BethanyThe Forbidden Kingdom: Not What I Thought
September 13th 2008 01:21
This movie just came out on DVD here (Tuesday, as a matter of fact) and we watched it. My boyfriend picked it up and we sat down and watched it- and maybe I missed this in the trailer, but we sat down expecting... something else. I guess we thought it was some kind of martial arts epic.
Michael Angarino stars as Jason Tripitikas, a dorky skinny white dude who's way into old Kung Fu movies. He goes to an old pawn shop run by Old Hop (Jackie Chan in make-up). While he's in the middle of getting his scrawny white ass roundly beaten by the gang of larger 'mean boys', he's knocked off a building... and into feudal Japan. Or something- I guess maybe it's the Forbidden Kingdom, it kind of reminded me of the Celestial Bureaucracy in the video game Jade Empire, if you've played that you probably get what I mean.
Oh and he had this special bronze staff that looked like it was molded from plastic, Old Hop wanted him to return it to it's owner.
As Jason sets out, trying to find out where the heck he is, or even someone who speaks English, the village he's in is attacked. He runs and is quickly overcome by soldiers on horseback, and then up the road laying on a donkey and stinking drunk comes Jackie Chan.
Yes, Jackie Chan is yet again playing a drunken fighter.
Lu Yan (Chan) quickly interrupts and then soundly whoops everyone's tail. He tells Jason the origin of the staff, all about the Monkey King (Jet Li) who had this magical staff. They're then attacked by Jade Soldiers again, and after a bit of whooping the movie's Pretty Young Thing comes to their rescue.
PYT is called Golden Sparrow, played by Yifei Lu and blindingly obvious love interest. She also speaks in the third person, and will say things like "It was her mother's," which was mildly annoying. Jason finds out that Lu Yan is the Drunken Immortal, and that wine is his Elixir (every immortal has one, apparently). Then they're accosted by the Silent Monk, ALSO played by Jet Li, who swipes the staff (bo?) and so Lu Yan goes after it, resulting in a fight between the two.
The four set out to return the staff to the rightful owner (Monkey King), training Jason along the way (oh yes, there's totally a montage) and adventures ensue.
This movie is really cheesy. The plot is predictable as heck- I was saying dialog before it was spoken. I was laying out plot points well before they occurred. It was silly, sillier than most Jackie Chan movies, and I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be self-aware. All the mention of Kung Fu movies in the beginning, the cheesiness of everything that goes on. It's really entertaining though, and has the two important things. One: it's cute, has some good quirks, is fairly amusing (especially if you take all the cheese into account. Two: it has lots of really cool looking fighting, some of it involving a hot villainess with white hair and a whip.
It's worth checking out, amusing enough, my only REAL quibble is the inconsistency of who speaks English and why they speak it. I mean, Lu Yan is the Drunken Immortal and might have had some inkling that someone like Jason was coming- but why does Golden Sparrow speak it? Eh, well, it's visually interesting with lots of fights and you can check it, but you also can go rent a whole bunch of old dubbed kung fu movies and maybe lose the 'karate kid' plot device.
Your choice.
Michael Angarino stars as Jason Tripitikas, a dorky skinny white dude who's way into old Kung Fu movies. He goes to an old pawn shop run by Old Hop (Jackie Chan in make-up). While he's in the middle of getting his scrawny white ass roundly beaten by the gang of larger 'mean boys', he's knocked off a building... and into feudal Japan. Or something- I guess maybe it's the Forbidden Kingdom, it kind of reminded me of the Celestial Bureaucracy in the video game Jade Empire, if you've played that you probably get what I mean.
Oh and he had this special bronze staff that looked like it was molded from plastic, Old Hop wanted him to return it to it's owner.
As Jason sets out, trying to find out where the heck he is, or even someone who speaks English, the village he's in is attacked. He runs and is quickly overcome by soldiers on horseback, and then up the road laying on a donkey and stinking drunk comes Jackie Chan.
Yes, Jackie Chan is yet again playing a drunken fighter.
Lu Yan (Chan) quickly interrupts and then soundly whoops everyone's tail. He tells Jason the origin of the staff, all about the Monkey King (Jet Li) who had this magical staff. They're then attacked by Jade Soldiers again, and after a bit of whooping the movie's Pretty Young Thing comes to their rescue.
PYT is called Golden Sparrow, played by Yifei Lu and blindingly obvious love interest. She also speaks in the third person, and will say things like "It was her mother's," which was mildly annoying. Jason finds out that Lu Yan is the Drunken Immortal, and that wine is his Elixir (every immortal has one, apparently). Then they're accosted by the Silent Monk, ALSO played by Jet Li, who swipes the staff (bo?) and so Lu Yan goes after it, resulting in a fight between the two.
The four set out to return the staff to the rightful owner (Monkey King), training Jason along the way (oh yes, there's totally a montage) and adventures ensue.
This movie is really cheesy. The plot is predictable as heck- I was saying dialog before it was spoken. I was laying out plot points well before they occurred. It was silly, sillier than most Jackie Chan movies, and I'm pretty sure it was supposed to be self-aware. All the mention of Kung Fu movies in the beginning, the cheesiness of everything that goes on. It's really entertaining though, and has the two important things. One: it's cute, has some good quirks, is fairly amusing (especially if you take all the cheese into account. Two: it has lots of really cool looking fighting, some of it involving a hot villainess with white hair and a whip.
It's worth checking out, amusing enough, my only REAL quibble is the inconsistency of who speaks English and why they speak it. I mean, Lu Yan is the Drunken Immortal and might have had some inkling that someone like Jason was coming- but why does Golden Sparrow speak it? Eh, well, it's visually interesting with lots of fights and you can check it, but you also can go rent a whole bunch of old dubbed kung fu movies and maybe lose the 'karate kid' plot device.
Your choice.
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