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Rating: 7 stars

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good vs evil martial arts Kung fu hero quest training Hong Kong female martial artist monkey king

All movies seen on 12/11/2022

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The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)

Directed by Rob Minkoff

Fantasy | Action | Adventure

Overview

An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself travelling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.

Rated PG-13 | Length 104 minutes

Actors

Jackie Chan | Jet Li | Michael Angarano | Liu Yifei | Li Bingbing | Collin Chou | Morgan Benoit | Jack Posobiec | Thomas McDonell | Juana Collignon | Zhi Ma Gui | Shen Shou He | Bin Jiang | Shaohua Yang | Yu Yuan Zeng | David William No | Sam Wong Ming-Sing

Viewing History (seen 2 times)

Viewing Notes

Another one of those occasions where time and literally thousands of movies watched since has affected my opinion of the movie. I’m not about to say this is a great movie but I quite enjoyed most of what it’s putting out.

Credit where credit is due: these producers got Jet and Jackie in a movie together for the first time, something even Golden Harvest could not do even with both in their stable. These producers got Yuen Woo-ping (thx to Jet’s insistence) for the action direction and frankly he should’ve been given the movie to direct (he was given an executive producer title). These producers got Peter Pau as DP; Pau shot Crouching Tiger among other wushu films like Bride with White Hair. These producers cast Collin Chou in his usual villain role but also cast Li Bingbing as a villain against type. These producers cast Liu Yifei as her star was beginning to rise (and she’s way better here than in Mulan).

I’ve seen Collin Chou so much recently including last night bc he’s often cast as the big bad and is great being bad. The Jet vs Jackie fight is fun but a sad reminder of all the years wasted where we should’ve had a legit team up when they were in their prime and not past it like in this movie. To Woo-ping’s credit he can still make this sequence look good. Li Bingbing as the white-haired witch is inspired casting and she looks like she’s into the role plus she’s stunning as ever.

Now the bad. I hate all the Hollywood white savior hero journey bullshit slapped on top of the even more annoying king fu fanboyism. It’s really gross to see it play out amidst these legends of HK cinema. It’s tacky and yellow feverish especially forcing a romantic interest between the kid and Golden Sparrow. The entire story just reads as white boy wish fulfillment. As awful as all that is, I’ve seen worse movies from Jet and Jackie. At least here they got a say in the production. From the all too brief interviews both seem like they are controlling the direction of the movie, which made me happy despite the studio forcing this movie into a conventional Hollywood box.

I’d love to see a director’s cut or Woo-ping cut that has more of Jet and Jackie goofing around and riffing off each other. Kept thinking of what a missed opportunity not getting these two in a movie together in the ‘90s; Jackie as his usual cop character and Jet as a secret agent or FBI type that puts them at odds on the same case until they have to team up. Oh what could’ve been!

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