Where to start? I don't think Hark understands what made the first Detective Dee exceptional. It wasn't the action, it wasn't the fancy special effects, or a cast of hundreds, it was a solid story, mystery, and a likable lead. Action, fancy wire work, and fancy special effects can be found anywhere nowadays.
I found this episode to be very muddled, overly long, overly heavy in 'epic' special effects, and weak on story. Overpopulated too. There must be two dozen main characters. It takes forever to get going too. The plot doesn't even get into gear until a half hour in or so. There's a 'romance' that feels completely tacked on, like it was added as an after thought. And for a Detective Dee movie, there's not all that much Detective Dee in it. Lots of fighting, and not much actual detecting. It feels dumbed down and flashy, like something made for specifically for kids. The first film felt more grounded in reality. Well, as grounded in reality as a film like this can be. And then there's the ending which is just the most annoyingly dumb conclusion to a movie I've seen in a while. If you removed all the overblown special effects maybe it would have had actual impact. A guy we know nothing about, riding a giant white monkey to the rescue just comes off as nonsense. If he had simply WALKED in quietly, no giant monkey, no epic fight of behemoths, simply defeating this evil with his serenity. THAT would have been impressive. Instead we get a monk we've seen twice before, for all of like 3 minutes, swooping in and saving the day. It would have been nice for them to explain who the hell he is in the fist place and how he came about this Buddha like enlightenment.
It seemed like part of the ending was missing too. Maybe the movie was re-cut or re-shot. When they send random-love-interest to the rock garden to collect Buddha-monk, it shows the place wrecked, everything broken, and no Buddha-monk. They never explain why the place was wrecked, or where the monk was. I'm betting there was an attack on the Temple scene that's been cut from the film, probably because of how overly long the film was already, and because it wasn't important for the central story. But leaves me wondering why they didn't bother editing down the first half hour of the film which was mostly filler. That's the real 'mystery' here.
I found this episode to be very muddled, overly long, overly heavy in 'epic' special effects, and weak on story. Overpopulated too. There must be two dozen main characters. It takes forever to get going too. The plot doesn't even get into gear until a half hour in or so. There's a 'romance' that feels completely tacked on, like it was added as an after thought. And for a Detective Dee movie, there's not all that much Detective Dee in it. Lots of fighting, and not much actual detecting. It feels dumbed down and flashy, like something made for specifically for kids. The first film felt more grounded in reality. Well, as grounded in reality as a film like this can be. And then there's the ending which is just the most annoyingly dumb conclusion to a movie I've seen in a while. If you removed all the overblown special effects maybe it would have had actual impact. A guy we know nothing about, riding a giant white monkey to the rescue just comes off as nonsense. If he had simply WALKED in quietly, no giant monkey, no epic fight of behemoths, simply defeating this evil with his serenity. THAT would have been impressive. Instead we get a monk we've seen twice before, for all of like 3 minutes, swooping in and saving the day. It would have been nice for them to explain who the hell he is in the fist place and how he came about this Buddha like enlightenment.
It seemed like part of the ending was missing too. Maybe the movie was re-cut or re-shot. When they send random-love-interest to the rock garden to collect Buddha-monk, it shows the place wrecked, everything broken, and no Buddha-monk. They never explain why the place was wrecked, or where the monk was. I'm betting there was an attack on the Temple scene that's been cut from the film, probably because of how overly long the film was already, and because it wasn't important for the central story. But leaves me wondering why they didn't bother editing down the first half hour of the film which was mostly filler. That's the real 'mystery' here.