Si da ming bu

When it comes to blending martial arts and fantasy together during historical periods, China is easily notable for producing entertaining features of this caliber. Containing some outstanding choreography and camera work that really brings the exceptional fight scenes to life, during the initial stages of the feature, the martial-arts appear rather stale, providing little more of a rehash from similar films. With this in mind, viewers need patience when committing themselves to The Four, for it isn't until later that the fights, accompanied by some wicked special effects, really provides seriously new, eye-catching material, a similar statement requiring mentioning when it comes to the story. After almost an hour, the narrative remains vastly interpretative, and it is presumably difficult to ascertain its directionality, this mysterious quality, although potentially annoying for some viewers, adding to the feature's suspense. Though some could complain about lacking information when it comes to the plot and character arks, viewers should keep in mind this is the first of three films, the combined collection hopefully quenching any audience's thirst for information.

Despite the notable gaps in the narrative, the characterization provided to the audience is adequate in developing characters that are truly likable, while retaining an atmosphere that is, for the most part, hugely enjoyable, and fun. Emotionless (Liu Ye Fei), a disabled psychic, who, despite her name, is an emotionally sympathetic character, Iron Hands (Collin Chou), a man with incredibly powerful fists, and Life Snatcher (Ronald Cheng), a dangerous debt collector, who recently joins the outfit, are terrifically skilled martial artists under the command of Zhuge Zhermo (Anthony Wong), who form the Divine Constabulary, a group who answers only to the Emperor.

The Sheriff King (Cheng Tai Shen), who commands Department 6, a revered military police unit, has no trust in the mythical martial arts group, who are free to traverse where they please. Assigning one of his best operatives, Cold Blood (Deng Chao) - a man who can, upon losing his temper, transform himself into a powerful beast - with the responsibility to assimilate into the group to find out more about them, Cold Blood's allegiance to Department 6 begins to waver as he finds friendship amongst the Divine Constabulary, alongside romantic attraction towards Emotionless.

As both the Divine Constabulary and Department 6 investigate the same criminal activity, regarding not only fake currency, but a dangerously powerful magic, capable of bringing back the dead, the Sheriff King finds himself blinded by his beliefs that the Divine Constabulary are behind the attacks, while unable to realize that Ji Yaohua (Jiang Yi-Yan), a fellow Department 6 agent, may be working with the enemy. Harboring feelings for Cold Blood, she and Emotionless begin to play a dangerous game consisting of jealousy and spite in the hopes of winning Cold Blood's heart. All the while, lead antagonist An Shigeng (Wu Xiu Bo) threatens all with his plans, but is he really the head of the serpent, or are there more dangerous players involved?

The acrobatic stunts, involving law enforcement officers, assassins and undead alike, abseiling across buildings, requires substantial suspension of disbelief, though if one has previously viewed Legend of the Shadowless Sword, they might find themselves at home in this particular world. Unlike the aforementioned film however, which had much emotional depth applied to its narrative, this is not provided to The Four, though the familial feeling provided by the Divine Constabulary, not to mention the acting by Ms. Ye Fei, is certainly impressive, there being one scene in particular where the audience surely feels for Emotionless.

Although the undead are involved in this feature, viewers need not fear clichéd stereotypical genre tropes being applied, and despite the combination of eastern and western philosophies in the development of such beings, they are, thankfully, never depicted as zombies, but as supremely powerful foes in need of vanquishing. The fanciful costumes are typical of other Chinese genre films of the period, and look as glorious and superb as ever, while the visuals, from the headquarters of the Divine Constabulary, to the exotic man-made locations the film visits, feel so genuine and realistic, it is seldom hard to imagine such a group existing within China's history.

An accusation that could be made regarding the film is the lack of appearance other members of the Divine Constabulary exhibit during the feature, the previously annotated members of the organization being supplied with all the screen time, whilst the others, who randomly appear during some of the scenes, are largely unexplored. The banter that takes place between all of the members however is lively and playful, and adds to the fun.

In conclusion, The Four exhibits a number of similarities with other films from China that explore this particular historic period, however, it is the differences in the script, the characters, and the later fights, that really make this quite a captivating experience.

There is a tradition in Chinese martial arts movies where people strong in "qi" power can jump around light as a feather, fight in treetops, and do other superhuman feats. (Example: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.) There is plenty of that in this movie, and additionally some characters seem to have special powers that other qi masters don't have, making this in some ways like a Western superhero comic story.

My favorite character was the girl who is stuck in a wheelchair, but whose qi powers are strong enough that she is far from useless in a fight. Her name is Yayu but her nickname is "Emotionless". Like Jedi in Star Wars movies can detect each other, she can also detect other nearby qi masters. Another IMDb user review speculates that she is simply a ripoff of two characters from X-Men, but I don't agree.

The movie has a confusing start, but if you stick with it the characters and plot sort themselves out. There is a shifty criminal in a city, and it turns out that three different groups have their eye on him: the police of "Department 6", the undercover police of "The Divine Constabulary", and some mysterious assassins. Additionally a bounty hunter is after him. The initial action is confusing, as it's not clear who is who. But stick with it, and the end of the movie pays off pretty well.

This movie also has a bit of a "steampunk" vibe, with unreasonably advanced clockwork mechanisms that might be partly qi-powered. For no obvious reason there is a giant clockwork crane that Emotionless uses to reach scrolls on the high shelves of a bookcase! And mid-way through the movie, Emotionless gets a nifty upgraded wheelchair that proves useful at the end of the movie.

