While watching Forbidden Kingdom, I couldn’t help shake the feeling like it could have been much better if it weren’t for the…well, the story. I mean, Jackie Chan and Jet Li together in a movie is enough to get me to the movie, and their fight scenes (particularly the one they did together) were really cool. It’s just the rest of it wasn’t anything to write home about. This movie felt like The Neverending Story plus The Karate Kid, and while I didn’t exactly hate the guy who played The Seeker (a.k.a. “the white guy that audiences can cling to during the martial arts adventure”), he did nothing for the story. You could have taken him out of the movie, have Jackie Chan and Jet Li (and Liu Yi Fei, who was cute and kicked butt) go on the adventure themselves, and it would have been just as good. Maybe even better. All in all, it was a tepid Westernized version of what could have been a really cool martial arts movie, even if the stars are a little past their prime fighting shape. Worth it if you like Li and/or Chan, but that’s probably it.

My Kung-Fu weekend, part one:

Bullied, kung fu obsessed teenager finds ancient/magical staff and is transported to an ancient, mystical kingdom ruled by the tyrant Jade Warlord. Meets up with some nifty hero-types, learns how to be an amazing martial artist in about 20 minutes, and… ye-es. Okay, so the story is (a) a bit rubbish and unoriginal, and (b) totally predictable.

On the other hand, Jackie Chan fighting Jet Li!!!! Obviously not going to be true, but couldn’t help but think they just put the two of them on the set and said, “Right, on you go – we’ll make sure and slow the film down when you’re done.” :)

‘Tis a slight shame such an occasion was in the middle of so sipid an adventure, but it wasn’t that bad – a few too many shades of Karate Kid, perhaps, but at least it was a relatively unannoying ‘teenager’ (he’s 20-odds, and apparently more famous that I’d recognise) and the bulk of the film was given over to long fight scenes – which may not be such a good thing to you, but it was exactly what I’d hoped for, really.

Overall… a rather Westernised, teenaged, slightly comedic version of the Crouching Tiger / Hero / House of Flying Daggers style of things, with a hefty dose of fantasy and Monkey Magic thrown in.