The Forbidden Kingdom Review
Thanks for checking out our The Forbidden Kingdom review. If you’d like, you can also watch the video version of our Forbidden Kingdom review at the bottom of this post.
I’m not going to hide from it… I thought this movie was going to SUCK! To say that people have been waiting for a Jackie Chan, Jet Li movie for years is a bit of an understatement. The undisputed kings of the martial arts genre of our generation should have done a film together 10 years ago. Yes, The Forbidden Kingdom was a long time coming, but the question is, “IS IT TOO LATE FOR A JACKIE CHAN/JET LI MOVIE?” Are the two too far past their primes to actually make an entertaining kung-fu film together. I’m quite happy to say that the answer to that question is HELL BLOODY NO!!!! These two guys still rule, and watching them on screen together for me was well worth the wait!
THE GENERAL IDEA
The synopsis for The Forbidden Kingdom looks something like this: “An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself traveling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.” Easy enough?
THE GOOD
I find quite often one of the weaknesses of films like this are weak mythologies. The mythology sets the background in these films… they set the stage for our story to play out in. When the mythology is weak, the film has a hard time playing out well. The mythology behind The Forbidden Kingdom is a FANTASTIC one! The background story and legend of the Monkey King, the magical staff, the traveler, the Drunken Immortal… it was wonderful! The background mythology of the film was actually better that the story of the film itself. I found myself listening to the parts of the film talking about the mythology like a 12 year old boy around a campfire with wide eyes filled with wonder. I really enjoyed that aspect of the film!
Sweet Jebediah shit cakes… the fight scenes were awesome! I was afraid with all the talk I heard that Jackie Chan (who is now 54 years old) and Jet Li (who is now 45) would be getting to the point where they were just sad shadows of their former glory. Well anyone who claims this can kiss my ass. Sure the old man isn’t doing the same death defying stunts he once did (the man has NOTHING left to prove), but in the context of pure fight choreography, watching Chan and Li fighting it out on screen was magic to me! Would they have been even better 10 years ago? No doubt… but a 54 year old Chan and 45 year old Li are still amazing enough to lose yourself when watching them do their thing! I bend a knee to these two ageless wonders.
NO SHAKY CAMERA! Dear action film directors of the world… please get your heads out of your asses and behold how a REAL action director films fight scenes. They film them so that the bloody audience and see what the hell is going on. If you need to shake your camera around like an epileptic horse in order to make your scene feel “intense”, they you don’t know what you’re doing… either quit or go hire someone who does.
They avoid going much into a pointless side love story. Yes there’s a hot girl… yes the lead boy likes her… but with the exception of a couple of short scenes, they don’t waste time on it. They let you know it’s there… and then move on to more stuff that we actually want to see. IE. Chan and Li kicking ass.
THE BAD
Who the hell thought it was a good idea to make an American kid the main character of a Jet Li and Jackie Chan film?!?!?! Don’t get me wrong, the kid did just fine, but in principle I still don’t like that he was there. People (like me) want to see Chan and Li… not Chan and Li playing second fiddle to an American kid. Like I said, it still played out pretty well, but it could have been much better.
The first 10 minutes of the movie are DREADFUL! At least 4 times I said to myself “I knew this was going to suck”. The American kid in his American world… with the most painful stereotypical street “bad boys” bullying him around. So one dimensional I thought they were going to stop to piss on single mothers working three jobs to support their kids… just for fun. Ug.
Some of the dialog (as in any Chan or Li North American movie) was kind of sour.
OVERALL
A film that I thought would completely suck ends up entertaining me quite a bit. Chan and Li still rule, the Mythology of the story was fantastic and there was no shaky cam. Yes I’m still sour at the American kid being the main character and yes some of the dialog was bad… but the film did what it set out to do… it entertained me. Overall I give The Forbidden Kingdom a 7 out of 10)
43 Comments, Comment or Ping
GoneAFK
Excellent! Just the sort of review I was hoping for. Maybe I will go see this film then.
