Review of Detective Dee: The Four Heavenly Kings (2018) by Kai82 — 17 May 2020

The two other Detective Dee movies are masterpieces for me. This one could not win me over completely. Strangely it sticks to the formula and I see no serious flaws in it. The formula for all three movies was a detective story combined with plots and hidden agendas and martial arts set in the later Tang dynasty with the legendary empress Wu Zetian.

It has an interesting plot, good twists and memorable characters. The visuals are breathtaking and there is rock solid martial arts. The special effects are excellent. There are again lot of plots and agendas running in the background.

All actors deliver their roles and there is some good development. Maybe the other movies have pushed my expectation to a level that was unfair. It had not the emotions, impact and I was not attached to the story and characters as before.

It does not feel like something special anymore. Overall this was the best movie I view as disappointment in the past years. This may sound like a strange description but it is a honest and fitting one.

Bonus knowledge: Dee Renijie is based of a real life character who was the equivalent of Sherlock Holmes and was non corruptible. The diplomat Robert van Gulik translated the initial stories, had a lot of success and made a career out of writing new ones.