The Forbidden Kingdom is a film directed by Rob Minkoff starring two of the most well-known names in the martial arts film genre, Jackie Chan and Jet Li for the first time. Yuen Woo-ping is the action choreographer. The film was originally titled "The J & J Project", before being officially changed to The Forbidden Kingdom in April 2007.
SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Michael Angarano and Liu Yi Fei in "The Forbidden Kingdom"
In Forbidden Kingdom, American teenager Jason (Michael Angarano), who is obsessed with Chinese kung fu, always rent classic Chinese kung fu movies from an old Chinese man from a pawn shop. Inadvertent, he finds the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King (Jet Li) in the pawn shop. A group of Southie uses a gun to force Jason to bring them to the pawn shop so that they can rob the money from the shop. After the leader of the Southie shoots the old man, the lost relic falls into Jason’s hand and after narrowly escaping to the roof of the building, Jason unexpectedly finds himself transported back to ancient China.
There, he meets the drunken kung fu master, Lu Yan (Jackie Chan), a resillient and skillful Silent Monk (Jet Li) and a vindictive beauty who always speak of herself as the third party, Golden Sparrow (Liu Yi Fei), who lead him on his quest to return the staff to its rightful owner, the Monkey King - imprisoned in stone by the evil Jade Warlord (Collin Chou) for five hundred years. Along the way, Jason and gang meet the scores of Jade Warriors, Cult Killers and the deadly White Hair Demoness, Ni Chang (Li Bing Bing) as part of their journey to free the Monkey King.
While the movie has eye-popping, delightful-lighthearted and gravity-defying moments, the movie has many flaws as a result of poor editing. In the film, Li Bing Bing and Liu Yi Fei speak almost flawless English (probably through voice-editing) while Jackie Chan and Jet Li attempted to speak long sentences of English non-stop but fail nevertheless with certain words uttered from their mouth too difficult to comprehend without the subtitles.
Michael Angarano meanwhile may not be the most suitable actor for the role he plays, his character seems like the biggest flaw of the film usually covers up by the silence of Jet Li’s Silent Monk and the unprecedented beauty of Liu Yi Fei’s Golden Sparrow.
Sometimes, the movie looks like the adolescence of the movie Double Dragon mixed with the glumness of Mortal Kombat with little or no special effects at all. Overall, the kung fu moves of Jet Li and Jackie Chan and of Collin Chou who plays the Jade Warlord and the weak witchery of Ni Chang (Li Bing Bing) show that the movie needs more special effects, or does it? Perhaps, a lighthearted movie like this is natural unlike most Hollywood films which seem too superficial.
