Cast: Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Michael Angarano
Director: Rob Minkoff
Writer: John Fusco
Genre: Action / Adventure
- Anupama Chopra, Consulting Editor, Films
A Kung-fu obsessed teenager in South Boston finds the magic staff of the Monkey King in a Chinese pawn shop, enters the gate that is not a gate and finds himself in ancient China, where he fights the Jade Warlord in The Forbidden Kingdom and rescues the Monkey King. Did you get that?
Don’t worry about it. This convoluted story is merely an excuse to team up the world’s two greatest martial arts superstars Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Chan plays a drunken Kung fu master and Li is a silent monk and when they fight it is pure magic.
The ballet like, soaring action has been choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping who is also the executive producer on the film. Ping, who became an international action star with his work on The Matrix movies and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, creates some classic set piece sequences including one in which several dozen spears raise themselves and fly toward the Monkey King who expertly deflects each one. It’s absolutely smashing.
What’s also fun is the easy camaraderie between Li and Chan. This is the equivalent of Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan sparring against each other. But there is no sense of rivalry or scene stealing.
They are superbly comfortable and secure in their superstardom. The film’s American hero Michael Angarano is banal as is half-baked mysticism around his coming of age. But just ignore that.
The Forbidden Kingdom is comic-book fun. It’s a necessary diversion on a weekend when screens seem soaked with bad Hindi movies. Watch it.
Source: NDTV
http://sadiq1988kakarblogfa.com
2008-06-30 @ 23:59