Detective Dee: the Four Heavenly Kings

China's imperial court is seduced by sorcery in this third film in Tsui Hark's martial arts fantasy series. Detective Dee (Mark Chao) is charged with protecting the powerful Dragon-Taming Mace by the emperor, only for the paranoid, power-hungry empress (Carina Lau, wonderful as ever in the role) to try to wrest control of it. She assembles a motley crew of assassins and magicians, known as the Mystic Clan, to take on Dee, little realising her actions are being manipulated by a more dangerous, grudge-bearing foe. Tsui once more weaves outlandish fantastical elements into his medieval mystery, only this time he resorts to the digital paintbox a little too much; instead of allowing Dee's Sherlock-like intellect and intuition to shine, our hero winds up playing second fiddle to a huge fluffy gorilla. Although not without its humour or charm, this overlong tying-up of the trilogy lacks the essence of what made previous instalments so watchable.