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Forbidden Kingdom is good for Everyone

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Contributed by: John Kindelan on 5/7/2008

It has been a whirl wind of movies for me the past 2 weeks. I've seen 3 in theatres and rented one on demand and all were decent, some were even outstanding.

Lets start first with Forbidden Kingdom starring Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Michael Angarano. Jet and Jackie have names you recognize right away being the two leading martial artists in film today. Michael you know but he doesnt have a familiar name. He's starred in Sky High he was in The Lords of Dogtown, he was on 24 and Will & Grace and has been making films since he was 9 years old.

The story has Michael's character travel back in time due to a mystical staff where he has to return it to the fabled Monkey King. In his adventures he meets Jackie Chan playing a immortal monk that specializes in drunken fist. If any of you are Jacki Chan fans you knowa lot of his old stuff back before he was doing cop movies was old kung fu movies where he practiced Drunken Fist. To watch him do it is amazing, its a ballet of drunken-ness with intentional and perfect stumbling.

As the movie progresses Jackie and Michael meet Jet's character a very straight laced serious monk who is practicing what looks like more of a Wu Shu fighting style. This again taps into what made Jet amazing, before he was making movies with Del Roy Lindow. Jet made fantastic movies like the Once Upon a Time in China series and my all time favorite of any martial arts film Fist of Legend.

Other characters are introduced in the film such as Golden Sparrow played by Yifei Liu. She has a very unique form of Martial Arts where she incorporates a lot of dart throwing. The only thing I didn't like about her character is that she would on occasion speak in the third person about herself. Not sure why, other than to have her appear a slightly weird and detached from some tragedies that have happened to her that you learn about in a flash back.

Li and Chan both play multiple characters in the film, Li plays both the serious Monk and the incredibly not serious and down right silly Monkey King. The plot has Michael learning to have greater self esteem and grow as a fighter. Both Jet and Jackie train him, which starts as a very funny scene but builds into a true Rocky training sequence.

To sum up, this movie is great because it is a true homage to the golden age Kung Fu movies that I grew up with and to see the two greats Li and Chan finally in a film together its simply awesome. Now we just need them as reluctant partners on a police force.

I give this movie 4 1/2 out of 5 stars

What did I like about this movie: The martial arts scenes are some of the best in years! A true modern day classic blended with a good family film.

What I didn't like about this movie: Some of the special effects that did not involve martial arts were lacking.

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