The Four 2 (2013)

"Getting what we want and happiness aren't always related"

Ostensibly The Four 2 is a wuxia film, and if talking a person to death qualified as a martial art then this movie would fill the bill. The first half was composed of dull dialogue and drawn out exposition, most of which led nowhere. There was a murder "mystery" that didn't do anything to liven up the story. Thankfully, the second half did the heavy lifting and upped the action and emotional conflicts.

The Four 2 sort of picked up where The Four left off, leaving a couple of key plot points unanswered and glossed over.
When a movie is titled, The Four, it would seem like it should focus on The Four, but with the large cast and erratic story, the team never seemed to be a team and much time was focused on other characters. They were more like the four acquaintances who occasionally bump into either other or argue with each other over whose turn it was to pick the restaurant. The Big Bad didn't seem particularly menacing. He may have caused problems with the team but nothing impossible to overcome.

Once the second half begins, the action starts which is good. Because even after 3 hours at this point the character development was sorely lacking. The romance between Cold Blood and Emotionless was pretty emotionless and cold. The fights were dramatic and the CGI wasn't horrible. The action at least involved most of the characters and if the story wasn't moving forward very fast at least the characters were moving. Some sets were better than others, a few looking rather low budget with the CGI filling in the gaps as people fled and fought. As the fights rolled on and secrets were revealed, the movie finally became interesting. Then it simply ended after a revelation.

The people were pretty and the production values were fine. I actually enjoyed the OST, something I rarely even notice. What let me down was the less than stellar dialogue, uninteresting characters because they often weren't doing anything important, and the long dragged out first half.

I love wuxia films. Bring out the swords and poison darts, the super leaping and qi power. But one thing a wuxia cannot be is boring. Even a rapier wit would have been welcome in the first half of this movie. Being the middle child is never easy in a movie trilogy but oftentimes the second film is the deeper, darker, more emotionally involved story because the characters are established and the stakes heightened. The Four 2 failed on all accounts for me.


9/19/22

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The 2nd movie confirmed some of the confusion that was in the 1st movie. The love interest definitely is confirmed and we get to know character background!!! Usually movies do not tell us about character background but surprisingly the main plot in this movie revolves around a character. I could tell in this movie that when the crew of "The Four" started making movie #1, they knew they were going to make a trilogy regardless how popular it was. I would say this movie and movie#1 were equally good. The only sad part is that the ending is a cliffhanger:( Movie #3 hurry up and come out!!!!

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