I’ve heard mixed reviews from some people I know regarding The Forbidden Kingdom.  First, I’d like to deal with some of the major beefs people seem to have.

 

1)  Jet Li‘s accent makes his English sound stupid.

If this is your problem, I can only ask, “How’s your Chinese?”  What?  You don’t speak Chinese.  Then shut up.

 

2)  Jackie Chan and Jet Li are getting old, so their kung fu is slow and unexciting.

Do you know kung fu?  No?  Then intercourse yourself.  If you watch these movies for flying blood, lightning punches, and cool CGIs of breaking bones, then I invite you to entertain yourself with some professional wrestling or ultimate fighting.  Sometimes, those guys actually bleed.  If you’re watching a kung fu movie, you’re watching martial artists and dancers–not real fighting.  Criticizing a good martial artist for going slowly now and again is a bit like criticizing a painter because you don’t like the kind of brush she used.  It’s a matter of technique and style.  Speaking as a martial artist, I can tell you that their kung fu is strong in a way that most people’s will never be, and this is clear in their choreography.

 

3)  It’s too much like Hong Kong cinema.

We have just discovered that you don’t like Hong Kong cinema.  That’s fine.  I don’t recommend you rent anything with Gordon Liu in it.  Yes, this movie borrows very much from Hong Kong cinema style.  You might even say it’s kind of a theme.

 

4)  It bastardizes Journey to the West!

Normally, I would agree with you here.  I don’t like it when books are badly interpretted by fillmmakers.  I also don’t think that’s what happened here.  No one ever claimed that this movie is supposed to be Journey to the West.  No one, to my knowledge, even claimed it was based on the book.  The writers did something that Hong Kong cinema just kind of accepts.  They took a story with popular or historical relevance, sometimes a myth or legend, and wrote a screenplay with some of the characters.  It’s like a fan fiction.  (Actually, American cinema does this, too.  Anyone remember First Knight?)

 

So, The Forbidden Kingdom is in a lot of ways a love note to Hong Kong cinema.  The main character loves old kung fu movies.  The story comes from an ancient Chinese novel.  And, of course, Jackie Chan and Jet Li have been Hong Kong stars for decades.  My favorite part of this one may be getting to see Jet Li smile on film again.  For a long time in American films, he got bogged down in Jason Statham movies, movies in which you can only smile if you’re doing something incredibly manly, like taking revenge or preparing to nail an underwear model.  It’s just a pleasure to see that he’s really broken out of that hackneyed mold.

 

Perhaps the most impressive part of the movie is that I can’t find any reports of Michael Angarano and Liu Yifei doing kung fu before being cast for it.  Now, a lot of this can be chalked up to Yuen Woo-ping, whose fight choreography is always amazing, but they look pretty good.  If they’re total neophytes, I’m impressed.

 

You’ll enjoy this movie more if you’re a fan of old kung fu movies, especially anything by the Shaw Brothers.  If not, that’s fine.  It’s pretty.  The story is fun.  Oh, and check out the way they managed to give both Jackie Chan and Jet Li top billing.  It cracks me up every time I see it.