The prequel to 'Mystery of the Phantom Flame', 'Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon' is as fast paced and surreal as ever, and features a younger version of everybody's favourite ancient Chinese Sherlock Holmes. This time a sea monster (looking like a massive manta ray) is threatening the empire, and the Empress sets a deadline of ten days for the mystery to be solved, or heads will literally roll.
The plot thunders along, with very little explanation of both character reasoning or the rules of this fantastical world. A lot of the actual mysteries are solved with flourishes from Dee, without any possibility of the viewers solving it for themselves beforehand.
There is a lot of slightly surreal CGI, which creates a style in itself for the series (a style shared by the 2004 edition of 'Around the World in 80 Days'). This blends interestingly with a fantasy style take on 8th century China to made a sometimes beautiful, sometimes tacky movie.
There is a nice use of effects for his skills, too. When he reads lips (a skill viewed in awe by his peers, to the extent that it seems almost super human) the camera zooms in to an extreme closeup of the person's mouth and the edges of the screen becomes foggy. We then hear their words spoken as if whispered close to the microphone. When Dee notices some small detail - the name on a token, a cell key, etc - the object leaps out and literally floats in the air before him. To everyone else it just looks like he's day dreaming, to comic effect.
A fun, cosmetic action filled mystery with a nice setting and a lot of CG.
Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon: 38.6