Young
Detective Dee: Rise Of The Sea Dragon (2013/Well Go USA Blu-ray)
Picture:
B+ Sound: B+ Extras: D Film: B+
Join
Young Detective Dee as he enters the Imperial police force. His very
first case involves a mysterious creature, the Sea Dragon King that
had destroyed the Imperial Navy. With the Capital under attack, he
must uncover who is controlling and behind the monster, but with his
head on the line he discovers a conspiracy that reaches all the way
up to the imperial court. Tsui Hark's Young Detective Dee: Rise
Of The Sea Dragon (2013) uses this set-up to launch a new
potential franchise series and has a bug budget to match.
Detective
Dee is also a kung-fu expert, but is a master in Detective work.
Looked down by his superiors, scorned by his jealous peers, he
protects the city and the innocent. As he enters the Imperial
Capital, it is full of beauty, danger, corruption and backstabbing,
but he seems always one step and ahead of danger and his rivals.
Soon, his enemies realize their plans are not safe from the eyes of
Detective Dee and that to topple the Imperial Capital they must first
defeat Dee.
This
boiled down to Sherlock Holmes mixed with martial arts and monsters
and the character Dee sees things like Sherlock Holmes, sees and
super analyzes all the clues which then leads him to solving the case
and acts on his deductions. Most of the fighting involves a lot of
CGI fighting and the scenery was also mostly CGI. In the end, most
of the movie was eye candy for martial art, the side characters were
were only there in solving/explaining Detective Dee's case and lacked
any further character development and the story lacked much of a
plot. We'll see if we get any sequels.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer was
shot in 5K HD with a RED EPIC camera and also issued in 3D (not
included here) and IMAX. The result is that this 2D version had much
to take from and the result is a disc with great image playback
despite the digital effects issues and minor moments of detail
limits. Sound-wise, this was not only issued in the SONICS-DDP
format in IMAX, but the rest of the better high grade theatrical
screenings offered Auro 11.1 and Dolby Atmos 11.1 sound mixes. This
Blu-ray has a strong DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 7.1 lossless mix that
will challenge any serious home theater system with the only
disappointment being dialogue sometimes is underwhelming and too much
in the center and/or front channels.
There
are oddly no extras, but that might help the performance of the film
itself by giving it more room on the disc.
-
Ricky Chiang
