We grew up with these two martial arts stars for years now and we have waited for them to do a movie together. So we were excited to know that they finally made a movie together - The Forbidden Kingdom. Imagine Jackie Chan and Jet Li in one film, that would be awesome.
The story starts with action with the Monkey King losing his staff and turns into stone. The staff was lost to the middle kingdom (which is Earth) and found its way to an antique store in Boston, where a boy got a sight of it. When the antique store owner got shot, he bequeaths the staff to the boy with him asking him to "return the staff to its rightful owner"
Return he did. He went through the "Gate of No Gate" and went inside the Forbidden Kingdom. With a bit of awkwardness, he finally gets to return the staff and brings balance in the end. And he went back to the present day Boston by passing again the "Gate of No Gate".
Talk about geek power in the movie. The boy in the lead is obsessed with martial arts films that he knows which style of Kung Fu he sees. He's no practitioner so he's just an aficionado, so our hero is caught in a "fish out of water" scenario. Imagine a present day american going in rural china, does not know Kung Fu, does not speak Chinese and hes got a short amount of time to return the staff. Good thing we got two hours of movie time so our hero got lucky.
First luck is, he found the right people to help him right away. He found Lu Yan (played by Jackie Chan) in minutes after arriving in middle kingdom. A few minutes after, he found Golden Sparrow (played by Yifei Liu), then a few scenes after, Silent Monk (Played by Jet Li) who's not entirely silent at all. Talk about a lucky boy.
Second, he learned to understand and speak Chinese right away, or all the Chinese people learned to speak English. All it took was Lu Yan telling him to listen and try to understand. After that everyone was speaking English. It saved our hero much time to end the film on point. We were saved from reading subtitles.
Third, he learned two Kung Fu styles from two masters in minutes (in the film) and was able to fight enemies with great skills in Kung Fu. Martial arts is already hard yet he learned from two masters at the same time. I can't understand the fact that two masters conspired to teach one student. And he didn't pay for tuition. Talk about greatness. He might be "the one".
If you are into Chinese martial arts movies, this will truly disappoint you. The film makers "americanized" a Chinese classic - the Monkey King. I was hoping they could pull this one off, but sadly they failed. The actors were spot on except for the lead played by Jason Tripitikas. We simply can't connect him to his character, but his failure was not a major one compared to the story line which was "americanized".
It was great seeing Jackie Chan and Jet Li and both did carry the movie with their action scenes. They are old now so we saw their actions scenes toned down. Unlike when they were younger when they were jumping all around, in this film, we see a lot of wire choreography with lots of CGI, the kicks and punches was slower considering their age. Nevertheless we were in heaven seeing the two fight each other (which drew a tie) and finally fought together.
If you are a fan of both martial arts actors, then watch this movie with caution, they are not in a Chinese Movie so don't expect so much. It's fiction so just accept their story line and be entertained by these two.
The story starts with action with the Monkey King losing his staff and turns into stone. The staff was lost to the middle kingdom (which is Earth) and found its way to an antique store in Boston, where a boy got a sight of it. When the antique store owner got shot, he bequeaths the staff to the boy with him asking him to "return the staff to its rightful owner"
Return he did. He went through the "Gate of No Gate" and went inside the Forbidden Kingdom. With a bit of awkwardness, he finally gets to return the staff and brings balance in the end. And he went back to the present day Boston by passing again the "Gate of No Gate".
Talk about geek power in the movie. The boy in the lead is obsessed with martial arts films that he knows which style of Kung Fu he sees. He's no practitioner so he's just an aficionado, so our hero is caught in a "fish out of water" scenario. Imagine a present day american going in rural china, does not know Kung Fu, does not speak Chinese and hes got a short amount of time to return the staff. Good thing we got two hours of movie time so our hero got lucky.
First luck is, he found the right people to help him right away. He found Lu Yan (played by Jackie Chan) in minutes after arriving in middle kingdom. A few minutes after, he found Golden Sparrow (played by Yifei Liu), then a few scenes after, Silent Monk (Played by Jet Li) who's not entirely silent at all. Talk about a lucky boy.
Second, he learned to understand and speak Chinese right away, or all the Chinese people learned to speak English. All it took was Lu Yan telling him to listen and try to understand. After that everyone was speaking English. It saved our hero much time to end the film on point. We were saved from reading subtitles.
Third, he learned two Kung Fu styles from two masters in minutes (in the film) and was able to fight enemies with great skills in Kung Fu. Martial arts is already hard yet he learned from two masters at the same time. I can't understand the fact that two masters conspired to teach one student. And he didn't pay for tuition. Talk about greatness. He might be "the one".
If you are into Chinese martial arts movies, this will truly disappoint you. The film makers "americanized" a Chinese classic - the Monkey King. I was hoping they could pull this one off, but sadly they failed. The actors were spot on except for the lead played by Jason Tripitikas. We simply can't connect him to his character, but his failure was not a major one compared to the story line which was "americanized".
It was great seeing Jackie Chan and Jet Li and both did carry the movie with their action scenes. They are old now so we saw their actions scenes toned down. Unlike when they were younger when they were jumping all around, in this film, we see a lot of wire choreography with lots of CGI, the kicks and punches was slower considering their age. Nevertheless we were in heaven seeing the two fight each other (which drew a tie) and finally fought together.
If you are a fan of both martial arts actors, then watch this movie with caution, they are not in a Chinese Movie so don't expect so much. It's fiction so just accept their story line and be entertained by these two.
