Film review: The Forbidden Kingdom (2 stars)
Martial arts stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li have both made countless action films, but for whatever reason, their paths have never crossed onscreen until now.
While the two maintained a close friendship for years, they insisted over and over again that they were waiting for the right opportunity to collaborate - which makes it all the more bizarre that The Forbidden Kingdom finally brought them together.
Directed by Rob Minkoff (The Lion King), the story revolves around a dorky teenager (Michael Angarano) from South Boston who finds a magic bow in the back of a Chinese pawn shop, then gets sucked into a bucolic Asian dream world. There, he learns kung fu from a drunk immortal (Chan) and a snarky monk (Li), falls in love with a mandolin-strumming girl named Golden Sparrow (Yifei Liu), kills a white-haired witch, grows a Chuck Norris mullet, conquers the Jade Warlord and returns the bow to its rightful owner, the Monkey King (also Li), so that peace can be restored once and for all.
Is your brow furrowing yet?
It should be, because this ends up feeling like a jarring mash-up of Enter the Dragon, The Karate Kid and Mortal Kombat, but with a sunshine-and-rainbows aesthetic. The story is at once predictable and utterly confusing, and it's sewn haphazardly together with a fraying thread of empty proverbs like, "It is said that music is a bridge between Earth and Heaven." (And yes, the next line is, "That's beautiful.")
While on its surface, the film appears to be targeting a family audience, there are more than a few morally questionable moments - some scenes involve a racially inappropriate costume or makeup decision, for instance, whereas others will feature lazy gender stereotypes. One particularly offensive scene shows Li's character urinating directly on Chan's face as he prays for rain in the desert.
Chan himself has said in interviews that he wasn't impressed with the screenplay of The Forbidden Kingdom - really, who would be impressed with a script including the direction, "Monk pees on Immortal's face"? - and only accepted the role for the chance to work with Li (why Li took on the project to begin with, though, is anyone's guess).
At 54, Chan, who first made it big in North America in the popular Rush Hour films, deserves some credit for a handful of decent fight sequences - these were choreographed by Woo-Ping Yuen of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame, as is evident by the glut of computer-generated aerial work. But compared with the intensely powerful work found in recent films like Ong-Bak and The Protector, a couple of speedy blocks, spinning-hook kicks and the token praying mantis pose is hardly impressive.
As these two action heroes get closer and closer to the 100-film career mark - Chan, at No. 95, is closest - they prove they've still got what it takes to throw entertaining punches. But if their standards keep slipping like this, they'll both be punching their way straight to video.
