Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings

 The Detective Dee series is a weird and interesting one. It's basically Sherlock Holmes done as wuxia, in the form of action movies with a lot of spectacle. Because they take place in a heightened Chinese magical past, it's tough to work out the internal logic, which is important if the main character is a detective. Gravity is optional, giant animals abound and some minor (mostly Buddhist) forms of magic seem to work, but when a storm is summoned in a room it's down to hypnotism and 'machine parlor tricks.'

 The first film did a better job of being a detective story, while the sequel leaned into the more extravagant elements; With this one it's best not to expect too much logic and deduction, and just go with it; It's a fun ride.

 This third installment starts out with Mr. Dee saddled with a powerful weapon which makes the empress jealous; she goes out and gets a few sorcerers to get back at him, turns his best friend against him, and then things turn out to be more complicated

 I'm relatively ignorant with respect to Chinese films, but there seem to be two broad types of historical/martial arts films - Wuxia, more grounded, fights-based films (which I expect is what most of us think when we talk about these things - it's the type of film I'm more familiar with from when I was a kid) and Xianxia, special effects extravaganzas that focus on spectacle (Chinese Ghost Story, Warriors of Zu.)

 I far prefer the first camp, especially since CGI has replaced a lot of the practical effects I enjoy in the second one. Four Heavenly Kings falls firmly in the second category, despite it being set in 'reality' as opposed to a mythological realm, with CGI that ranges from just bad, to so bad it's good, to bad but cool, to actually this is pretty cool- but it's directed by the great Tsui Hark, so it's filled with neat visual ideas and a lot of energetic filmmaking. My particular favorite is a chase with a flying Nazgul trio who proceed to Voltron into a bigger threat:

And every so often there'll be some incredible set or costume. I mean, look at this!

 Unfortunately, beyond the terrible acting and unfunny broad humor that are endemic to these films, the script lets the film down.  I just didn't find it engaging - a lot of scenes which could be taken out with no impact, and a cool story tangled up in bad storytelling. It also has genuinely awesome fight sequences devolve into bad CGI clashing into other bad CGI in garish ways. 

 Detective Dee remains a pretty boring character, one of those uncorruptible, infallible types who seem to have already read the script so they're three steps ahead of everyone else. Apparently acknowledging this the movie focuses on Yuchi -Dee's best friend turned reluctant betrayer- who's a more interesting, conflicted dude, and more importantly his acting style consists mostly of staring at things as if he was willing them to explode with the power of his mind:

 The rest of the cast includes some fun villains and Dee's underlings in the bureau of investigation, who mostly are of the unfunny comedy sidekick variety. The movie also introduces Moon Water, one of the bad guys who later turns coats; She's the one that gets the chase scene with the Voltron Nazguls. Unfortunately she also has to endure a cringeworthy 'sexy' scene with one of the underlings, but seems like a cool character. Maybe the next Dee adventure will find a better use for her.

 Nothing you wouldn't expect from this type of movie, then. Still, though it's uneven as hell it achieves the most important things I wanted from it: it showed me cool shit I hadn't seen before, it was entertaining, and it managed more than a few good-looking scenes. To be brutally honest, I had to skip  through some of the boring bits, but I'd still recommend it if you like this sort of thing.