Vox Nova At The Movies: The Forbidden Kingdom

In The Forbidden Kingdom, two “legends” of “kung-fu”, Jackie Chan and Jet Li, have finally gotten together for a movie. For most people, that all they will need to know. They either like movies by Jet Li and Jackie Chan, or they do not. When I went to see the movie, I knew very little as to what I should expect – it appeared that it would be some kind of “fantasy” story which had Chan and Li team up to take on evil villain. However, there is much more to this movie, good and bad. It’s very uneven, but on the whole, I enjoyed it. To get a good idea of what this movie is like one could say it’s “A comedic Wizard of Oz without the music combining itself with The Lord of the Rings and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.” Of course, one would also need to point out that the villain wants to be Ming the Merciless.

The hero of the story is a teenager, Jason, who loves “kung fu flicks.” Through several mishaps, he gains possession of a staff which is meant to be given back to its rightful owner. After being chased by a gang of thugs, he falls down a building – and finds himself in ancient China. The staff is a staff of legend; prophecy indicates that a traveler will bring it back to revive the fallen Monkey King. The Monkey King, five hundred years ago, had been encased in stone by the evil Jade Warlord (in other words, the movie is a secularized adaptation of the Monkey legend). The Jade Warlord is afraid of the prophecy and wants to stop it from coming to pass; his troops are on the lookout for the staff, and when they spot Jason with it, they try to take it from him. Enter Jackie Chan as “drunken Master/ possible immortal” Lu Yan, helping to defend Jason from the soldiers, becoming the first of a few (a monk and an orphan girl on a mission of vengeance) who will journey with Jason to help him fulfill his destiny.

Things really pick up after Jackie Chan tells us about the legend of the Monkey King. Since the movie started with a dream sequence about him, I think it would have been better if the dream were longer and told us all we needed to know there. Instead, we had to wait for an out-of-sequence narration about the Monkey King later in the movie. The way the movie would jump the narrative structure and enter short side-tales, I think, ultimately is what made the film feel uneven. The other problem is that Michael Angarano, who does good with his action sequences, is fairly wooden when it comes to his acting – this makes it difficult for us to really see him connecting to his companions as much as is needed for us to feel his sorrow when they get taken out in one fashion or another in the movie.

Despite those two concerns, much of the humor is good, and the action sequences are sufficiently done for this type of movie. For most, that is what they will get out of the film. If they are not expecting a great, thought-provoking epic, but rather a nice, almost mindless, adventure story which does what it sets out to do and not much more, they should enjoy the movie. I got more out of it because of my appreciation for the Monkey legend, but I do not think it is needed for anyone to find something to like in this rather odd film.

2 ½ / 4 stars.