This review comes from Shawn Francis who takes a look at the new Chinese martial arts fantasy The Four from director Gordon Chan who made the awful Jackie Chan film The Medallion which features Lee Evans. This one looks a little more traditional than The Medallion. Check out Shawn's review after the jump....
Written By Shawn Francis
After
reviewing the disappointing THE SORCERER AND THE WHITE SNAKE,
I was pleased to finally see an “Asian fantasy” movie that
actually delivers. The time, feudal Japan, there are four individuals
with superhuman abilities, and who have equally super heroic “code
names:” Three men called, Cold Blood, Life Snatcher and Iron Hands,
and one wheelchair bound woman referred to as Emotionless. Her powers
are telekinetic and telepathic. Cold Blood is akin to X-Men’s
Beast, except here he can control when his beast side appears, and
when he does he grows sharp teeth, clawed hands and a spiky backbone.
Iron Hands’ powers lie in his, well, hands. Have no real idea what
Life Snatcher’s powers are. He can do the required wire stunts and
martial arts, but other than that I couldn’t discern a special
power. He was an expert at collecting debts, so, perhaps, this
was his power. All of them have martial arts skills and when they go
into combat they employ their super powers as well as their fists,
and feet, of fury.
These
four are lead by an individual, Zhuge
Zhenwo (Anthony Wong), who also has super powers,
though you don’t see them displayed until the very end, and like,
Professor X, leader of the X-Men, you get the sense he’s one of the
strongest of the group, at least, when it comes to dispatching undead
warriors.
These
four are part of a group called, The Divine Constabulary. They
essential fight crime. There’s also a branch of the government
called, Department Six, which also polices the public. The criminals
of this movie are counterfeiters and both groups’ butt heads as
they look for the culprits, but as one can of worms leads to another
and another counterfeiting is the least of anyone’s worries.
Another powerful individual, with super powers, is resurrecting the
dead. But these are not shambling shells of cannibalism, they are
merely dead humans who are being employed as warriors, and who are
turned white upon their resurrection.
As I
have read, and as I could then tell, and as you can see from this
review, there are quite a few similarities between The Four
and America’s X-Men. And like the X-Men, this movie
has source material in the form of a novel with the same name, as is
evidenced in the end credits, but the back of the DVD states that
novel is The Four Detective Guards.
This
similarity to Stan Lee’s band of mutants didn’t bother me. There
were enough differences, in the time period and in the characters, to
keep it all fresh. The big difference that sets this apart from Jet
Li’s THE SORCERER AND THE WHITE SNAKE is in the judicial use
of CGI. It was nowhere near as intrusive as it was in Li’s movie.
The
back of the case does not mention an aspect ratio, but from what I
can gather it’s a 1080p 2.35:1 anamorphic one. The audio
choices you get is Mandarin 5.1 DTS MA or 2.0 Stereo. There is no
dubbed track. I didn’t see or hear any problems with the audio or
the video.
Extras
include the requisite trailer, and 5 short, deleted scenes that tops
off at a 4:10 running time. There’s also a ‘Making Of’
that runs 24:22 and is much better than the one I watched on Jet Li’s
movie. That one was simply music from the flick set to a collage of
behind the scenes video. The ‘Making Of’ for The Four
actually talks with all the principal actors for their take on their
characters and the movie in general. In one discussion they all sum
up their characters as ‘a werewolf,’ ‘a cripple,’ ‘a
scientist,’ ‘a debt collector’ and ‘a completely useless old
man.’ As I mentioned in The Sorcerer And The White Snake
review the term “demon” the Asians use seems to be a rather loose
one. So, it seems for “werewolf,” too. The make-up for Cold
Blood, to me, in no way looks lycanthropic, so I can only assume
Asian werewolves are different than American ones. Though, in his
defense, wolves did raise his character.
Director,
Gordon Chan, also states this is a planned trilogy, which I was glad
to hear. I also got the impression the scope of this movie, as it
pertains to stunts and visual effects, were something quite unique to
Chinese filmmaking.
Rounding
out the extras were trailers for Tai Chi Zero, The Assassins
and Dangerous Liaisons. All in all I enjoyed this flick
thoroughly and look forward to seeing the two sequels.
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