Hark back to the old days with Dee
By XU FAN
Known for decades as the master of the visual feast, maverick director Tsui Hark is returning to our screens with his take on 7th-century China as the backdrop for his latest Detective Dee epic.
As the third installment of the franchise about the titular sleuth, Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings will hit Chinese theaters on Friday.
Something akin to the Chinese version of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, the role of Dee has been reprised by Taiwan actor Mark Chao, who faces off unprecedentedly powerful rivals in the new extravaganza.
Picking up from where Rise of the Sea Dragon left off, Tang emperor Li Zhi presents Dee with the dragon-taming mace, a token of supreme supervisory power that gives its owner the power to fend off anyone who covets the throne.
Regarding the gift as a threat to her ambitions to become the country’s top ruler, the emperor’s wife, Wu Zetian, assigns her top aide and a team of five sorcerers to steal the mace. But what instead unfolds is an even more thrilling conspiracy about an exiled rebel force from India which is plotting to take over the Tang empire. Wu is again played by awardwinning actress Carina Lau.
The major characters are loosely based on real historical figures. Wu was China’s first and only empress who reigned around 1,300 years ago, and Dee (Di in Mandarin — but Dee in English as per Dutch writer Robert van Gulik’s 1940s book Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee which was translated from an ancient Chinese novel) was a wellknown politician revered by the empress.
But being faithful to history has never been a goal for Hark, who is famous for reshaping Chinese martial arts films since the late 1970s through his use of fantasy scenes set in ancient China.
From his directorial debut The Butterfly Murders to Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, the first Chinese Imax 3D movie, up to his recent blockbuster Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back, Hark has established his status as an iconic figure behind the rise of lavish homegrown special-effects-driven films — a sector that Chinese filmmakers have long hoped to shrink the gap with the world’s top movie player, Hollywood.
“As a filmmaker, I always hope to bring something new to the audience,” says Hark, during a recent interview.
Speaking about his formula to entertain and excite the audience with the 8-year-old Detective Dee franchise, Hark says he has tried to seek inspiration from some yet-tobe-explained mysteries from ancient times.
In the movie, the masters of the exiled rebel force have a host of magic tricks at their disposal to create complex illusions, such as making victims believe they are seeing a sculpture of a dragon come alive or being besieged by giant monsters.
“People might wonder what would happen if the monsters from the Godzilla or Jurassic films could coexist with us in our world,” Hark says of his inspiration behind the monsters and supernatural creatures in his movie.
Aside from the protagonists, the cast also includes Feng Shaofeng starring as empress Wu’s top aide, Lin Gengxin playing a doctor, Ma Sichun as a swordswoman, while the tale’s mysterious hero is a Buddhist monk played by Taiwan actor Ethan Juan — who summons a gargantuan white-haired gorilla to ultimately solve the crisis.
In one of the most dazzling scenes in the film, the monk rides on the gorilla to fight a multi-eyed avatar of one of the four heavenly kings from the film’s title on top of a building housing the Tang empire’s top judicial body.
“There are many weird creatures on the planet. For me it makes sense to have these creatures in my movie,” explains Hark, adding that some of the monsters in the film symbolize the darkness of humanity.
In the tale, Detective Dee’s most difficult mission is not to find the criminals, but to survive the deadly suspicions of empress Wu and the bloody conflicts arising from her power struggle.
But one of the biggest challenges on the other side of the big screen is undoubtedly the fast-evolving Chinese market and the developing tastes of the domestic audience, who is becoming pickier amid the flood of increasingly diverse viewing options.
The world’s second-largest movie market has an annual output of nearly 800 featurelength films, but it is widely reported that only 10 percent of them turn a profit.
“I love making films and I also love watching films. I often think like a viewer. I believe an interesting, cool story will always be fancied by audiences,” Hark adds.
I often think like a viewer. I believe an interesting, cool story will always be fancied by audiences.”
Tsui Hark, film director