Judge Dee's Mystery - A Wuxia Detective Story

It is no secret that I am a fan of Wuxia cinema, even the one with Jackie Chan and Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Imagine my surprise when I saw that Netflix had a Detective Dee TV Show.

Who is Judge Dee?

If you are unfamiliar with Judge Dee (also known as Detective Dee), this is a series of Chinese historical mystery novels written by Robert van Gulik, a dutch orientalist and diplomat.  Van Gulik translated the 18th Century novel Dee Goong An into English as The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee. Van Gulik went on to write a further 16 novels in this same style until his death in 1967

The eponymous hero of the novel (Di Renjie) was in fact a real life courtier of the Tang dynasty between 630 and 700 AD.

Other Detective Dee Adaptations 

I first encountered Detective Dee in the 2010 movie Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phanton Flame where Di Renjie is played to perfection by Andy Lau.  This had all the sumptuos cinematography of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon wrapped up in a detective mystery overcoat with plenty of swordplay and great visual effects.

Next for me was Young Detective Dee: The Rise of the Sea Dragon which sees a young Di Renjie tackle his first ever case.

These were not Detective Dee's first cinematic outings.  You can actually watch an early adaptation called Judge Dee and the Monastery Murders (1974) via youtube.

Schwarzenegger and Chan Team up in Weird Wuxia Fantasy

The Mystery of the Dragon Seal (also known as The Iron Mask) is the sequel to 2014's utterly bonkers Forbidden Empire. 

Watch it on
Amazon Prime

Directed by Oleg Stepchenko this is a bizarre mix of Russian creativity and Chinese money which results in a visually sumptuous affair.  Immaculatly dressed sets, fantastic wire work and a half decent storyline make this an engaging watch.

Set in the mid 1700s, Jason Flemyng reprises his role as hapless cartographer and adventurer Jonathan Green who, having survived the supernatural monsters of Transylvannia, has made it to the court of Peter the First of Russia.  Having previously met the Tsar when he visited London, Green is eager to present the map he has made for the him and hopefully be richly rewarded for his efforts. 

However, Green immediately spots that an imposter sits on the throne of Russia and he is summarily thrown in jail where he meets the Cheng Lan, daughter of kung fu master Jackie Chan.

Pigeon post correspondence with his betrothed Miss Dudley is intercepted by the real Tsar who is currently imprisoned in the Tower of London alongside Jackie Chan.  They return a pigeon and the whole story starts to pick up pace thanks to some political influence from her father (Charles Dance).

Enter unlikely prison warden and history buff James Hook (Captain Hook?) played by Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He seems to spend a lot of his screen time in a weird Ultimate Fighting American Ninja Death Match ring where prisoners have to beat him in combat and climb to the top of a ladder to win their freedom.

I don't want to spoil it for you so I will leave the spoilers there.  I will say one last thing though, Rutger Haur has a fleeting cameo.

What Did I think?

I have never been a fan of movies where you can literally feel the influence of the producers.  Arnie was an executive producer and it feels like his segments are overly long and drawn out because he is in control.  There is a nagging sense of direction by committee about this movie.

The multi-national cast means that the movie is dubbed entirely in English and badly at times even when the English cast are talking you can see that sections have been redubbed to change dialogue.  I'm guessing that the intention from the getgo is to sell this movie to as many different territories as possible with their own local dubbed version so lipsync is going to be an issue no matter who watches it.  Welcome to the real world of modern global cinema.  

Whilst this is immensely fun and a much better than the original movie in colour palette consistency and delivery it is no wuxia masterpiece like Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame.

An enjoyable watch if you don't think too hard.