The Forbidden Kingdom – Review
This weekend’s kung fu family film The Forbidden Kingdom seriously opens with Jet Li, playing the mischievous Monkey King of Chinese legend, on top of a mountain above the clouds, kicking soldiers’ asses while jumping around in a giant display of wire fu. Try as they might with their weapons, they can’t touch the guy. He smacks them around with his magic staff and laughs at their failed attempts. The display is a mix of classic kung fu spectacles like Warriors of Zu Mountain and something out of a Hannah Barbera cartoon.
If what I just described sounds really cool to you, you’ll probably enjoy the film. If this sounds just whatever, you’ve got yourself a future Netflix. If you think this opening sounds retarded as hell, it’s time to theater jump before you waste any more of your time. The Forbidden Kingdom is EXACTLY what I just described for about two hours: a mix of larger than life characters performing a repetitive series of larger than life acts in pursuit of a larger than life goal… all rolled into a cinematic love letter to
the kung fu spectacle.
More than almost any recent movie I can remember, The Forbidden Kingdom comes 100% as advertised. If you’ve seen the trailers, do not expect to be surprised by anything here. With almost a drummer’s precision, the story plots the beats out in advance and hits them one after another. A part of this audience will find this kind of storytelling satisfying while the other part will find it predictable. Regardless, this is both the strength and the weakness of The Forbidden Kingdom. As much as it pays respect to the kung fu films that came before, it doesn’t work too hard at adding to the tradition.
The film centers on highschool kid Jason Triptikas, who (you guessed it) is new to his school and keeps to himself… or at least tries to, but the local bullies love pushing him around. Jason’s only real escape is his foracious love of all things kung fu, one that brings him regularly to an old pawn shop in Boston’s Chinatown neighborhood (run by an old man that is played comedically by a heavily made up Jackie Chan). This is where Jason (played by Michael Angarano who I just saw in Snow Angels and will soon be revealed to have more chest hair for a highschooler than I’ve ever had in my entire life) first comes into contact with the Monkey King’s staff (this is still a kid’s movie, by the way!). The shopkeeper (ie, his only friend) explains that the staff was left there by the shop’s original owner over 100 years ago and you pretty much know where this is headed.
Cut to a scene where the bullies are forcing Jason to betray the shopkeepers trust in order to rob the place, the shop keeper gets shot, Jason escapes with the staff, is cornered by the bullies and WHAM… is transported to old school China, population Everyone’s Kung Fu Fighting ‘cept The New Guy From Boston. The land is ruled by a big, baddy named the Jade Emporer and you’re really starting to get the idea of what Jason needs to do. Before long, Jason befriends a Drunken Master (played by Jackie Chan), a beautiful girl named Sparrow bent on revenge (and bent on being a romantic interest) and a Silent Monk (your main man Jet Li). Together they must journey a path riddled with danger to return the staff to the Monkey King who has been frozen and imprisoned by the Jade Emporer. This is the only way in which the kingdom can be freed from tyranny and Jason can be returned to the mystical land of Boston. There’s the set up and you can pretty much guess the execution.
The movie really is an exercise in plus and minuses. As many times as the film makes you go “oh, that was pretty cool” or “they totally just referenced ‘X’ kung fu movie”, The Forbidden Kingdom also leaves you saying “that was a little too simple” or “that’s really all that happens?”. As incredible as Woo-Ping Yuen’s choreography is, sometimes it gets completely undersold by the over reliance on wire effects. I am a big fan of a well choreographed fight scene. Some of those pre-wire kung fu films are the coolest displays of human athleticism in cineman this side of Buster Keaton. But I do have my limits with wire-fu and it does play a bit too cold or unrealistic when it doesn’t seem justified.
Which brings me to what you really want me to tell you about: Jack Chan and Jet Li in the same movie for the first time. It really is the absolute highlight of the film and director Rob Minkoff knows it. That first fight scene between the two of them is completely played for broke and I can only imagine the director of The Lion King, which made more money than god, finding himself with the two biggest living kung fu legends saying to himself “DO NOT FUCK THIS UP!”. And for the most part, he doesn’t. The fight scene is a lot of fun and if you’re a fan of the genre you will definitely giggle with geek delight at how cool it is to finally see these guys working together. Could I have used less wire work? Any day. But with the skill and experience that these two stars have, it really doesn’t come off as mechanical or unbelievable as it does in other parts of the film.
The only serious drawback that I experienced watching these two heavyweights in the film wasn’t ever when they were displaying their kung fu mastery… it’s when they were speaking English. I’m being serious. There are entire lines and conversations in the film where I have ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE what either Jackie Chan or Jet Li were saying. I can guess based on the contexts of the story but I found myself scratching my head more often than following the scene. Maybe they thought it was safe that a family audience would be comprised mostly of blabbering and mumbling children anyway and that these mini-people could easily translate the gibberish on screen but I found it to be pretty distracting.
Maybe it’s because I grew up on dubbed kung fu. I might elicit gasps in saying this… but I prefer dubbed kung fu. Actually, I prefer ANY foreign action film to be dubbed. Yeah. Yeah. You think it’s an insult to the way in which the story was intended or that many of the dubs are poorly translated. But I’ll tell you what. I’d rather spend my time watching the action on screen without distraction than having it compete with subtitles. Plus… it is funny when their mouths are still moving and nothing is coming out. Regardless, Mr. Li and Mr. Chan’s performances would have benefitted greatly from, at the very least, a little ADR to smooth the performances along.
