Tsui Hark will helm the period martial arts suspense film "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame."

The film will be shot in Hong Kong and China with filming starting in May via production company the Huayi Brothers.

Budgeted at $13 million, the script by Chen Kuofu is apparently an imagined case solved by a real Tang Dynasty detective.

A series of deaths of loyal subjects look to delay the inauguration of Empress Wu in 690 A.D. To find an end, the female leader decides to bring back Detective Dee (played by Andy Lau) from his exile which she was responsible for.