The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself travelling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.
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Seldom does a film come along that one can just view with utter enjoyment. Combining two of the most fluid martial artists in the world with Jackie Chan and Jet Li is martial arts gold. The film transitions comedic dialogue with fluid movements of kung fu styles. The plot itself is a fantasy driven story of a teen from America who has an infatuation with everything Kung Fu. He comes across a magical Staff and is catapulted into another realm to find it's original owner. Along the way he learns about morality, fighting from within and being true to his inner self.The film has signs of brilliance in it's stunt choreography as well as Chinese culture. It's fantasy mixed with comedy and action/adventure. A welcome surprise to many a violent film. Think of Big Trouble In Little China and this will become a cult classic. 7/10
This has what I like in a martial arts movie. MMA has smashed the fantasy realm of these movies, where the gritty stuff where little asian men can beat gun wielding gangsters are no longer viable. This is why this movie works, because it takes the main character out of our modern world and throws them into the world envisioned in The Journey to The West, Monkey-King and all.
I'll just cut to the chase. If you've watched any other Jet Li movie, you would probably notice that all the action scenes in this movie are slow and awkward. The realism of the fight scenes is as low as that of Dragon Ball:Evolution. That maybe a slight exaggeration, but it's bad. Great fighters are pointless if you make them perform bad fighting scenes.As for the story, there's nothing interesting to it. Some kid goes on a magical journey, there are some fights, he goes back home and decides to fight some goons, and that's it. It touches on some Chinese lore and stories but there's no explanations about them, nor is there any in-depth story nor development of any kind, it's basically just an action movie.In closing, this is an action movie, but the action is terrible. It's not worth watching.
The Forbidden Kingdom is like a Cheesy-Chan version of "The Neverending Story". The plot is predictable and the action is so cheesy that it is hard to watch. I think I actually nodded off once or twice while watching it.I will say that the antics of Jackie Chan and the strong silent monk style of Jet Li actually complimented each other quite well. I was just disappointed in the choreography and the way the camera angles highlighted them. Many of the fight scenes drag on too long and are simply too complicated.Overall, I would say that it is worth seeing if you have younger teen boys and you want a clean movie for them to watch.