At nearly two hours it runs a bit longer than necessary; I can think of a few cuts that would not have hurt. Still, I give this a 7 on the 10 scale. If you like fantasy martial- arts you might want to add a point to that! Also, I really liked the music.

Note: some plot threads are left unresolved, setting up for possible sequels, but this movie has a pretty satisfying ending.

I enjoy these sorts of exaggerated wuxia (superhuman/magic martial arts) movies, so anyone not into this genre might give it a significantly lower rating.

The primary problem with this movie is, due to the writing, directing, or editing I don't know, its nonsensically fast-paced timing; like it's in some kind of race to finish within its roughly two hour length. Without exaggeration, the pacing of the combat scenes in Michael Bay's first Transformers movie seem relaxed in comparison. A previous reviewer points out that after the first fight scene the action slows down, which is true, but only so much that you can at least make out who's fighting whom and what kind of attack they're using, but not so much that you ever get to really enjoy the combat until the final showdown at the end of the movie.

Like a bad Hollywood action flick, the story gets the same herky-jerky treatment; spending as little time as possible dealing with major plot elements or simply skipping ahead to the next scene altogether and leaving it up to the viewer to figure out in hindsight what must have transpired between scenes. For example, there's a love triangle which has to be pointed out in exposition by other characters because there is literally no time is allotted to developing any kind of relationship between these characters who are supposedly attracted to each other. Even the looks and comments of the trio can only be interpreted as attraction due to the observational comments others make.

Granted, this is a problem which seems to be increasingly creeping into many Chinese films in recent years, with romantic comedies devoid of romance and detective movies that gloss over the detective work, but whether that's a cultural change or if Chinese cinema is adopting the worst of Hollywood's bad habits in an unfortunate attempt to become more commercially viable, the end result is a movie with great promise that falls well short of the mark and ends up being just barely entertaining.

Watching The Four is a depressing prospect, not only for the shameless grandstanding we are sure to witness from the wholesale theft of ideas that worked better elsewhere, but for the near-certainty that the movie will crumble into a mess under the unfortunately ham-fisted direction of Gordon Chan. By turns confused and clueless, The Four never really settles on an identity that it's comfortable with, resulting in parts that feel woefully out of place. At least Chan delivers an honest effort with the action but it's not worth the trouble.

The recent circulation of counterfeit money has landed the capital of the Song Dynasty in a predicament. The Department Six Constabulary and Divine Constabulary are sent to investigate but complications arise when the competing constabularies constantly get into each other's way. The Divine Constabulary is eventually suspended but spearheaded by the eponymous The Four, the constabulary continues to work on the case. It soon uncovers a more sinister plot to overthrow the government and must rush against time to stop the perpetrator before he plunges the dynasty into chaos.

Chan tries to put on a heady, feverish spin to this underlying material yet succeeds only in overwhelming it with unnecessary ideas that I suspect many of you would have trouble making sense of. From off the shelf romantic malarkey to flame-throwing mutants to jarringly misplaced zombies in settings that don't otherwise account for them, it seems fairly clear that Chan will steal from anywhere to build a brazen showpiece that feels more awkward than fulfilling. Unfortunately, he is nowhere near the wisdom that will make it all work and it shows in his unfocused direction where he demonstrates his inability at making smooth transitions. Don't get me wrong. I'm not discouraging creativity, only saying that The Four could have benefited more from a far less ambitious approach.

There's little doubt that Chan's heart is with the more action- orientated parts of the movie as he quickly morphs the supposed crime procedural drama into a battle between cadres of mutants. It's here that The Four breaks out its mishmash of characters that are blatantly copied from the other side of the world: A mind-reading girl bound to a wheelchair with a 'X logo' wheel, who can also control objects with her mind is an embodiment of 2 certain characters from X-Men, an assassin who can turn totally invisible and create a force field is a concept lifted directly from a certain character in Fantastic Four and a hubris- laden, quick-witted man who can set himself on fire (and freeze people for good measure) draws traits from another character in Fantastic Four. It seems really ironic that a movie dealing with counterfeit money is in fact the most glaring counterfeit showcase.

At least the movie's serviceable special effects and professional, if completely routine action set-pieces do the Chinese rendition of Marvel characters justice but I sincerely question whether The Four really wants to be saved at all at this point. The conclusion is conservative, uninspiring and uncreative, and really all about relying on an untidy myriad of special effects to put out the fireworks than mitigating its embarrassments with a rousing display of well-choreographed action. There's nothing from The Four to take home with – just a reminder of a disaster that could have been avoided had the movie been crafted with more thought and less narcissism.

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I was genuinely surprised with the movie and I hadn't expected it to turn out to be such an entertaining movie. If you try to imagine mixing movies such as "X-Men" and "Hero" together, then the end result come out to be "The Four" (aka "Si da ming bu"). This is a historical Kung Fu drama spiced up with mystical powers.

The storyline is interesting from the very beginning and just starts to work up in intensity and depth from the very beginning.

To shortly summarize the story; counterfeit bills appear in the capitol and two special government departments work hard to unravel the criminal activities.

This movie makes heavy use of wires, so if you dislike the Wire Fu genre, then chances are that you want to skip on the movie. However, if you enjoy this particular genre, then there is a lot of great wire action to see.

The fighting and action sequences are well-choreographed and equally well executed.

As a story-based movie, it is important to have outstanding and memorable characters. And "The Four" has that. Lots of layers to the characters, and the cast was well picked for the roles and characters. I will say that the cast in the movie was nothing short of impressive. I was particularly impressed with Anthony Chau-Sang Wong and Yifei Liu.

"The Four" is definitely a movie to watch if you enjoy Asian cinema.