I don’t mean to sound racist, but this is pretty much a revival of the standard Hollywood Orientalist affair. You have to give the filmmakers props for actually forming a movie around such a classic story like Journey to the West, but at the same time it totally makes a mockery of it to anyone who actually knows the story.

On the positive, The Forbidden Kingdom has some great action – as usual – from Yuen Woo-Ping, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Colin Chou. The fight sequences are all done well, though in typical Hollywood fashion (flashy movements, quick cuts, occasional slow-motion), and come at a pretty leisurely pace to keep your attention. Unfortunately, that’s all I really liked about the film.

My biggest gripe has to be the story. First off, if you’re billing this as a Jackie Chan/Jet Li film, why include such a meaningless character like the white kid? He has no place in a movie like this, and the whole narrative built around him somehow being in ancient China is staggering and reminiscent of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III – which was also a pretty stupid idea. And the fact that he turns out to be the hero of the whole film seems ridiculous. Don’t even get me started on the whole Tripitaka thing.

Another problem was the language, as usual. Somehow, the major Chinese characters all know how to speak accented English, making them sound incredibly stiff and fake. As much as I love seeing Jackie Chan and Jet Li getting a break by being in an American film, they sound terrible in this. And by far Colin Chou was the worst. Of course, none of this is their fault; if the average American moviegoer was willing to read subtitles then we could skip the whole fiasco (which probably would’ve meant the white kid could’ve been left out too).

As a fan of real Asian cinema The Forbidden Kingdom is actually pretty cringe-worthy. Instead of creating a nice hybridity between Asian cinema and Hollywood, Hollywood instead finds a way to stamp a dominant ideology onto the film. And pretty blatantly too. Definitely not a movie I’d want to watch again, though I’m sure most regular moviegoers won’t see a single thing wrong with this.

Sigh.

The Forbidden Kingdom is amazing and worth consuming. A flawless victory. Nuff said.