Apr 18th, 2008
HisDivineShadow
Sounds like the american boy subplot was forced in by the studio.
Good fight scenes but little more.
I remember Jet Li saying he wasn’t going to do any more martial art films after his last one?
Apr 18th, 2008
John
Hey HisDivineShadow,
That’s a common misconception. Jet Li never said he’d never do Martial Arts films again, just not those traditional ones (I forget the name they have for them)
Apr 18th, 2008
Grundy
He said he wouldn’t do epics anymore.
Apr 18th, 2008
Mike Mai
jet li just did “The Warlords” as well, that’s a period piece and an epic. so i believe jet is eating his words. anyway, i shall see this tomorrow.
Apr 18th, 2008
Mr.Death
Cool, I might go see this sometime. I actually thought it was going to rule from the beginning (although I admit I didn’t know the plot)
Apr 18th, 2008
Sound Designer Dan
The Warlords is not a “martial arts” epic. It’s just a war drama. He said he would stop doing films like Once Upon a Time in China and Fearless where he plays a teacher/student of wushu.
Apr 18th, 2008
PhoenixP3K
Pretty good review. You described it well. It’s a fun movie! Part of it were so predictable, but I a sense I wanted it to end this way. I’m afraid it won’t be a huge box office success, but it was really worth it.
Apr 18th, 2008
EZELL
I have to disagree very much. The movie music first of all came from 2 of my favorite movies Batman Begins which was played at the end of the film and the music when the bad really hot chick came on it was the same theme to charles brosons character in Once Upon a time in the west.
The story structure was bad the transitions of shots was the worst.
the action was not bad at all and the asian chicks were so fine.
Apr 18th, 2008
Kristina
WOWZA.
I really fucking hated this movie. I REALLY did.
Apr 18th, 2008
TKT
HY JOHN
Thanks for the review.
I want to see this movie ASAP
about the shaky camera?
LI and CHAN was a big part of why they could do wide open action scenes.
PLUS a lot of chinese actors usually study martial arts and acrobatics as a part of the curriculum to became actors,the action coordinator was chinese,yuen wo ping was the fighter coordinator to.
you know that.
My opinion is:
Today mainstrean cinema doenst have action stars animore,and i think the only way those directors can make action “looks” like action is instead of making the actors “do” the action, make the camera do it.
Movie goers became more and more nipticking about action scenes, you can easily see where the actor goes out and the double gets in(they say).
When ficcion or fantasy are not envolved they despise the use of CGI.
Mainstrean actors want more and more do the action scenes thenselves and its hard to make a hollywood star understand that “the fight is looking fake” with he in it.
Put the camera close is the easy choice to make all the parts happy then.
I HATE SHAKY CAMERA*I LOVE BOURNE MOVIES! but i dont think we will have any changes any time soon.
What we need is new blood on the action star shelves as soon as possible.
Apr 18th, 2008
alfie
I enjoyed this film as well. Not as much as you did by the sounds of it but I thought it was pretty solid. I don’t have a problem with shakey cam at all to be honest. Sometimes it gets a little out of hand but it doesn’t bother me for the most part.
My main concern was li and chan being up for it and they most certainly were. I thought they were both great. For me it would be about a 6 out of ten. Mainly due to a few hokey elements that annoyed me but overall I liked it
This is off topic but wait till you guys see Iron Man. I managed to see it early and its fucking awesome and I fear the summer may peak with its first big release. It is soooooo good I can’t stop talking and thinking about it. I don’t want to go on about it but it rules. Plain and simple.
Apr 18th, 2008
chris (the real one)
kristina could u give reasons…..im a hardcore kung-fu flick guy, but the fight scene between jet and jackie i saw on utube looked pretty bad.
i think im expecting a lil too much, i mean its jackie chan and jet li. just about everything they touched in hong kong was gold…. i really wanna like this but something is tellin me im not gonna like it….
