We all know that the Asian film market delivers some awesome martial arts epics as well as over the top thematic spectacles. With their latest film The Four, they seem to have taken the martial arts period piece and merged it with the superhero genre to create something new and different. The film is based off a series of books and could be a great lead in for a franchise, but does it deliver?
The Four follows the members of the Divine Constabulary with extraordinary powers investigating the circulation of counterfeit coin in the capital. When they find out who is responsible and that one of their own was working for a government department known as the Six Panels it tests their loyalties and the strength of the team to keep it together. The trailer and synopsis of this movie don’t offer all that much that’s original to this film, but thankfully the film delivers. While it has all the usual epic look and feel of the time period, it’s X-men like direction kicks it up a notch to create something pretty entertaining. The story is a bit all over the place at first trying to get all the players in place, but once it gets to that point it finds its footing and works pretty well. This film stays away from getting overly silly and takes it in a more serious fun direction creating a great tone that gives you the best of both genres that was unexpected. There is plenty of the over the top wire work style action, but thanks to the story they are working from makes sense. There are a couple of the effects that are a bit cheese, but for the most part they are pretty awesome and amps up the action from straight martial arts to super powered martial arts action like no other.
This turned out to be a real surprisingly fun movie and one that will have you craving to see these guys in action again. Thankfully they have announced that this was the first of a trilogy and have started production on the follow up film already. If you love martial arts and super heroes then you have to check out The Four.
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