Forbidden Kingdom, The (Rob Minkoff, 2008)

The Forbidden Kingdom

GO SEE IT!

The fight scene between Jackie Chan and Jet Li makes the entire movie worth it. It's not a short fight scene either. I can't wait for the DVD so I can see the outtakes for that fight because you know they weren't faking that. :)

It's not as "Kid in King Arthur's Court" as I thought it would be. I mean, I was just geared up to go see Jackie Chan and Jet Li in a movie together, but I really enjoyed the whole thing. The characters are great, though I wish they had given a little more background on the woman with white hair. As she is a Chinese movie mythology (maybe normal mythology too) staple, I'm guessing the writers just assumed the viewer knew her story.

The freakiest part of the movie was seeing Jet Li smiling and laughing. I was totally shocked since it's not something you're used to seeing. He's always somber and stoic, so seeing him laughing was almost a bit scary. But I digress...

Basic premise: Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano's character) is a teenager obsessed with Chinese martial arts movies. He spends lots of time buying movies from an old guy in Chinatown, which gets him into trouble with his peers who like to wail one him. During one particularly nasty altercation, he gets dumped back in time/across dimensions to the world of the Monkey King along with the Monkey King's staff. He teams up with Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) and the Silent Monk (Jet Li) to return the staff to the Monkey King, who is encased in stone, and end the tyranny of the Jade Warlord.

The interaction of Jackie Chan and Jet Li was great. I hope they do another movie together. They were both hilarious and the fight scenes were stunning. This movie was a great start to the summer movie season.

Recommendations: Star Trek (2009), Avatar, 300

D. Renee Bagby<br />
Building New Realms of Passion<br />
http://dreneebagby.com

The Forbidden Kingdom Swipes Three Golden Staffs

What do you get when you cross "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" with "Fists of Fury," "Rocky" and "The Wizard of Oz?"

If you said the new Jackie Chan/Jet Li gravity-defying, sword-flying, kung fu-fighting flick, you win a gulp of immortalizing elixir.

In "The Forbidden Kingdom," four wanderers journey to the Jade Mountain (Emerald City) in search of the Monkey King (wise wizard).

Why does the movie slut dig this pastiche? Because she knows there are no new stories and embraces ones with the message, "find your own truth.

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See you at the movies, The Movie Slut

The Forbidden Kingdom - Review

Like most people, I got duped pretty hard on this movie. I was under the impression this was a Jackie Chan and Jet Li driven vehicle film but in actuality, The Forbidden Kingdom follows the main character of Jason Tripitikas.  As Jason is heading out of Chinatown, he gets stopped by some local bullies. They make fun of him about his kung-fu movies and then show him some of their own fighting style. After they beat him down they tell him to rob a pawn shop and runs into an old man with a staff. Jason runs from the thugs with a staff that the old man hands him. As Jason tries to get away, he falls and lands in a different world in a different time. He comes across a man named Lu Yan who tells him about his staff. That it once belonged to powerful man named The Monkey King and how he was tricked into a non fair fight and before the King was imprisoned he sent his staff away so that someone could come rescue him with it.

Obviously, this white kid is his saving grace.  By now, you should know if this movie is for you or not as this film may be America’s tribute to Asian cinema.  Truly, what better way to capitalize on these two Kung Fu stars than by pitting them against each other and letting the film capture as much of this once in a lifetime chance of getting these two Masters together in the same movie. While the fighting scene involving these two megastars is a very minor part of the film, the scene is undoubtedly the best fighting scene in the film. Jackie Chan vs. Jet Li was truly fun to watch. We all know it could’ve been Much better though if they were probably 10 or 15 years younger than they are, but it was still a great fight scene. Praying Mantis, Snake, Tiger, Crane, all types of Kung-Fu was used. It was definitely something to witness.

As they all travel across China to the fabled Five Elements Mountain, both the Lu and the Silent Monk take it upon themselves to teach Jason the art of Kung Fu, which will be a long and arduous process. The film overall can be regarded as a kung-fu fantasy and a better made one than a lot of others over the years. I suspect the Asian market may not care for it, as America-Asia films cross the cultural border very poorly. I think most martial art film fanatics will be slightly disappointed by this film, but many will enjoy this movie for what it is – entertainment with a couple of excellent choreographed martial art scenes. The Forbidden Kingdom may not be a Martial Arts flick for the ages, but I have to say I really enjoyed this one. The movie is just so much fun that any flaws that can be found are quite easy to overlook. This isn’t gonna go down in history as one of the greats, but due to the first teaming of Li and Chan it will go down for that. We have young people, old people, amateur fighters and pros, pretty girls with pretty moms, exotic locales and a lot of seriousness mixed with goofiness and Chinese mythology. So if you haven’t come to a conclusion about this film yet, it doesn’t live up to the caliber of the actors involved but its a fun way to spend two hours.

