SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Jackie Chan in "Shinjuku Incident"

Jackie plays a tractor mechanic nicknamed Steelhead and enters Japan illegally like many others in the 1990’s. There he meets Jie (Daniel Wu), his friend and they do laboring jobs to make a living. Most of the time, Steelhead, Jie and the Chinese immigrants spend their time running away from cops. At one time, Steelhead even manages to save Inspector Kitano (Naoto Takenaka) from drowning in the sewer.

When Lily (Fan Bingbing), a beautiful young lady, also from Mainland China sees Steelhead doing the dishes, she generously offers him some money. Steelhead inadvertently saves Lily’s customer from some gangsters and thus become closer with Lily.

Before long, Steelhead finds out that Xiu Xiu has married a Japanese Yakuza boss called Eguchi (Kato Masaya), therefore he decides to remain in Japan and obtain citizenship. When life gets tougher, Steelhead decides to earn a living by doing illegal activities, including selling phony phone cards and cheating at slot machines by tampering with the microchips. As Jie is too cowardly to continue doing illegal work, Steelhead and the rest pull together some money to buy Jie a chestnut cart.

However, one unfortunate day, Jie temporarily replaces his housemate in a slot machine game when the Taiwanese mafia already suspects tampering of the microchips. Jie becomes a victim and the Taiwanese gangsters beat him up and violently chop off his left hand using his chestnut wok and steel turner.

After saving Jie from the Taiwanese gangster, Steelhead seeks retaliation and secretly walk into the Taiwanese establishment. By chance, Steelhead finds out that one of the Japanese Yakuzas plans to lure Eguchi to the establishment and have him assassinated. When the Taiwanese mob leader attempts to thrust a knife into Eguchi, Steelhead appears from underneath a table and slices the mob leader’s hand. They manage to escape and Eguchi even brings Steelhead to his house and greets his wife, Yuko Eguchi where her real name is Xiu Xiu. Initially Steelhead refuses to work with Eguchi but when the both of them meet again together with Lily, Steelhead accepts Eguchi’s offer of assassinating two Japanese Yakuza leaders in exchange with legal documents and the territory where the Taiwanese is currently occupying.

Soon, Steelhead has made a name for himself by becoming the largest foreign gangster in Japan as his cronies are controlling most parts of Shinjuku. As Inspector Kitano owes Steelhead his life, he has many times let Steelhead off with a warning instead of arresting him. While Steelhead makes money the legal way, he has little idea that his other members are selling drugs and the likes. Steelhead confesses his wrongdoings to Inspector Kitano and brings him to his establishment to arrest Eguchi. At the same time, the elders of the Yakuza has decided it’s time to wipe out the Chinese immigrants as their power has become too dominant. Nakajima (Kenya Sawada) and the Taiwanese mafia all march towards Steelhead’s establishment with their samurai swords.

Brutality and gang fights take place. Many of the Chinese immigrants whom are now legal residence of Japan are killed in the battle. Even Eguchi is shot to death. Steelhead manages to escape but in the end, he bleeds to death and he returns the inspector a favor by giving him the flash drive belonging to Eguichi, which contains vital information about the Yakuza’s dealing.

Overall, the movie is brutal, dramatic and is full of action. Jackie Chan shows a different side of himself besides being a comedian and a kung fu expert. A must-watch film of 2009!

My ratings: 8 out of 10.

SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Master Oogway (a tortoise who knows kung fu) summons Shifu only to tell him his prophecy of Tai Lung (Ian McShane) will escape to become a treat to the civilians, therefore, Oogway must select a new Dragon Warrior to defend the town. The whole village gathers to find out which of the Furious Five will be the Dragon Warrior only to see Po accidentally being selected as the chosen one.

Po and Shifu in Kung Fu Panda

After learning the prophecy of Tai Lung’s escaping, Shifu sends Zeng (Dan Fogler), the messenger goose to send a message to Commander Vachir (Michael Clarke Duncan), a Javan Rhinoceros to beef up the security by as much as twice but Vachir arrogantly says no one can escape his prison, with 1,000 soldiers guarding 1 prisoner. Unfortunately, Zeng carelessly drops a feather which enables Tai Lung to escape and easily trashes all of Vachir’s soldiers who try to stop him.

When Shifu learns from Zeng that Tai Lung has escaped, Shifu consults Oogway only to have Oogway strongly tells Shifu to believe Po is the chosen one and slowly nurture him like the peach tree. Oogway then passes away like dust in the air. While Po is upset by his clumsiness and his failure in his earlier training, it is Shifu who convinces Po to stay when Po decides to leave. Shifu discovers that Po is able to climb up to the highest kitchen cabinet just to steal some cookies and therefore uses food as a whole new way of training Po. When Po is finally equipped with the kung fu to fight Tai Lung, Shifu brings down the dragon scroll to Po only for both of them to realize the scroll is totally empty.

Po, Master Monkey, Master Tigress, Master Viper, Master Mantis and Master Crane

Knowing that Tai Lung is on his way, Shifu asks his students including Po to help the villagers to evacuate the place, believing he will be able to at least, momentarily holds off Tai Lung. Po meets his father, Mr. Ping (James Hong) who finally reveals to Po his secret ingredient’s secret — nothing. Po finally understand the secret behind the blank scroll, which is nothing but to believe in oneself. He boldly goes back to the palace in order to face Tai Lung. The fight between both of them doesn’t last very long, but like the entire show, is nevertheless hilarious. Po, somehow, manages to defeat Tai Lung and earns the respect of the Furious Five as well as Shifu.

Overall, this is one of the best animated movie and definitely the best so far this year. Great voice acting by Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman, beautiful landscapes and background arts, what’s more, the dumplings and bowl of noodles look extremely real! Worth watching with the entire family.

My ratings: 9 out of 10.

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.

My ratings: 7 out of 10.

Chan’s father Charlie died in a Hong Kong hospital on February 26, aged 93, after battling prostate cancer. Chan brought his body back to Canberra to be laid to rest beside Lee Lee Chan, who died in 2002.

“It’s a hard day. I loved my father so much because he did so much for me when I was young. We had a very poor family and he left Hong Kong to support himself. He was just the greatest father for me,” a distraught Chan told reporters.

Read the rest of Jackie Chan Is Emo During His Father’s Funeral in Australia

Many of us know movies that are based on books and novels or computer games are usually boring unless a little twist is added to the film. Films like Hitman and Beowulf have no storyline, thus, the entire film is based on the cinematography. Therefore, in The Forbidden Kingdom, don’t expect the tale of the Monkey King to be anywhere near the actual story.

This movie reminds me of The Myth and how horrible The Myth was with different races and culture blend together in that movie, the storyline and cinematography somehow fail to entertain. Hopefully The Forbidden Kingdom prevails the only bad “Jackie Chan” movie that I have watched.

Yahoo has recently released 6 posters of The Forbidden Kingdom displaying all the main actors in the posters. One particular poster which I like very much is Li Bing Bing with her white hair almost looks like its coated with gold as the lights shine from behind.

Check out The Forbidden Kingdom trailers.

(Via Filmplosion)