Detective Dee and the Four Heavenly Kings (狄仁杰之四大天王) (2018)

Like 2013s Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon, this third Tsui Hark-directed Detective Dee movie is a prequel to 2010s Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame and again involves the titular character, Di Renjie (an actual Tang Dynasty historical figure embellished with Sherlockian powers of deduction) investigating a gong'an crime - a crime steeped in the supernatural that ultimately looks like threatening the life of the Emperor - and it is clearly meant to be a bigger and better blockbuster than the previous movies and boy does it feature some spectacularly realised bad guys, but ultimately this wuxia costume drama ends up suffering 'the curse of the third movie' with the drive to be bigger and better coming at the expense of a sensible ending.

★★★☆☆

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Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍) (2000)

Some may believe Ang Lee's 2000 film represents a mere Hollywood bastardisation of wuxia but it introduced the genre to Western cinemas, heralded a string of terrific mainstream martial arts cinema releases like Hero and The House of Flying Daggers, and for me was an eye-popping, awe-inspiring introduction to wire fu with a ripping story of a sword thief, an arch criminal and a detective duo, all embroiled in multiple love stories.

★★★★★

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Hero (2002)

This is a poetic fairytale rendering of the formative days and profound political influence of Emperor Qin's reign over ancient China with Jet Li starring as the hero set to play an important role in the Emperor's plans for a unified country.

★★★★★

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