Final Grade: C

To see reviews like this and others:
http://japancinema.net

THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM (2008)

BOTTOM LINE: This is a very well executed and visually impressive kung-fu fantasy, delivering the great martial arts team-up of Jackie Chan and Jet Li on screen for the first time. It’s only let down by a weak opening and conclusion that are unfortunately necessary to get its “Never Ending Story” style premise off the ground.

THE GOOD: I did not have any expectations walking in to this film and I found myself pleasantly surprised. This Asian kung fu fantasy that on a visual level looks more expensive than what it is, entertains throughout with a solid story, entertaining characters, spectacular visuals and of course, some brilliantly choreographed kung fu, made all the more better by the fact that we get to see both Jackie Chan and Jet Li fight together for the first time in a film. There’s a simple story at its heart; Jason (Michael Angarano) stumbles in to the Forbidden Kingdom after procuring a golden staff from a pawn shop in Chinatown which sends him in to a fantastical world of monkey kings, immortals and kung fu fighters. He is rescued by drunk immortal Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) after a fight with the soldiers of the Jade Warlord (Collin Chou). Lu Yan tells Jason that the Golden Staff he carries belongs to the Monkey King (Jet Li), who did battle with the Jade Warlord but was tricked in to giving up his staff and was imprisoned forever in a statue. If the staff is returned to the statue, the Monkey King will be freed. Along with orphaned warrior Golden Sparrow (Liu Yi Fen) and Silent Monk (also played by Jet Li), Jason and Lu Yan trek across the Forbidden Kingdom to return the staff to the statue of the Monkey King. This story provides some big set-piece kung fu sequences, but perhaps the best one involves the first fight between Chan and Li which is as entertaining as you would expect as you see these two martial arts masters traverse elegantly across the screen in their myriad of fight moves. Aside from the kung fu, this film boasts some spectacular visuals that have a fantastical, comic-book quality to them, not just with the landscapes but with the characters as well with examples being the Monkey King and the white haired witch Ni Chang (Li Bingbing) who are brilliantly rendered on screen, both by the actors portraying them and in the make-up and wardrobe departments. The characters are well rounded. The funniest character belongs to Jackie Chan; his drunken immortal is both lethal and highly amusing all at the same time. Jet Li is also great in his dual role, and surprisingly provides a mischievous quality to the Monkey King. Liu Yi Fen offers a strong female presence in her role as Golden Sparrow, as does Ni Chang as the white witch. Collin Chou is great as the Jade Warlord. Even Jason, who initially appears to be an annoying nerd comes across very well. Overall, this is a solidly entertaining film that will take you away from reality for a couple of hours and enthral you with some impressive kung fu and fantasy.

THE BAD: All the scenes that do not take place in the fantasy world are weak. There’s Jason’s set up where we see him on a Bastian-style Never Ending Story journey where he goes to a pawn shop in Chinatown to rent old kung fu movies and stumbles across the Monkey King’s Golden Staff which then magically transports him in to the fantasy. Although it’s more modern and hard-edged than “The Never Ending Story”, these scenes are very similar and cringe-worthy, particularly with the bullies that pick on Jason and the eventual resolution of this story at the end of the film with Jason getting his own back by using his newly acquired kung fu skills on them. There are some nice touches; characters from the fantasy world have corresponding characters in Jason’s world, but ultimately these scenes let the film down because of their adolescent nerdiness. Also, the motivation of the main bully who shoots the old Chinese owner of the pawn shop seems way over the top for a high school bad boy, although it does provide a nice touch when the old Chinese owner, who is also played by Jackie Chan, says he’s not surprised he survived because he’s immortal.