Apr 18th, 2008
dan
Looks promising..Shaky camera is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo annoying!! Spoilt a few fight scenes in the Bourne series and in Cloverfield
Apr 19th, 2008
Iam Wright
The Mythology for the basis of this movie is an old Oriental story called ‘Journey to the West’. Lots variations have come from this story and most have similar characters, namely the Monkey King. Dragonball is one prime example. There was also a TV made mini series just some years ago that was just like the plot of Forbidden Kingdom about a modern day American ending up in the same story. Forget the name and the network though.
Apr 19th, 2008
Dave
I shocked again to hear that this one was good. I will have to check it out some time even though just like you I thought it was going to suck. Thanks for the review.
Apr 19th, 2008
Alexis Lopez From Argentina
Hey John,
I’m was looking forward to this movie, and like you, my main fear was the combination of 2 Martial Arts Actors who had “bad luck” (horrible directors” on their latest films. As it was to be expected NOBODY likes the damn North American Kid as the lead character……in my opinion the studios need to learn to stop that stupid idea or concept of placing somebody from the US to lead the secondary characters or heroes into finding themselves or giving them an answer to conclude the main concept of the movies. HOLLYWOOD TAKE NOTE!!!!!!!! IF YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE A MOVIE ABOUT ANY CULTURE (NORDIC, ORIENTAL, INDIAN) OR ANY MYTHOLOGY, PLEASE DO NOT PUT THE “US POINT OF VIEW CHARACTER” WHO IS ALWAYS TO THE RESCUE. As an example of what could’ve been a great movie (not saying that it was not, just hated Tom Cruise) was the Last Samurai and I think many would agree with me that by just erasing Tom Cruise and any US presence out of the movie, and leaving the Japanese story roll out by itself the movie would have a major impact, instead of just being just another Hollywood cliche. More over it would have been amazing if the movie had the natural dialogue(by natural dialogue I mean Cantonese for the Forbidden Kingdom or in case of the Last Samurai, all JAPANESE DIALOGUE) among the cast members and not that forced scripted english crap……THAT would’ve been much better.
Now I’m amazed that a director such as Rob Minkoff could have made such a good action film. The reason for this opinion was the movies he directed previous to this one, mainly animated kid movies such as Stuart Little 1 and 2 and the Haunted Mansion. But well that means that there is some unseen talent in Hollywood directors after all. Additionally, the NO SHAKY CAMERA! point is relevant to all Action Movies, I always want to imagine the “what if” part for Star Wars or Lord of The Rings battle sequences, without the fucking Shaky Camera point of view. I think that I would crap my pants if I ever saw that (just because I already pee myself everytime I see it jejje).
Now I wonder if after the movie is receive properly around the globe, Jackie Chan and Jet Li will unite to make another action film?
Apr 19th, 2008
Audioout
I liked the movie almost entirely. The beginning 15 minutes or so was groan worthy like John said, but the rest of the film was fantastic.
The American kid never bothered me. He held his own amazingly well and was never annoying where he wasn’t supposed to be (first 15 minutes). Everyone should remember that this is a mildly violent FAMILY FILM. I think that is one misconception about this film that could hurt it with some viewers.
Apr 19th, 2008
Kristina
The thing about this movie that pisses me off the most is that it is a blatant example of FALSE ADVERTISING. In all the commercials I saw for this movie, that kid was never mentioned or glimpsed. It looked like a badass martial arts film, but instead it’s a goddamn kiddie flick.
Apr 19th, 2008
chris (the real one)
yea kristina thats what i thought….when i first heard it i was excited (o shit jackie and jet) but then i heard it was an American production. and then i heard the story…
and i bet jet li and jackie only fought once…
Apr 19th, 2008
Kristina
Jackie and Jet only fight each other once, you are correct, sir.
Apr 19th, 2008
John
Yes, Jackie and Jet only fight once… but it’s one hell of a fight and it’s long too. Not to mention each of them fight 5 or 6 times in the film (just against each other once).
