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      • Allied
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      • The Divergent Series: Insurgent
      • Jupiter Ascending
      • Maggie
      • Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
      • Run All Night
      • Ted 2
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      • The Transporter Refueled
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  • 2014 Films
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      • Inherent Vice
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      • Life Itself
      • A Most Violent Year
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    • 3.5 Stars >
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      • Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
      • The Boxtrolls
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      • Fury
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      • Like Father, Like Son
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      • Nymphomaniac: Vol. I
      • Particle Fever
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      • Top Five
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    • 3 Stars >
      • 22 Jump Street
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      • Captain America: The Winter Soldier
      • The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: THEM
      • Draft Day
      • Edge of Tomorrow
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      • Godzilla
      • The Grand Budapest Hotel
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      • I Am Ali
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      • Nas: Time Is Illmatic
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    • 2.5 Stars >
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      • Begin Again
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      • Winter's Tale
    • 2 Stars >
      • 300: Rise of an Empire
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    • 1.5 Stars >
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  • 2013 Films
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      • Thanks for Sharing
      • Thor: The Dark World
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    • 2.5 Stars >
      • Beautiful Creatures
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      • The Book Thief
      • Carrie
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      • Fast & Furious 6
      • Gloria
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      • In a World...
      • Love Is All You Need
      • Mama
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      • Nebraska
      • Oldboy
      • Olympus Has Fallen
      • Prisoners
      • The Reluctant Fundamentalist
      • Rush
      • Snitch
      • This Is the End
      • Trance
    • 2 Stars >
      • Byzantium
      • The Counselor
      • Disconnect
      • G.I. Joe: Retaliation
      • Gangster Squad
      • Grudge Match
      • Jack the Giant Slayer
      • Machete Kills
      • Now You See Me
    • 1.5 Stars >
      • Drinking Buddies
      • The Family
      • Girl Most Likely
      • Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
      • The Incredible Burt Wonderstone
      • The Lone Ranger
      • Parker
    • 1 Star >
      • The Hangover Part III
      • A Haunted House
      • John Dies at the End
      • The Last Stand
      • Oz the Great and Powerful
      • Spring Breakers
    • 0.5 Stars >
      • Escape from Tomorrow
      • Evil Dead
      • A Good Day to Die Hard
  • 2012 Films
    • 4 Stars >
      • Argo
      • Bernie
      • Cloud Atlas
      • Django Unchained
      • Lincoln
      • Take this Waltz
    • 3.5 Stars >
      • 5 Broken Cameras
      • Amour
      • Arbitrage
      • Chronicle
      • Looper
      • Moonrise Kingdom
      • The Perks of Being a Wallflower
      • The Queen of Versailles
      • The Raid: Redemption
      • Skyfall
      • The Woman in the Fifth
    • 3 Stars >
      • Act of Valor
      • American Reunion
      • Anna Karenina
      • The Avengers
      • Beasts of the Southern Wild
      • Celeste & Jesse Forever
      • The Dark Knight Rises
      • Frankenweenie
      • Haywire
      • Hitchcock
      • The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
      • The Master
      • Not Fade Away
      • Oslo, August 31st
      • The Other Dream Team
      • The Sessions
      • Seven Psychopaths
      • Silver Linings Playbook
      • Sleepwalk With Me
      • To Rome with Love
      • Your Sister's Sister
      • Zero Dark Thirty
    • 2.5 Stars >
      • The Amazing Spider-Man
      • Farewell, My Queen
      • The Hunger Games
      • The Oranges
      • Robot & Frank
      • Safe House
      • Safety Not Guaranteed
    • 2 Stars >
      • The Deep Blue Sea
      • Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
      • Taken 2
      • The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
    • 1.5 Stars >
      • The Bourne Legacy
      • Damsels in Distress
      • Lockout
      • Underworld: Awakening
      • Wrath of the Titans
    • 1 Star >
      • 2 Days in New York
  • 2011 Films
    • 4 Stars >
      • Another Earth
      • The Artist
      • Hugo
      • Midnight in Paris
    • 3.5 Stars >
      • 50/50
      • The Devil's Double
      • Drive
      • The Hedgehog
      • The Help
      • The Ides of March
      • J. Edgar
      • The Mill and the Cross
      • My Afternoons with Margueritte
      • My Week with Marilyn
      • Mysteries of Lisbon
      • The Skin I Live In
      • Super 8
      • Young Adult
    • 3 Stars >
      • Albert Nobbs
      • Anonymous
      • Attack the Block
      • Bellflower
      • Circumstance
      • Colombiana
      • The Future
      • Happy, Happy
      • Incendies
      • Jane Eyre
      • Limitless
      • Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
      • Moneyball
      • The Names of Love
      • Page One: Inside the New York Times
      • Pianomania
      • Queen to Play
      • Rise of the Planet of the Apes
      • Senna
      • Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
      • Tower Heist
      • The Trip
      • Undefeated
      • A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas
      • The Way
      • The Whistleblower
    • 2.5 Stars >
      • Captain America: The First Avenger
      • Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
      • Crazy, Stupid, Love
      • Griff the Invisible
      • The Guard
      • Hanna
      • The Interrupters
      • The Iron Lady
      • Killer Elite
      • Love Crime
      • The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby
      • Margin Call
      • The Tree of Life
      • The Turin Horse
    • 2 Stars >
      • Bad Teacher
      • Blackthorn
      • Cowboys & Aliens
      • The Debt
      • The Descendants
      • Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
      • The Double Hour
      • Higher Ground
      • Immortals
      • In Darkness
      • Shame
      • Take Shelter
    • 1.5 Stars >
      • Brighton Rock
      • Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
      • Martha Marcy May Marlene
      • One Day
      • Priest
      • Restless
    • 1 Star >
      • The Three Musketeers
      • Toast
      • Transformers: Dark of the Moon
  • Misc...
    • 2020 AFI DOCs Film Festival
    • 2020 Academy Award Best Documentary Short Films
    • 2019 Middleburg Film Festival
    • 2019 AFI DOCS Film Festival
    • 2018 AFI DOCS Film Festival
    • 2017 Middleburg Film Festival
    • 2016 Middleburg Film Festival
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  • About Me

Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings

Picture

Directed by: Hark Tsui
Written by: Chia-lu Chang
Starring: Mark Chao, Feng Shaofeng, Lin Gengxin, Ethan Juan, Ma Sichun, Carina Lau
​Action - 132 min          Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 24 July 2018

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Director Hark Tsui’s third Detective Dee film, The Four Heavenly Kings, fits his pattern of solving a central mystery by the unusually wise and strategic thinking Dee Renjie.  After rebooting the franchise with a younger actor with the aptly titled, Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon, in 2013, The Four Heavenly Kings is a sequel to Sea Dragon’s events.  However, these two films take place on a timeline prior to the first film, Detective Dee: Mystery of the Phantom Flame - confused yet?

The Emperor gifted Dee (Mark Chao) with the all-powerful Dragon-Taming Mace for his efforts in the previous film.  The mace has the power to vanquish armies and overthrow dynasties, even the Emperor’s own.  This makes Empress Wu (Carina Lau) nervous.  She has ambitions for the throne, to become the first woman to occupy that particular seat of power.  Should Detective Dee choose to, he could either prevent her ascendence or remove her later, a chance Empress Wu is unwilling to accept.  However, those specific events are clarified in the Phantom Flame.  The Four Heavenly Kings has its own demons to uncover.

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Wu orders Captain of the Golden Guards, Yuchi Zhenjin (Shaofeng Feng), to steal the Mace from Dee and she hires a group of four mysterious assassins/conjurers to help him.  These sorcerer mercenaries are what lace The Four Heavenly Kings with its peculiar philosophy.  The film’s atmosphere and tone feel more like a supernatural fantasy than a standard wuxia genre adherent.  Dee knows evil is coming and consults with a local wise man - enlightenment must wait, there are earthly demons to confront.  These Buddhist themes stand against the origins of the invading magicians.

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Dee cannot quite define the outsiders and their sneaky tricks to hypnotize victims into seeing dragons and other nasty creatures which are not actually there.  He only knows they come from India and were betrayed by the Emperor who used their skills to gain power in the first place.  It’s worth noting for the past few years in the real world, China and India have been posturing military forces against each other along disputed territory.  Accusations of skullduggery are flung from both sides and now there is a Chinese film unsure about about where the villains originate from exactly, but they are for sure from somewhere in India. ​

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Coincidence?  Perhaps.  At least it distracts from the overwhelming gender stereotypes staffing the film’s female characters.  The Empress is a conventional “Battle Axe”.  She is domineering and severe toward the meek men surrounding her, including the Emperor.  She has no particular reason to be, she merely is.  One of the chief sorcerers is a “Crone”.  She is malicious as she laughs hysterically in a witch’s cackle.  Her laugh occurs at the end of most of her declarative sentences - just stating the facts causes her to laugh.  There is a Romeo & Juliet pairing between Dee’s right-hand man/doctor and one of the mysterious outsiders who happens to be a gorgeous assassin (Shui Yue).  I wonder if the assassin with the heart of gold can see what is really going here and hopefully bring these star-crossed lovers together.

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I break out these archetypes because a meandering, careless script stunts The Four Heavenly Kings; the film would be relegated to the bargain bin regardless of the director’s skill behind it.  There is room in wuxia for Detective Dee stories and even room in western pop culture to embrace his character.  Dee is intriguing - he operates on a higher plane than your average gumshoe.  If a decent script ever took his circumstances seriously, it would propel him and the series to a hint of cinematic respect.  Instead, Detective Dee must suffer through further B-movie CGI, nebulous villains from this year’s political enemy, and a cabinet full of stock character stereotypes. ​

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