Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)

This is topic The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 04-18-2008, 10:26 PM:

[Wink]

Hey - I liked this movie! Of course, I am a kung-fu movie fan.

But it was better than I expected and that's always a good thing.

[beer]

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 04-20-2008, 08:39 PM:

I liked it. Too bad it wasn't filmed 35mm anamorphic like all kung fu movies were meant to be [Wink]

instead of Panavision Genesis.

[thumbsup]

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 07-26-2008, 09:09 AM:

Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano) is a teenage kung fu fan whose martial arts abilities are dwarfed by his enthusiasm. During a robbery of his favourite shop in China Town, a mystical golden staff magically (though inexplicably) transports him through the "Gate of No Gate" to ancient China. It soon transpires that in order to get home he must submit the golden staff to the imprisoned Monkey King thereby setting him free. So with his new found kung fu friends in tow - Silent Monk (Jet Li), Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) and Golden Sparrow (Yifei Liu) - he sets out to fulfill his quest, picking up some kung fu tips from the masters along the way. Naturally, bad guys mean to thwart his attempts.

It's clear that this films sole reason for existence is to team up Jackie Chan with Jet Li and these guys don't disappoint. Despite being visibly slower in their later years their level of agility still impresses. Chan earns a few extra nostalgia points for reprising his comedic drunken kung fu style for which he became famous in his Drunken Master movies. Newcomers, Yifei Liu and Bingbing Li as good-girl Golden Sparrow and bad-girl Ni Chang respectively, hold their own and Ni Chang's prehensile hair attack is a nice touch.

The premise to this film is, of course, patent nonsense ("Gate Of No Gate"??) but in a PG rated film we don't ask too many questions. The movie riffs chiefly off the Chinese Monkey King legend (particularly the TV incarnation - check out our hero's surname) while additionally (and shamelessly) filching elements from the likes of Gremlins, Karate Kid, Last Action Hero, Wizard Of Oz and others. The stuff of kids' dreams, this story about an average boy becoming a kung fu master presents no surprises; everything plays out exactly as you would expect right down to its Karate Kid ending.

One question which does need to be asked however is how this film was granted a PG rating. Like the recent Get Smart before it, the violence quotient here seems remarkably high for a PG movie especially considering that Prince Caspian (appropriately) scored an M rating. There appears to be a lowering of the bar over at the Office of Film and Literature Classification.

Not one to set the world on fire by any stretch but Forbidden Kingdom presents a reliable story coupled with some pleasing action.

6.5 out of 10