The plot of the film is set before Detective Dee and The Mystery of the Phantom Flame and follows Dee as he comes to become part of the royal court and investigates matters concerning a sea dragon that sank an entire fleet in the opening set piece.
You'll forgive me for not going into greater detail of the plot but to be perfectly honest I didn't catch everything. I got lost in the images and the motion, plus some of the subtitles came and went rather fast so I let details slide. Yea it's one of those movies that you need to see a couple of times so that you can get past the OH WOW factor and get back to the plot. I will say that the film does tie in nicely with the first film setting up when and how Dee met several characters from the first film and Mark Chao makes a good younger version of Andy Lau.
While the film is a bit too heavy on CGI and some of the earlier sequences with it are okay, the film for the most part is truly spectacular. The locations, the monsters, everything is just epic. The action sequences are wonderful and the sort of thing you'll want to play over when this hits DVD (in about 2 weeks)
I really liked this film a great deal and I'm planning on squeezing in another viewing sooner rather than later...
I've never heard of these Detective Dee films, but they look great! Can't wait to track it down!
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