This Chinese murder mystery (with a title that sounds like a Scooby Doo episode — ruh roh) and wannabe epic positively bursts at the seams with nonstop hand-to-hand combat, often on a phony-looking stage set or framed by inexpert CGI. Unlike its lineup of far superior kung fu predecessors over the past decade-plus — CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON; HERO; HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, even May's TRUE LEGEND — DEE’s lack of compelling characters and abstruse storyline had me primarily wondering when it would end. The title character is based on legendary Tang Dynasty official Di Renjie, a real-life judge known in every Chinese household today and made famous in the West in the mid-twentieth century by Robert van Gulik’s Judge Dee novels.
The fictional story's setup informs us that it's 689 in the city of Luoyang. A series of bizarre deaths — in which victims spontaneously burst into flame — prompts the wise Empress Wu (Carina Lau) to release her political prisoner, Detective Dee (Andy Lau, of 2004’s HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS), with the proviso that he crack the case. The victims are all involved in the ongoing construction of a skyscraper-sized Buddhist statue, the official unveiling of which is timed to coincide with Wu's inauguration as China’s first female emperor. She assigns her trusted bodyguard Jing (Li Bingbing) to keep an eye on the p.i.
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