The first Detective Dee was good, with heavy weight actors Andy Lau carrying the whole movie and Tony Leung as the villain. However, Tsui Hark is known more for average movies this decade rather than hitting home with great works. His movies usually started off with lots of hype, rumoured to have lots of style, but in the end, ended up with lots of disappointments with lack of substance. Rise of The Sea Dragon, sad to say, leans more on the style over substance category.
Serving as a prequel to lots of other Detective Dee stories, it introduce Dee as a young government official, tasked to investigate the case of suspected sea dragon destroying the whole of war fleet. Throw in some red herring, a swamp creatures, and a plot to overthrow the government. And as usual, Dee saves the day.
Nothing much to comment about the acting. The young actors can barely carry the role, most of them look too young for their respective roles. Angelababy is purely a vase here. No acting required. Just act sad, in need of a hero to rescue here.
The special effect, referring to the CGI, is sadly, really laughable; at one stage, it looks cartoonish. Luckily the story did not depend heavily on CGI, or else the movie would sink like the whole armada in the opening scene. Tsui Hark should stick back to what he do best. That is why the fighting scenes, although defying gravity illogically, appeared stylish and entertaining.
The story, borrows heavily on the recent remake of Sherlock Holmes, be it BBC's Sherlock or US's Elementary or Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock Holmes. Dee is smart in deducing crimes with just barely a small clue. Near impossible, and rather improbable and far fetch. Throw in Watson as the trusty sidekick who do all the running. In come Lestrade who is the official in charge of the case. Luckily the "Lestrade" here is able to hold on his own and even save Dee in certain scenes. The whole story is sort of solving a case that kept the audience guessing. But once the culprit and his scheme is revealed, nothing much is left. Surely the fighting scenes may be the saving grace for the whole movie, but at the end, everything felt too long. 2 hours plus is really too long for a simple story like this with not much substance in the midst.
At the end, despite enjoying Holmes, this felt more like a poor imitation. There are even many scenes borrowed from other movies. The over used slo-mo made famous from Matrix, and even the fish jumping out of water and over the head scene from Free Willy. Compare to the first Dee movie, this prequel hardly made much impersonation.
ratings: 2 half poink!
comments: like eating a cream puff, except without the cream in the middle. So, it is just left with air and a puff on the outside. All style but no substance.
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