The Four 3 (2014)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

A kingdom is in rebellion against the incompetent king who is believed dead but is just in hiding. The film has 3-4 factions fighting against each other, mostly using magic and the power of chi. Not a martial arts film. Most of the film is taken up by talking about philosophy, rebellion, and forgiveness. They needed to cut out the half hour that put me to sleep. I have no idea why this has an "R" rating. Killing consists mostly of people just laying down.I watched the film well dubbed in English with matching English subtitles.

I might have done the mistake of watching "The Four" and then not getting around to watching part II before moving on to watching part III.In any event, it turned out that my expectations to "The Four III" (aka "Si da ming bu 3") were much higher than what director Gordon Chan managed to present in this movie. "The Four III" were nowhere near the vicinity of the first movie in any way, story-wise and action-wise.While the story told in "The Four III" was adequate enough for what it turned out to be, it just wasn't outstanding or particularly innovative, and it merely just scraped by on characters already established in the first movie. If you have seen other Chinese movies in the genre that "The Four III" is in, then you have essentially already also seen this movie. Yeah, it just failed to differentiate itself from the numerous other movies already established in the genre.Sure, it was good to see recurring cast return to play roles again in "The Four III", and they had managed to put together a great ensemble of cast for the movie. That much credit they should get at least. However, Yifei Liu and Anthony Wong were not given enough screen time, which was a shame, because they really could have bolstered the movie and lifted it up and out of the generic and mediocre place where director Gordon Chan had managed to put the movie.But the entire movie was just weighed down heavily by the mediocrity of the storyline and the laziness to come up with something new, fresh and innovative. Writers Koon-nam Lui, Frankie Tam and Maria Wong seemed to play it safe and go with something that has already been seen and done countless times before in the genre.The action sequences in "The Four III" was good enough, but it was hardly enough to sustain the rest of the movie.I suppose this might be a good movie in itself to round up the trilogy, but it just wasn't a memorable movie by any means, and I doubt that I will be returning to watch it ever again.

I was only able to view one other film, if this is indeed an installment of three parts. As another reviewer commented, the first one was hard to follow because there were so many crosses, double-crosses, and triple crosses. That is also the case for part 3.I will not begin to try and decipher all the characters this film has. Ranging from "The Beast" to "Emotionless," it is a variable cornucopia of warriors. Unfortunately, hardly ANY of them are interesting. For someone who is called "Emotionless," it was amazing to me that all she seemed to do was sit around and bawl...about her dead parents, her break-up with somebody, her betrayals, her double-crosses, and vengeance. I am sure the other reviewer could tell me why she went through at least two films in a wheelchair, yet could just up and fly around like it was nothing. I thought the cinematography in this (and the last) film was poor, as was the editing. Oh, and everybody CRIES. The version I saw was in Mandrin (with English subtitles--but you'd better be a fast reader), was rated R (but I thought it should have been PG-13). There is little to no blood, some decent wire-fu, but waaaay too much whining.

As the third and final part in a series of films, anyone who decides to watch this one first will be pretty bewildered as to who's who and what motivates each character. Clearly then, as a stand-alone film, this wouldn't work.Unfortunately, poor screen writing (or maybe translations - though, they seemed professional enough), didn't really do this film a great deal of justice either, as some excellent directing and photography are let down by what seemed like coincidences and a lack of suspense in a plot that could have had it by the bucket-load.As with Parts I & II, the acting is good even if the dialogue is left wanting, and the action is well done - yet nothing we haven't seen before - with the CGI, for the most part, being on a Hollywood level.I suppose what I'm getting at is that The Four 3 ticks all the boxes for a summer blockbuster-type film, but unfortunately, it also ticks that "Totally disposable entertainment" category, meaning that you'll probably only see it because you've already watched the other two, but it won't leave any kind of lasting impression.