Eight years ago, Detective Dee (Andy Lau) and compatriot Shatuo (Tony Leung Ka-fai), among others, opposed the queen regent (Carina Lau) in her bid to become the first female Emperor of China; for their treason, Detective Dee was imprisoned and Shatuo lost a hand. Now it is eight years later and the regent is poised to fully become the Emperor, but her coronation is imperiled by mysterious deaths that occur inside the 66-storey high statue of Buddha that is being constructed in honour of the coronation. Not one, but two functionaries seemingly spontaneously combust, and there seems to be no explanation for this. After consulting the Chaplain (in the person of a deer), the Emperor-to-be decides to free Detective Dee to solve this crime before her coronation; not to be naive, she also assigns Shanguan Jing'er (Bingbing Li), her favourite female warrior, and Pei Donglai (Chao Deng), an albino warrior, to shadow and help Detective Dee, perhaps to his own peril. Meanwhile, Shatuo has become the architect and supervisor of the building of the Buddha, and only he knows the secret of the fire turtles....
There's a bit of everything in "Detective Dee," including mystery, romance, fighting, martial arts, intrigue and, perhaps, a touch or more of the supernatural. To be honest, it doesn't bear serious scrutiny in terms of logic or loopholes, but that's not why one watches a film like this anyway – this is the kind of movie where the audience should just go along for the ride. And a wild ride it is too. I'm still not entirely certain what happened in the end, but it hardly matters; it was enough just to watch the various goings-on and admire the scenery and the fighting.
