Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings

This seems like it took most of a Deep movie, a little bit from a Journey to the West movie, and an unrelated movie about...I don't know what and everyone gave it their all. I love it.

The detecting part is well told.Better than a kung fu tale.

The emperor presents Dee with a magic weapon called the Dragon Taming Mace. But then, the Empress becomes paranoid that Dee will use the weapon against her, and orders Dee killed. On advice, the Empress embraces foreign sorcerers called the Wind Warriors into her government. The Wind Warriors stage magic tricks to empress the emperor — a huge golden dragon threatens the court, followed by skeleton bats, a huge tantric god with thousands of eyes, and multi-armed red blobs. Zen Priest Yuan Ce comes to the rescue, with an antisorcery sutra to recite and the calming request that we all drop hate from our hearts. Then he disappears riding a giant white gorilla.—— WHO’S WHOTSUI HARK directed the film in 2018. Tsui started a new wave of Hong Kong cinema, directing Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010) and Journey to the West (2017). Hark says that viewers “go to feel, not to understand” but this didn’t work for me.DETECTIVE DEE (Di Renjie) is a well-known historical character, magistrate, statesperson, and folk-hero of the Chinese Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). Popularized in the west by Robert Hans van Gulik’s 16 novels, there are now over 23 Detective Dee feature films.MARK CHAO (Chao Yu-ting) stars as Detective Dee. He also starred in Tsui Hark’s prequel, Young Detective Dee and the Rise of the Sea Dragon (2013) and The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity (2020). Unfortunately, Chao didn’t have the chops and Four Heavenly Kings suffered.WILLIAM FENG (Feng Shaofeng) is Yuchi Zhenjin, Dee’s friend who is alternately working to protect or kill him. Feng also starred in Tsui Hark’s Young Detective Dee (2013).KENNY LIN (Lin Gengxin) is Shatuo Zhong, a traditional doctor who saves Dee’s life. He was in Young Detective Dee (2013), The Taking of Tiger Mountain (2014) and Journey to the West: The Demons strike back (2017). Not enough magnetism for this role.CARINA LAU is Empress Wu Zetian. She also starred as the Empress in Detective Dee: The Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010) and Young Detective Dee (2013) among her 86 acting credits. She didn’t seem to be connecting in this film.ETHAN YUAN is Zen Priest Yuan Ce who gives the film direction and provides some good advice.THE EVIL WIND WARRIORS are Faceless Monster, Moon Water, Spectral Blades, Night Ghost, and Flying Smoke, seen mostly in CGI. The emperor used them to gain power and then dumped them.IS THIS AS GOOD AS DETECTIVE DEE AND THE PHANTOM FLAME?Heavenly Kings is an entertaining film, but I was disappointed when comparing it to the great Detective Dee and the Phantom Flame (2010). Here’s why . . .1) Heavenly Kings has Dee fighting magic and mysticism that is never explained. In Phantom Flame, logic triumphed over superstition and what looked like the occult was unmasked as clever trickery.2) Although their backstory was endlessly repeated, the villains' personalities are never explained, nor are the source of their powers. Ultimately, Dee fights a bunch of outlandish mind-controlling eccentrics who are never unmasked. It is all sorcery and “mass hypnosis” nonsense.3) Heavenly Kings suffers without the magnetism and screen chemistry of Phantom Flame’s Andy Lau, Li Bingbing and Deng Chao. Better acting made Phantom Flame a better picture.4) The Dragon Taming Mace is reduced from a great engineering feat to a magic wand.5) Heavenly Kings has so much going on with so few explanations that things get confusing and characters’ motivations are unclear. Compared with Phantom Flame, Heavenly Kings is a mess.WHAT DOES HEAVENLY KINGS TELL US ABOUT THE EMPRESS?Heavenly Kings blames Empress Wu Zetian’s extreme thoughts and behavior on mental illness with symptoms like irritability, anger outbursts, grandiosity, religious and persecutory delusions, and hallucinations. She believes she is a Boddhisatva (an enlightened being) and she prays to a golden stature of herself — this helps explain the huge statue of the Empress in Detective Dee and the Phantom Flame.TECHNICALSpecial effects included Digital Frontier, Cutting Edge, Cubic Pictures, Mofec, Oscar Fx, W2 Studios, IOFX, Macrograph. Composited on VFX Studio Ubuntu. 132-minutes.WES’ FAMILY RATING: “Mature Teens Only.” There’s has too much dark magic for young children.CONSIDERATIONS & RECOMMENDATIONSFour Heavenly Kings never really lives up to its predecessor, Tsui Hark’s Phantom Flame. Although King’s striking images ask for high definition, I think that renting it will be enough for most viewers.Feel free to click my name for more film ideas. I hope my review has saved you time and been really helpful.

Arrived on time and in perfect condition. Great movie with a lot of action. I have the other 2 Detective Dee movies and they are just fun to watch.

Watched because am a new fan of Mark Chao. Movie was good; akin to Sherlock Holmes style. Mark Chao delivers excellence again!

Love this movie. Mark Chao one of my favorite actors.

I enjoyed the first 2 films and planned to buy the third but was put off by a review that stressed the excessive special effects. This has been a curse for Asian movies as you would think CGI would be far more advanced for them. It's the opposite as too sharp, too obvious, too exaggerated, too much especially in creating creatures. The desire to every watch these movies again faint. Finally wanting to watch something new I purchased it fearing the worst. For those who haven't yet watched here's the scoop. Surprisingly the first 2/3 s of the movie hold together well with the actors you remember. The effects start to pile up but within reason. It's the final 1/3 give or take with the big battle that it all becomes a joke. These movies are exaggerated in fight scenes anyway, but the ridiculous poorly designed monsters overwhelm the real actor scenes and it's a joke. What is a fully expected unrealistic movie to begin with, becomes a cartoonist poor vision. It was so disappointing that I had to stop watching with perhaps 10, 15 minutes left. So if you're a Dee fan there's enough in the film that you would want to see it just to do so, but what should have been a enjoyable film is tainted by excessive nonsense over story and acting. Fantasy movies of this type that should have beautiful scenery, flying heroes, are now becoming cartoonish. Hopefully this has already been realized and adjusted in more recent movies.

If you are a fan of Chinese cinema, this whole series is fantastic! Imaginative and fun.