On DVD and Blu-ray this
coming Feb. 11 be on the lookout for Well Go U.S.A.’s Young Detective Dee: Rise of the
Sea Dragon, the big-budget, CGI-loaded prequel to the international hit
from 2010, Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame.
The ARR comes in at 137
days, with a domestic box office take from the film’s limited theatrical break
currently at $81,983.
The first film brought
our hero detective/martial arts expert Dee out of exile to solve a crime before
the coronation of the 7th Century (during the transition from the
Tang to Zhou Dynasties) Empress Wu Zetian.
Rise of the Sea Dragon takes us back
to Dee’s (played this time around by Mark Chao — So Young, Caught
in the Web) very first case as part of the Imperial police force, with
a sea monster causing havoc, and the Imperial family involved in a plot to
kidnap a gorgeous courtesan.
Director Tsui Hark long
ago made his mark in cinema with Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Double Team and Knock
Off, producing John Woo's A Better Tomorrow, Jet Li’s Once
Upon a Time in China series and the epic multimedia production Seven
Swords.
However, the Detective
Dee films mark a new mix of genres for the long-time filmmaker,
combining Chinese martial arts, suspense, mystery, history and comedy, all in a
visually impressive form — even lavish — from start to finish.
The film earned a Golden
Lion nomination at the Venice International Film Festival this year.
To download this week's
complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report