The Four
(2012/Well Go USA
Blu-ray)
Picture:
B Sound: A Extras: C Film: A-
The
military police Section 6, corrupt magistrates, the royal secret service, a
secret anarchist organization, and superpowered divine constabulary, all of
them are trying to uncover who is flooding the streets with counterfeit money. While the government is determined to catch
the counterfeiters at any cost, Section 6 is willing to crush anyone who gets
in their way of their investigations, including their own allies, the Divine
Constabulary. They are a small group
made of martial artist masters gifted with special powers, but fake money will
be the least of their worries when infighting occurs with the organizations and
an undead army is being created to over throw the government. It is up the 4 Guardians of the Divine
Constabulary to discover who is the mastermind and stop this evil undead army,
thus, they are The Four!
The
Divine Constabulary is also a secret service for the royal family, answering
only to the king. They have been made up
of those gifted with specials powers, a telepath, a man who can turn his fist
to iron, a man beast, and a master tracker. Outcast by society for their
abilities, their powers are envied by Section 6 (who are glory hogs), and would
like nothing better than to discredit them and see them fall on their faces. Looked down and discriminated, the Divine
Constabulary will have set side their gripe when they discover larger evil
organization at work, they will all have to work together find the undead
army's source, weakness and stop them, even if they have make Section 6 into
their enemy.
It seems
like a lot of new martial arts movies are coming out with a lot of CGI, so if
you like special effects and martial arts there is no lack of it in this film. In short it sort of reminded me of ancient
Chinese martial arts crossed with X-Men.
A gifted group of mutants who use their
powers to protect mankind while they are still shunned and rejected by society.
There is even an evil pyrokinesis boss
(the 'Magneto' of the film) to fight at the end. The combination worked better here than in
most such films of late, so I highly recommend it.
The film
is one of the last films that will be shot on Fuji motion picture film, here in 35mm in the
Super 35 format with some Arri HD. The
picture looks good for the most part, if not always consistently so or as well
as it ought to be due to some style choices and slight mismatching. There are some great demo shots throughout
however. The DTS-HD MA (master Audio)
lossless Mandarin 5.1 mix is even more impressive with fine dynamic range
throughout and is one of the bets sounding foreign films on Blu-ray we have
come across lately. Extras include
making of the film, deleted scenes, and trailers.
- Ricky Chiang
