Di Renjie: Si da tianwang

The scale and texture of special effects have surpassed the previous one, which is a benchmark in the industry, but it is somewhat radical compared with the first episode. Personally feel that if the film is made into a pure fantasy movie, it will be more in line with the original idea of the director Hark Tsui, and will be more reasonable and exciting. Because the imagination is limited by the existing script, many of the topics worth exploring are ultimately designed to showcase the background of special effects. In addition, the lack of persuasive performances remains a major issue in the film.

If you don't speak Chinese and appreciate visual effects like me, then this movie would be an entertaining movie while having popcorn and sometimes checking your phone. I have watched plenty of Chinese movie recently and I can see they are getting to the highest level in terms of VFX. This one is one the best so far.

Story wise, not bad. You don't expect that much, but in total I am fine spending 2 hours in cinema.

Beside Chinese Ghost Stories and Wu Ji - originally chines version - the Detective Dee Trilogie are my favourite Chinese fantasy movies. Maybe some people have a problem if the Asian story telling - not always the classic western act driven - or with the stayle of acting and homie, but that is exactly the charming side of that movies. They a well done craft work and released with a wonderful style of love to the story. A fresh experience "out side of the box". I can't wait to see part 4 whenever they will make a bother one. OhI forgot, you can see also again that are good actresses and actors, storyteller and director, movie artist behind and in front of the camera. are exaist without an English native language.

Detective Dee (Mark Chao) heads the Bureau of Investigation in Tang Dynasty China; as a result of his protection of the kingdom earlier (in "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame," 2010) the Emperor entrusts to him the Dragon Taming Mace, a weapon so powerful that it will serve to save the nation if needed. Unfortunately, the Empress (Carina Lau) doesn't trust Dee and, really, wants to assume complete power for herself, so she instructs one of the royal guard, Yuchi (Feng Shaofeng), to steal the Mace from Dee, knowing that Yuchi and Dee are long-time close friends and relying upon that friendship to turn to betrayal. Meanwhile, there are a number of clans of wizards who use illusion and sometimes magic to further their own ends, in particular to overthrow the Tang Dynasty....The above description only covers the relatively "normal" part of the story; throw in a bunch of seriously ugly monsters, a heavy dose of wuxia martial arts (fighters climbing the air as if it was a staircase, etc.), an extremely serene Buddhist, a totally unhinged Empress and, well, a love story between a doctor and an assassin, plus tons of sword fights and action all over the place, and you have the latest Detective Dee tale. By the way, the Four Heavenly Kings of the title feature in exactly one scene as statues, some of which are destroyed in the scene, and are never mentioned again. Go figure. I liked it all, a fitting end for 2018's Montreal FantAsia Film Festival for me!

An Improvement over Phantom but still 20 minutes too long.

A better story, with the best visuals in the series but still lacking something...maybe Jet Li?