LAFF 2011: DETECTIVE DEE

Detective Dee (Andy Lau) in Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame.

A reason to explode

By John Esther

Once upon a peg tale in 7th Century China, a giant Buddha statue was being built for the coronation of China's first female emperor, Empress Wu (Carina Lau). It would be a great day in Chinese herstory, but there were many misogynistic men who did not take kindly to the notion of Miss Lady "wacky eyebrows" Boss.

With just a few days away from the equal-rights event, important men started bursting into flames. Nobody could figure out why. Clearly this was a case for Detective Dee (Andy Lau).

In prison for treason, Detective Dee is released and appointed head of the case by the Empress herself. Of course, the Empress does not trust him so she sends her spy, who might be a double agent, to watch Detective Dee as he finds the bad guys or bad gals.

But this was to be no ordinary adventure. Detective Dee will have to visit places like Spooky Pandemonium in order to find Donkey Wang for information on Fire Turtles and other crazy characters. And just when you think Detective Dee has caught the culprits, a more menacing figure is lurking behind the next clue.

Stuffed to the sensory gills with stunning set designs, elaborate costumes, flamboyant martial art scenes, sneaky sounds, absurdly-sexual innuendos, fantastic photography, masterful special effects and an array of images conducive to multiple viewings under different methods of intoxication (for the record, I had just one beer before the screening), Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame would be a wildly entertaining film on your typical movie screen. However, in a stroke of brilliant programming, the single screening of the film at the 2011 Los Angeles Film Festival was at the Ford Amphitheatre. 

Outside and under the stars, the neighborhood's frogs, birds and other creatures accentuated the atmospheric film-going experience. The real and the reel meshed into a synchronicity, breaking common film-viewing experiences. A bird catches on fire in the film; a second later a real bird makes a sound. Dogs barking in the distance may as well have come from "off screen" in the film. At one particularly precious moment, a live plane flew by the Ford Amphitheatre as the screen showed the gigantic Buddha against the blue sky.

Sometimes art and life just jive right and, as a result, it was the most fun I have had at the movies in years.

And then I attended LAFF's theatrical event, The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman, the next night. Oh my!