The Forbidden
Kingdom was, at the time, one of the most anticipated martial arts action
movies. We were all waiting to see Jackie Chan and Jet Li team up and face off
against each other. But when the movie came out, I, for one, was disappointed.
The movie didn’t have a strong enough story, and the fight scene with both of
them didn’t meet the level we’ve come to expect from these two actors. Other
fight scenes were much better, and they saved the movie from being a total
waste.
In the movie,
both Chan and Li are on the good side, but since they’re meeting for the first
time and don’t realize it, there’s what I’ll call a scuffle. The movie also had
some of the laziest writing, and there were times when I was confused about
which audience this movie was meant for.
The plot is more of a fantasy tale mixed with action. A young man named Jason, who’s a fan of martial arts movies, goes to Chinatown to buy some films when he discovers a golden staff. The staff magically transports him (after a series of events) to ancient China, where there’s an ongoing battle between the Monkey King’s followers (the good guys) and the Jade Warlord’s army (the bad guys).
Jason meets Lu
Yan (Jackie Chan), who tells him the history of the staff, how the Warlord
tricked the Monkey King by trapping him and trying to steal his staff. He then
explains how Jason came to be in possession of it (the whole chosen one tale
these fantasy stories always seem to have).
Jason and Lu are
joined by two more characters: a lady warrior seeking revenge on the Jade
Warlord and a silent monk (Jet Li). The four of them embark on an adventure to
free the Monkey King so he can stop the evil Jade Warlord.
The comedy
didn’t make much sense, and every time Jason (Michael Angarano) was on screen,
I kept having flashbacks to Karate Kid (1984). What made it worse is that they
turned him into a dumbed-down version of Daniel LaRusso. The movie also had an
inconsistent pace.
The film was a
moderate financial success, which I bet is one of the reasons we never saw the
two pair up again. It also received mixed to positive reviews from critics.
I won’t be
watching this movie again; twice was enough.
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