RATING: 7.5/10

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Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net

The Forbidden Kingdom

"Forbidden Kingdom is an extremely fantastic film to showcase martial arts like never seen before. It features a unique storyline of a kid traveling back in time thanks to a discovery of an ancient mystical staff belonging to the deity called the Monkey King. Wow, what a fantastic story! He meets two legendary martial artists – one specializing in drunken fist and the other superbly skilled in aeronautical kicks. Both incidentally played by two legendary martial artists of our time – Jackie Chan and Jet Li! Who could have thought of that? Anyway, these two maestros take turns to train this young Caucasian on fighting methods and at the end he becomes the third most skilled fighter amongst them. Get out of this world! I mean, how much more creative can the writer be? Oh not forgetting the supporting cast Crystal Liu Yifei, Li Bing Bing and Collin Chou; all whom are martial arts trained! I mean, I have never seen this kind of movie before. It’s truly an eye-opener."

Of course, everything in the previous paragraph is from a perspective of one whom have never watched a single movie before in his entire life.


The movie title, originally supposed to be “Untitled J & J Project” is re-titled creatively as Forbidden Kingdom. How many Asian films must have the title Kingdom in it before we can get more interesting titles? Actually it should be called The Generic Chinese Martial Arts/ Kungfu Film. In all fairness, I must give credit for the production team to make this movie SO generic. All expectations of a filmgoer are met here. Just barely meeting them, that is, never having intentions to exceed them. Fans expecting to see Jackie and Jet fighting the shoelaces off each other would be thrillingly thrilled. The 10-minute fight scenes are somewhat wet dreams of J and J’s fan-boys fulfilled. To be honest, the action was rather well choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping. The intensity was present, the execution was splendid and the length was just right. I didn’t mind a second fight between the 2 J’s. Jet Li, being the younger J, had no stunt double used in the scene while it was evident that the senior J did do it a few times. What does that mean? That means they should have teamed up 10 years ago already!


Li Bing Bing always had a face I’d love to stare at and the fact that she knows martial arts upped my liking for her. Collin Chou, the punching bag for Donnie Yen, Keanu Reeves, Jet Li and Jackie Chan predictably delivered his role with a weird English accent that was kinda imperfectly sort of, nice to hear. Cute ain't the word. It's so gay. And the last thing I enjoyed about the movie was Jet Li lowering his level of seriousness here. After watching all his movies (yep, never missed any), it was a relief to finally see him being comical and there was scene where he took a piss out of Jackie that really, really made me laugh.

Rating: 6/10
J&J Fight: 8/10

Last updated: 2009-08-11 08:20:17 by joekhor

Forbidden Kingdom, The (Rob Minkoff, 2008)

The Forbidden Kingdom is one of the worst films of 2008. From the highs of The Lion King, director Rob Minkoff unexpectedly plummets down to the lows of this Jackie Chan-Jet Li collaboration. The Forbidden Kingdom provides answers to the burning question - what is wrong with Jackie and Jet in the Hollywood setup all these years? As a matter of fact, they're responsible for churning out mediocre pictures year after year since they broke into Hollywood in the early 2000s (The Tuxedo, Romeo Must Die, Cradle 2 The Grave, Around The World In 80 Days etc).

The Forbidden Kingdom boasts Oscar-winning cinematographer Peter Pau (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), and fight choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping (The Matrix). It's also the first time two of Asia's leading exponents of martial arts lay fists on each other in a motion picture. Sadly, although most of the fight sequences are executed excellently, they lack the creativity and inspiration that were once Yuen's hallmarks.

With a flimsy storyline and an outrageously bad script, The Forbidden Kingdom is bound to incur the wrath of critics. Using the legend of the Monkey King as a template, the plot is carved out in a manner that is as predictable as yesterday's weather - an insult to viewers' intelligence, really. The CGI is overused too, especially during the final fifteen minutes when a large-scale battle is fought in a gigantic hall of a palace. I understand this is a part-fantasy, part action-adventure movie, but the fantastical elements are too overly emphasized that they become a sorry sight instead.

The Forbidden Kingdom would have achieved far better results if it was filmed totally in Mandarin. It's obvious that both Jackie and Jet are not fluent in spoken English, so why exploit their flaws then? And I don't see what’s so tough training an American in Mandarin rather than having the whole of ancient China speak English. Where's the authenticity of it all? Please skip this even if the temptation of watching Jackie and Jet trade punches is too much to resist. The Forbidden Kingdom is truly a shameful piece of cinema.

SCORE: 4/10
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Recommendations: Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich, 2010), To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962), The Visitor

Singapore's Most Prolific Film Blogger @ www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com