Spring Break
Forbidden Kingdom is not half bad
Jesse Reed
Issue date: 4/18/08 Section: ARTS & LIFE
I like peanut butter; I like chocolate, but I really like peanut butter and chocolate.
So when word reached my ears about a film that finally paired martial arts greats Jackie Chan and Jet Li, I was drooling with anticipation.
Opening today, "The Forbidden Kingdom" is a children's movie, or "family film" as they are called now, and does not exactly deliver what the hardcore action fans of Chan and Li might want.
However, it does manage to weave an enchanting tale of high adventure and mystical martial arts action in mythic China.
"Kingdom" borrows heavily from old kung fu films and Chinese mythology, and it really owns the material.
This film is not afraid to connect the dots between its sources in a way that might be untrue to the original. While that serves as a strength in some cases, it also can be frustrating to a hardcore genre fan.
Director Rob Minkoff very obviously made this a film for general audiences rather than catering to the diehards out there.
Michael Angarano plays exactly the sort of person who would be frustrated with this movie, an extremely sincere fan of the kung fu movie. He is a shy young man, picked on by his peers and frustrated with his life.
Then he is whisked away to a mystical representation of ancient China, the illegitimate child of wuxia, a Chinese fantasy genre, and mythology.
There he meets Lu Yan, a drunken immortal played very well by Jackie Chan, and discovers that his destiny is to return a magical staff to the imprisoned Monkey King.
The Monkey King (Jet Li) is a cross between a mythic folk hero and a god who was turned to stone by the evil Jade Warlord, another immortal.
Angarano has to return the staff to the Monkey King so he can defeat the Warlord and free China from tyranny.
Along the way he meets Sparrow, a beautiful young woman who wants revenge for her slain parents, and Lan Cai He (also Jet Li) a stoic monk on a quest to find the staff. Together they fight a white-haired assassin, legions of enemies and each other.
The real treat in this film is the fight between Jackie Chan and Jet Li. A word of warning, however: it is very much a wuxia fight complete with wires and inhuman acrobatics.
Someone seeking a realistic fight between the two should look elsewhere. That being said, this fight is something to behold, and easily the high point of the entire movie.
In the end, this film is limited by the frame story. Angarano tries to be a good lead, but he is overshadowed by Chan and Li.
Maybe if the script had allowed him to be a little more heroic or endearing, it would have worked. Instead he comes across as slightly buffoonish and fails to win the audience, so in the end we only mildly care what happens to him.
With a stronger lead, or by removing the frame completely, this could have gone from being decent to excellent.
So when word reached my ears about a film that finally paired martial arts greats Jackie Chan and Jet Li, I was drooling with anticipation.
Opening today, "The Forbidden Kingdom" is a children's movie, or "family film" as they are called now, and does not exactly deliver what the hardcore action fans of Chan and Li might want.
However, it does manage to weave an enchanting tale of high adventure and mystical martial arts action in mythic China.
"Kingdom" borrows heavily from old kung fu films and Chinese mythology, and it really owns the material.
This film is not afraid to connect the dots between its sources in a way that might be untrue to the original. While that serves as a strength in some cases, it also can be frustrating to a hardcore genre fan.
Director Rob Minkoff very obviously made this a film for general audiences rather than catering to the diehards out there.
Michael Angarano plays exactly the sort of person who would be frustrated with this movie, an extremely sincere fan of the kung fu movie. He is a shy young man, picked on by his peers and frustrated with his life.
Then he is whisked away to a mystical representation of ancient China, the illegitimate child of wuxia, a Chinese fantasy genre, and mythology.
There he meets Lu Yan, a drunken immortal played very well by Jackie Chan, and discovers that his destiny is to return a magical staff to the imprisoned Monkey King.
The Monkey King (Jet Li) is a cross between a mythic folk hero and a god who was turned to stone by the evil Jade Warlord, another immortal.
Angarano has to return the staff to the Monkey King so he can defeat the Warlord and free China from tyranny.
Along the way he meets Sparrow, a beautiful young woman who wants revenge for her slain parents, and Lan Cai He (also Jet Li) a stoic monk on a quest to find the staff. Together they fight a white-haired assassin, legions of enemies and each other.
The real treat in this film is the fight between Jackie Chan and Jet Li. A word of warning, however: it is very much a wuxia fight complete with wires and inhuman acrobatics.
Someone seeking a realistic fight between the two should look elsewhere. That being said, this fight is something to behold, and easily the high point of the entire movie.
In the end, this film is limited by the frame story. Angarano tries to be a good lead, but he is overshadowed by Chan and Li.
Maybe if the script had allowed him to be a little more heroic or endearing, it would have worked. Instead he comes across as slightly buffoonish and fails to win the audience, so in the end we only mildly care what happens to him.
With a stronger lead, or by removing the frame completely, this could have gone from being decent to excellent.
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