Surprisingly, "The Forbidden Kingdom" is Jackie Chan and Jet Li's first collaboration. It also stars Michael Anganaro ("Sky High ") as Jason Tripitikas, an American teen who is obsessed with martial arts movies. When a group of high school bullies force him to help them break into the Chinese pawn shop where he gets most of his movies, the proprietor is shot, and hands Jason a staff, proclaiming that Jason must return it to it's rightful owner. Jason is chased up onto the roof by the hoodlums, and falls from the roof. When he wakes up, though, he is no longer in America. He is in the Forbidden Kingdom. He meets a master of Drunken Kung Fu (Jackie Chan) who recognizes Jason's staff as belonging to the Monkey King (Jet Li). It is Jason's destiny to return the staff to the Monkey King. Thus begins Jason's quest.
"The Forbidden Kingdom" was choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping ("The Matrix" among many others). As a result, its style is much more Jet Li than Jackie Chan. You won't see wonderful improv fighting with random objects. It's pretty much a straight martial arts movie, beautifully choreographed. The cast is good, with Li and Chan being given roles that suit their respective strengths (meaning that Li doesn't talk much compared to Chan, for example) and Anganaro is appealing as the main character. For a martial arts movie, the plot is above average. It mostly holds together, and the random Zen pronouncements aren't so numerous that they become annoying. The plot isn't quite as good as my favorite movies of this genre, such as "Hero," though, so I can't quite recommend it to everyone. If you enjoy the traditional martial arts adventure, this is one of the better ones, but if that description makes you yawn, you probably want to pass.
Final Grade: B
Saturday, May 24, 2008
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