. As in the purest US tradition, the fantastic does not shy away from reality but holds a free and astonishing dialogue with it. AR