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.
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.
Kung Fu Dunk, formerly known as Slam Dunk is a film that is inspired by the Slam Dunk manga and anime series and is almost like an imitation of Shaolin Soccer by incooperating Kung Fu into sports.
The film revolves around an orphaned boy, Shi-Jie (Jay Chou) who grew up in a kung fu university but get thrown out of the university after making trouble at a nightclub. Eventually, he meets Wang-Li (Eric Tsang) who discovers Shi-Jie’s talents and Wang-Li is keen to make Shi-Jie his cash cow.
On the excuse of helping him search for his long lost parents, Wang-Li invited him to play basketball at the First University.
After joining the basketball team, Shi-Jie is often distracted by Li-Li (Charlene Choi), sister of Ting-Wei (Bo-Lin Chen), the captain of First University basketball team. In order to get the attention of Li-Li, Shi-Jie competes with Xiao-Lan (Baron Chen) but the conflicts between each other when Ting-Wei helps Shi Jie to combine his Kung-Fu with the important basketball techniques.
Jay Chou in Kungfu Dunk
After winning games after games, finally First University meets its major competitor in a team led by Lee Tien, a former captain of First University basketball team, who has betrayed them in the previous season. Lee Tien also used to taunt Ting-Wei by telling the tale of what he has done to Ting-Wei’s girlfriend. Ting-Wei has resorted to drink alcohol to overcome this.
Earlier, Wang-Li has made great efforts to persuade four grand masters from the kung fu university in which Shi-Jie grows up to take up a challenge at the last moment. With Ting-Wei and Xiao-Lan both injured, will Shi-Jie manage to overcome this obstacle and win the championship? Well, let me spoil it for you — First University initially loses the championship due to a bribed referee but Shi-Jie uses his Kung Fu to freeze time and reverse it to win the championship.
Kung Fu Dunk is a way better movie than Jay Chou’s previous efforts in Initial D, though his Cantonese has not improved much. Perhaps, with the profits from the box office, Jay Chou should after all, have a make-over or something. Both, Bo-Lin Chen and Baron Chen overshadowed Jay in the movie as they are better-looking in every sense, making Jay looks very much like a cow dung. Perhaps, the movie should be name Kung Fu Dung?
My ratings: 7 out of 10. With a $10 million budget, Kung Fu Dunk doesn’t even have a decent babe in it makes you think where all the money goes to? However, despite that and the bad storyline, Kung Fu Dunk excels as more than just another film that is inspired by a manga.
The Forbidden Kingdom is another movie based on the tale of the Monkey King. Jet Li and Jackie Chan are the main actors in this epic movie with Jet Li playing both the Monkey King and the Monk.
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.
Instead of voting for your favorite election candidate, you can now have your fave candidate brawl against the opposition. And it’s going to be bloody! Quite fun.
A DreamWorks Animation comedy about a lazy, irreverent slacker panda, Po (voiced by Jack Black), who must somehow become a Kung Fu Master in order to save the Valley of Peace. Also starring the voice of Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie and Lucy Liu. The movie will only be in theaters on June 6, 2008 (USA).
No actor is as agile as Jackie Chan, and none is as funny and as agile as him at the same time. Totally salute him for all the great movies he has made.