Apr 19th, 2008
Kristina
John’s right, but at that point, I was so disgusted and annoyed by NotShia that I just clocked out mentally. The fight scenes were nice, but nothing so magnificent that it could overcome the stupid decision to make this movie into The Neverending Story, except shitty.
Apr 19th, 2008
HisDivineShadow
AudioOut, a mildly violent family film. LMAO on that contradiction.
Alfie, how did you see Iron Man??? (No Spoliers).
Apr 19th, 2008
Mark-Salinas
I was definitely surprised that I actually was ok with this movie. I was expecting a complete flop but the action and fantasy twist made it worth seeing. I would recommend going to this movie during a matinée. It is not worth the full price.
Mark Salinas
Apr 19th, 2008
Andrew
As someone who has been to China, is somewhat familiar with Chinese culture and mythology, and likes kung fu movies…
This movie sucks. Hardcore. I know it’s a family film, but that’s no excuse to have a bad movie all around.
The acting sucks.
The story sucks and has been done before, in much better ways.
The mythology is okay, but the Monkey King mythos has been done much better.
The acting is awful.
They cast Collin Chou as the villain - he’s a fantastic martial artist, arguably just as skilled as Li or Chan, and they don’t even let him show his skills! He just uses magic! WTF?
And perhaps the most devastating factor:
One of the leads urinates on the other. Not kidding. We finally get to see Jet Li and Jackie Chan in a movie together… and they resort to bathroom humor. I’m actually offended.
2/10 for some so-so martial arts fights.
Apr 19th, 2008
Gordon Shumway
maybe I will see this when it comes out, on the 11th July!!! Rule Britannia
Apr 19th, 2008
Royal
Saw the movie tonight with some friends. From one average American and 3 Ukrainian transplants, the movie gets 7 stars. It was a great afternoon flick! Anyone who likes the typical Jackie and Jet fare will love this one. Although some of the plot points were formulaic, there were a number of twists which gave the movie a surprising degree of depth given the genre.
Apr 19th, 2008
krazie835
I was impressed with David Buckley’s score for the movie, and granted it did sound a bit like Batman Begins in some areas I was pleasantly surprised.
His next project Creek which is being directed by Joel Schumacher.
I never even heard of David Buckley, but I am certainly looking forward to some of his future work.
Apr 19th, 2008
alfie
NO SPOILERS I PROMISE…..hisdivineshadow….I was invited to a preview screening near where I live. Its not what you know but who you know if ya know what I mean ….and its seriously great. I loved it. I am very curious as to what campea will make of it. Its rare that we see eye to eye on films and since our tastes are so opposing I hope this is one of those rare times we agree because but I just can’t see how you could not enjoy it. Its pretty much a perfect comic book movie. Downey is responsible for a majority of its success it has to be said. I know he is a star already but this is a real mainstream star making performance for him. I think hulk, batman and even indy will have a hard time matching this thing. The entire film is alive and everyone in it is basking in the glow of a film that does pretty much everything right. It has it flaws of course which we all get into no doubt once it is out but man I cannot wait to see it again. For me its a case of if you don’t like this film then I can only assume you don’t like event films because this lives up to the hype. It did not let me down at all. the one thing I can imagine people griping about is (MINOR SPOILAGE BUT NOT REALLY) maybe a lack of action. But if anyone does that they are fools. It is by far the best time I have had at the movies in a long long time and each day I love it more. Its probably my second favorite comic book movie after superman the motion picture.
