To again give you some background about me ( I promise I will stop this after you have some choice pieces of information, or when I don't feel like doing it anymore). I am a HUGE Jackie Chan fan. I like Jet Li well enough but as far as I am concerned Jackie Chan makes everything better. Rush Hour with Chris Tucker, one of the most annoying men ever, no thank you… Oh Jackie Chan is in it, well I'll give it a try. Owen Wilson, he's not my favorite and it's a cowboy movie lets leave Shanghi Noon off of the Netflix list. Wait, Jackie Chan is in it throw that one to the top of the Que.
I am not saying the man makes great movies (Operation Condor was a real stinker) but he almost always entertains.
The trend continues in The Forbidden Kingdom. This movie opens with a sequence reminiscent to old Chinese action films, where no one is actually hitting anyone and one of the characters is clearly meant to be comical, stupid, and yet someone kick the ever-living crap out of anyone who challenges them. After that we move to a scene from what is supposed to be modern day Boston, however, the accents were clearly thought up by someone who has never really heard a Boston accent and believes that it lies somewhere between the New York accent and the land of no R's. Someone actually says the word heart like haaat (a friend and I turned to each other repeated the word and laughed out loud). However, we are no there for the modern day stuff, no, we are here for the mythical action sequences and scenes from a fantastical version of feudal China. So, in a typically contrived plot, the main character ( the kid from Zoom Michael Angarano) who looks like a cross between Jason Dohring and Shia LaBeouf but younger, is thrown into Feudal China where he has no clue what is going on. The first person to save his butt is none other than Jackie Chan, using his patented Drunken fist style of fighting. The first fight sequence is wonderful. The rest of the movie continues on in the typical quest plotline, they find a girl who fights, is pretty and plays an instrument. They also run into Jet Li. Shortly after running into Li, the major reason for watching this movie occurs… an extended fight scene between Jet Li and Jackie Chan. When you see a temple get ready to watch closely. This was a wonderfully choreographed scene and the stunt coordinator took care to make sure that despite wires, Chan and Li's fighting styles were both adequately represented in this fight. They were both fluid and graceful and Jackie even managed to get in some of his signature goofyness. You could also tell that Jackie was really enjoying having wires to work with for this fight. I mean we are talking about a man who came to America because no one does their own stunts here and was then expected to do his own stunts. The use of all of the objects in the temple along with the quiet mystical atmosphere of the secluded location makes this fight feel epic and it will keep you on the edge of your seats screaming yeah, or nice after each well placed hit. After the big fight, the movie continues predictably to a fight with the big bad and a conclusion (I won't give it away, though you could probably guess the outcome).
Mostly, any scene without Jackie Chan in it in this movie isn't really worth it, and Jet Li is creepy when he smiles. Overall I would say that this was a fantastic idea that was poorly executed and that I think I have seen about a thousand times before. For anyone who was a fan of Hong Kong action movies go see this one in the theaters (as a matinee), for everyone else, wait for Netflix and watch it on a rainy afternoon when you have nothing else to do. I give this one a C+ though I do still recommend it for Jackie Chan fans.
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