Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

The plot is sometimes bogged down in attempts to be surprising and seemingly inconsistent character motivations, though by the end it ties together enough that you'll probably just be left underwhelmed rather than confused. It's a spooky pandemonium. In a nutshell it's wuxia Sherlock Holmes, with less charm and more silliness (in both the so-bad-it's-good sense and the just-plain-bad sense). At times feels like it's going to come together into something cool, but ultimately it never really does.

Aside from having a pretty ridiculous premise and some confusing goings on this is a pretty damned fun action flick. I believe pretty firmly that this movie would have been much more known if it didn't have such a dumb title. Watch this movie, fun is the only word for it.

Hong Kong takes on the traditional Chinese wuxia genre in a garish format that seems to blend aspects of Western blockbusters such as Indiana Jones and Sherlock Holmes. Sloppy editing and weak visual effects sometimes detract from a story which is nonetheless fast-paced and entertaining. The result is blockbuster material in its own right, though not a particularly memorable or special one. It's hardly on the level of Ang Lee, Zhang Yimou or even John Woo, whose efforts have all impressed more.

Slightly better than an average popcorn movie. Has some really truly magical moments, great action choreography by Sammo Hung, and the mystery isn't entirely predictable.

As suggested by the title this is has a mystery at the heart of the story--with some martial arts fight sequences filling in. Personally, I had trouble following the mystery plot and at some point I just didn't care; nor did I care much about the characters. I suspect some martial arts fans will like the fight sequences, but I didn't care for them as they were a bit too frenetic. (Note: Criticker predicted a score of 64!)

Whatever entertainment I derived from its purposefully ridiculous premise is lost early on as it devolves into a repetitive, nonsensical, and convoluted mess.

Viewed May 16, 2021. The fights are pretty cool (choreography by Sammo Hung combined with Tsui's typically fluid approach to action), but I don't gel with the overly artificial CGI (even if Tsui is playing up the artificial part, I still find it unappealing) and they're pretty lazy about the whole detective aspect.

The beginning was promising, especially since Chinese mystery movies are rare. Andy Lau is good, as always. But the movie was too jumbled for me. It was as if the writers couldn't decide whether or not it was a mystery, fantasy or what, and to make matters worse, the Chaplain characters and plot lines were not believable enough. And this, coming from someone who watches people do flying martial arts moves 50 feet in the air with ease, is indicative of how bad the movie got as it went on.

A pretty good if overly convoluted mystery that really suffers from too much CGI. I think it would've been better if they'd have used less wire work and kept the action a little more grounded.

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A jaunty good time that succeeds in being a windy, batty, suspenseful-in-motion high-wire detective mystical pseudo-history. Phew. Just roll with it.

One of the goofiest, nuttiest martial arts dramas Freder has ever seen -- but strangely entertaining.

It's high-wire kung fu type antics, not with much invention or class, but a good degree of goofy silliness and entertainment. It doesn't deserve too much praise because the editing is terrible, the visual effects laughable, the mystery plot nonsensical and the characters entertaining but poorly developed. However there is a character called "Donkey Wang" and more than one scene wth some strangely effeminate deers! So marks there...

While this movie can be campy fun, it lacks the attention to art direction and choreography that add spice to a film like this. Given that characters have such illustrious titles as "Donkey Wang", I don't know why people expected legitimate character development to begin with.

The story is absolute nonsense, the visuals too CGI-enchanced and the performances flimsy, but this murder mystery/martial arts blockbuster is still surprisingly a lot of fun, even if only for how crazy it gets. The movie also has the best "man valiantly fighting a bunch of deer" scene of the year, in case you're into that.

A bit dull and silly but watchable if you don't expect something great

The message of the story seems to be that you should acquiesce to a rotten government if it has consolidated power, or something. But there's lots of fighting and wacky talking deer.

It has some interesting ideas and beautiful cinematography, but the plotline and character-development is horrible. Everyones motives keep on changing during the film which makes it all quite difficult to follow. Also it's lacking a true villain, so the hopscotch grand ending is bit stupid.

The style is instantly off putting