Movie review score
5
The Four (2012)
A government department known as the Six Panels appoints their best officer to infiltrate a special force called the Divine Constabulary, to ensure their way in stopping the circulation of counterfeit coin currency in the capital.
User Review:
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.
