Four III, The [Kingdom of Blood] (2014/2016)

Director: Gordon Chan

Notable Cast: Deng Chao, Liu Yifei, Collin Chou, Ronald Cheng, Anthony Wong, Jiang Yiyan, Liu Yan, Alec Su
AKA: The Four: The Final Battle

One of my biggest pet peeves with modern film making is the weird focus on splitting films into two-parts. My issues arises with the fact that too often the film makers don’t worry about each entry being able to sit on its own merit as a film. When it came to The Four II, also known as Lawless Kingdom for its US release, it sat on its own surprisingly well – despite the fact that it left a lot of aspects hanging for this third part of the trilogy. However, The Four III (also known as Kingdom of Blood for its US release) does not fare quite so well. Instead of being the epic finale that was teased by its alternate subtitle (The Final Battle), the film tends to spend a lot of time running to tie up loose ends and give some of the characters the ending their arcs desperately needed. The film still remains entertaining, but it’s not quite as effective as it might have been.

Four II, The [Lawless Kingdom] (2013/2015)

Director: Gordon Chan

Notable Cast: Deng Chao, Liu Yifei, Collin Chou, Ronald Cheng, Anthony Wong, Jiang Yiyan, Cheng Taishen, Liu Yan, Wu Xiubo, Sheren Tang, Waise Lee

First things first, if you are someone looking to watch this film without seeing its predecessor, The Four, I want you to stop everything and go see that film first. The Four II, or as the US release would like it to be called Lawless Kingdom, is very much dependent on the viewer knowing the character arcs and plot points of the first film for this film to work. After watching The Four II for the first time, I had to go back and rewatch The Four again before partaking in this action fantasy flick a second time for this review. Once I did, there were a lot of little things that made a lot more sense with the first film fresh in my mind. So don’t let the new title fool you, this is a sequel that very much depends on you knowing the characters arcs and plot elements of the first film.

Four, The (2013)

Directors: Gordon Chan, Janet Chun
Notable Cast: Anthony Wong, Lui Yi Fei, Collin Chou, Ronald Cheng, Chao Deng

Although Gordon Chan has been relatively hit or miss with films lately (too often his visual style has to carry sub-standard scripts so it’s not really his fault), I was pretty excited to see "The Four." The film seemed like a kung fu superhero film mixed with a bit of "Detective Dee" mystery to spice it up and, if anything, "The Four" looked entertaining as hell - which fits my tastes quite nicely. As is, the film is quite entertaining, despite some nagging issues, and any fans of old school kung fu will find plenty to love in its hijinks and ridiculous characters.