Just watched The Forbidden Kingdom this afternoon, and I'll have to say I enjoyed it very much. Critics have said it's a watered down kung fu movie (more of a "wire-fu" movie, actually), but I don't think it lost anything by focussing less on the kung fu and more on the story (something that seems lacking in many big budget, mostly special effects-heavy movies these days). I particularly liked how several Chinese legends were referenced directly and indirectly, especially that of the Monkey King -- one of my favorite fairy tales as a child. Additionally, I was very impressed with both Jackie Chan and Jet Li -- even at the ages of 54 and 45 respectively, they can still bring it. After watching Rush Hour 3, I had thought that Jackie Chan was perhaps losing some of his speed and agility, given that his typical amazing feats of, shall we say, contortionist kung fu were absent for most of the movie, and that his character used firearms much more than I've ever seen in any prior movies (I will have to add though, that there is much more gunplay in his American movies than any of his Hong Kong movies). However, both Chan and Li (didn't he "retire" last year??) appeared to be in top form during a very entertaining fight sequence inside a temple.
My only complaint: A soda and popcorn cost me $10.75. Seriously, you've got to be kidding me...
2 comments:
Jet Li Monkey King is the best part.
Thanks for leaving a comment! You're my first commentor, so if that's of any consequence, you can be proud...
Yeah, I thought Jet Li really capture the mischievious character of the Monkey King in the fairy tales. Did you think that the director intended that both Monkey King and old Hop looked less like Jet Li and Jackie Chan at the beginning of the movie than at the end? In other words, to you, did it seem like they used more makeup to hide the actors at the beginning, and less makeup at the end so that you could tell Monkey King and Hop were supposed to be Jet and Jackie's characters reincarnated? I'm not sure if they actually did that; I'm just wondering if it appeared that way to anyone else.
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