FORBIDDEN KINGDOM: Two-thumbs up for me

I watched Forbidden Kingdom yesterday at Cinema 3 of Mall of Asia worth Php170.00 plus Php125.00 snack treat of Popcorn and soda. It started at 8:55pm and ends at around 11:00 in the evening.


Casts:

Jackie Chan (Lu Yan/Old Hop), Jet Li (Silent Monk/Monkey King), Collin Chou (Jade Warlord), Liu Yifei (Golden Sparrow), Li Bing Bing (Ni Chang) and Michael Angarano (Jason Tripitikas).

Directed by Rob Minkoff; written by John Fusco; director of photography, Peter Pau; edited by Eric Strand; music by David Buckley; action choreography by Yuen Wo Ping; production designer, Bill Brzeski; produced by Casey Silver; released by Lionsgate. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes.



New York Times Review
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: April 18, 2008
(http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/movies/18king.html)

At first glance “Forbidden Kingdom,” the first movie to unite the martial arts action stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li, might be mistaken for a pastiche of its genre. Its main character, a Boston teenager named Jason (Michael Angarano), is obsessed with kung fu cinema, and the ways of modern Hollywood might lead you to expect the filmmakers to mock, travesty or wink at this obsession.
Instead they — the screenwriter John Fusco and the director Rob Minkoff — clearly share it. And though it is an English-language film (albeit a heavily accented one), “Forbidden Kingdom” is a faithful and disarmingly earnest attempt to honor some venerable and popular Chinese cinematic traditions.

These include a plot that is at times so convoluted as to teeter on the brink of incomprehensibility, a heavy brocade of martial honor and blurry mysticism, and above all a lot of wildly inventive fighting. The battles were choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping, one of the supreme masters of the art, and shot by Peter Pau, whose credits as a cinematographer include “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

Filmed on Chinese locations and studio sets, the movie shows the lavish artificiality that is, in the currently booming Chinese film industry, a sign of authenticity. Mr. Chan made his name in scruffier, scrappier Hong Kong entertainments, but as he has aged into an international superstar, he has come to seem at home just about everywhere. Here he plays two roles: an elderly junk dealer in 21st-century Boston and an itinerant fighter, specializing in the “drunken fist” style of combat, in a mythic ancient China.

Mr. Li also plays two parts, both in the mythic past: the mischievous Monkey King (who uses — what else? — monkey kung fu fighting techniques) and a monk. After an inconclusive and thrilling battle — surely the high point of the movie — the monk and Mr. Chan’s character join forces to help Jason, who has been transported to their world by a magic staff that once belonged to the Monkey King.

An evil warlord (Collin Chou) stands in their way, as does a white-haired witch (Li Bing Bing). Accompanying the monk, the drunk and the kid from Boston is a young woman named Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei), a fearsome warrior in her own right, who seeks to avenge the death of her parents.

There is both a surfeit of motives and a dearth of momentum driving the narrative of “The Forbidden Kingdom,” which often drags in the expository sections between set pieces. But many of the set pieces are dazzling, even if, by now, audiences may be a bit jaded by high-flying wire work and artful blends of computer-generated imagery and traditional production design.

Still, the film works well enough as a primer for latecomers and a fix for insatiable martial arts lovers. If you’ve never seen a movie like this, it might satisfy your curiosity; if you can’t get enough of this kind of movie, nothing I say about it would keep you away.

“The Forbidden Kingdom” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has many action scenes, some of them fairly brutal.

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