Now Is The Time To Snap Up The Superb Detective Dee

Tsui Hark’s Detective Dee and the Phantom Flame has been heralded as a return to form for the legendary director – and though Hark is getting to be a little like Woody Allen in this respect, critics regularly claiming “He’s back!”, the film is undoubtedly a cracker.

Here’s the film’s US trailer.

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That trailer does short sell the film in many respects as it doesn’t even attempt to tackle its more subtle pleasures.

Currently, the film is not available in the US (the disc is set for December 13th), but Amazon in the UK are offering the Cine-Asia region free disc at the wonderful price of £5.99.

I’d imagine a lot of British readers will snap it up at that price, but even if you need to import a copy to somewhere else in the world, I’d say this is cheap enough to make it well worth your while.

Amongst the supplements of the disc are a typically packed and informed commentary by Bey Logan, heaps of little interviews with the cast and crew and a short behind the scenes piece. There’s also a nice 25-minute featurette on the label and their films whichm, despite being a big advert at heart, was really rather watchable.