Kung fu hustled
Film Review: "The Forbidden Kingdom"
By Thomas Delapa
Fort Collins Now
1:05 a.m. MT Apr 18, 2008
As notable screen pairings go, it won't go down in history with Tracy and Hepburn, Bogart and Bacall or even Starsky and Hutch. No, little grasshopper, the teaming of martial-arts stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li in The Forbidden Kingdom is equal parts kung fooey and kung fu.
Martial-arts fans may be forgiven for kicking up a fuss with the opening of Kingdom, an ambitious East-meets-West fantasy that tries to cross Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with The Karate Kid. Not only are Li and Chan on hand, but so is Crouching Tiger's famed fight choreographer, Woo-Ping Yuen.
Director Rob Minkoff bends over backward for American audiences, pushing his two stars aside to make way for Jason (Michael Angarano), a Boston teen hassled by killer bullies. In retreat, Jason stumbles upon an ancient Chinese secret—an enchanted staff—that sends him hurtling back in time to, well, ancient China. He's befriended by Lu Yan (Chan), a tipsy kung fu master who keeps a wine flask hidden under his black belt.
In their bows to commercial pressure, Chan and Li undercut their own legendary talents. In Chan's American hits from Rumble in the Bronx to Shanghai Noon and the Rush Hour series, he didn't pull any punches, letting his cat-like leaps, slapstick stunts and fists of fury do the talking. But here he and Li are given an unnecessary leg up with the help of special effects. The effects—like wire choreography—are fluidly integrated into the fighting, but that's the problem. You can't tell the fake from the real.
In any language, Kingdom's featherweight storyline would stumble in translation. Staff in hand, Jason must help deliver the land from the clutches of the Jade Warlord (Collin Chou), who's imprisoned the benevolent Monkey King in a statue. Jason's A-team includes a vengeful girl (Liu Yifei) accessorized with a lethal hairpin. On the way to the warlord's mountain lair, they add a serene and steely monk (Li) who looks suspiciously like the Monkey King.
Considering that Li and Chan are the two biggest Asian martial-arts stars, you might imagine that any pre-production fighting was to answer the question, “Who gets to play the hero?” The answer is that both do, and the movie takes a fall as a result. Smarmy and stiff as the villain, the Jade Warlord is no gem. At his side is a white-haired witch (Li Bing Bing) with a whip, who at least breaks Minkus' spell of indifferent casting.
When they first meet, Chan and Li go toe-to-toe in a preliminary bout, which seems like a good omen for things to come. Once they buddy up, they give the kid his first lesson, pummeling him in a funny scene that shows off the pair's lightning-quick reflexes.
But Forbidden Kingdom loses its magic by the time the heroes finally ascend to the warlord's Oz-like palace. Other than as a punching bag, the potato-faced Angarano displays no visible talents. But he takes center-stage for a Chinese free-for-all that looks imported from the cheesy kingdom of Ultimate Fighting.