Apr 20th, 2008
Diabolius
Nice work. Really funny =)
Apr 20th, 2008
bigsampson
OMFG I JUST SEEN A BOOTLEG IRONMAN AND I SHIT U not it is as good as they say Robert is perfect as starks…..there a re a few scenes IMO that where put into it like for merchandising and crap like what they did in the Godzilla movie a few years back…..but all in all cgi graphics where actually good bieng that is was mechanical components that they did it on…IMO they dont work well for organic material I.E. i am legend etc.. but ya i say right now with all the little numbers on the bottom of the screen bootleg i have it is a 8/10 9/10 if your allready hyped and a fanboi
=) fyi if u live in the san jose area …u can go to may asian markets in cupertino to find cellphone stores that sell the dvd’s for 5-10 bucks
Apr 20th, 2008
monkey king
(Type your comment here. Make sure you’ve read the commenting rules before doing so)
Who cares about a white kid being the lead character. The thing of it is is that chan and li are both over the hill and it’s time to pass the torch. If this film was done 15 years ago, I guarantee that the focal point would be on chan and li.
It was an awesome movie by the way. Great pacing and very entertaining if you know what i mean.
Apr 20th, 2008
Mike Mai
so they cut a lot of stuff, if you saw the first trailer you could tell. i love how the white kid held sparrow so close and never kissed her, that was perfect. in the first trailer you can see the two kissing tho, that would’ve sucked. also great decisions to cut the modern scenes to as short as they are now.
here’s the first trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlqEIWC3kvk
Apr 20th, 2008
Brian
I saw it with my nephew. I think I liked it more than he did. I might even see it again or get the dvd, especially if it has a lot of bonus features. I also really liked how the opening credits incorporated a lot of artwork from old kung fu movies.
Apr 20th, 2008
Azizan
dear John,
Sweet Jebediah shit cakes…where did you come up with that? made me laugh myself off ! this is why i love this site! apart from the correct, unbiased and analytical reviews and news, of course.
thank you for the review. i feared the movie would boom but if you say it’s a deserving 7/10, i will see it with my brother and friends soon. i still remember your rambo review and you were right. no fear for me now.
goodbye from us here in Malaysia. say hi to doug for me - i know he’s enjoying the “holiday”.
have a nice day and thank you! keep on working. before i leave, lemme say it again… Sweet Jebediah shit cakes!
Apr 20th, 2008
sinema
Jackie Chan returns in a Drunken Master (1978) role along with Jet Li in a more mysterious but delightful twisting role in this fantasy martial arts film that requires a leap of faith into myths, legends, and magic. In doing so, this adventure tale is compelling from the very beginning with a quick, fast martial art scene followed by some amazing opening credits. The martial art fights are prolonged and exciting and the storyline is although predictable, entertaining and worthy of an evening storytale. Not a classic, nor epic, not heavy, and never managing to enter into serious realm of award-winning, this movie is nevertheless a summer, adolescent family movie that is worth its admission price and both Jackie Chan and Jet Li offer up some good performances in a movie without any real failings. Eight out of Ten Stars.
Apr 21st, 2008
Gary
Think I’ll give this one a wide berth.
Apr 22nd, 2008
Mark-Salinas
I think this one should be seen in the theater, it definitely will lose much appeal on the TV screen.
Mark Salinas, MN
Apr 22nd, 2008
Aeron
Did anyone else get the heavy vibe of the escapist Never Ending Story plot similarities? Young American Kid is obsessed with something, whom is ridiculed for his passions. He finds an artifacts that “transports” him into a different world which he is engrossed in. A quest ensues to which he is the crux of the situation. In the end he discovers new powers and grows as a person.
He also gains sweet kung fu moves or a personal luck dragon. Doesn’t help his uggo looks though…
Apr 24th, 2008
digital drew
It doesnt matter what Jet Li or his people actually said about him doing martial arts epic movies, the way it came off on posters and trailers for whatever movie that was he did… it appeared as if it was his last, and marketed that way. I went to see it thinking it was his last!
About this movie, It was fine. Id Recommend it, but I wouldn’t watch it more than once. Also wouldn’t buy it. That is how I review.
Apr 30th, 2008
her
This was a disappointment, chan and li and American kid defeating gods in dream land.
May 7th, 2008
her
Better yet just rent warriors of virtue.
May 7th, 2008
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