The Forbidden Kingdom

[Lil' Bitch 0]

So I just went to see it today, it's basically touted as an epic since this is the first time that I know of that Jackie Chan and Jet Li have been in the same film together. Now, Jackie's films and Jet's films are radically different in style (Jackie relies on slapstick humor and his penchant for stunt work in his films, whereas Jet relies on a lot of wire stunts and a lot of his films are more serious in tone as opposed to Jackie's films) So seeing two worlds collide on film seemed very surreal on paper for a long time martial arts buff like myself, but a lot of fans of either Jet or Jackie just wanted to see how two martial arts legends with two radically different styles of movies would blend together. I'm glad to say it pleases both fans of either actor.

 

First off, the movie is basically about

some stupid kid who gets knocked out during a botched robbery in the present and gets sucked into ancient China in order to return the lost staff of the Monkey King/Lei Wukong/Son Goku/Son Son/Whatever and has to go and return it to him before the Jade Dragon King steals it for his own agenda There's a little story about that kid coming of age and learning Kung Fu from Jackie and Jet, but c'mon, we all came to see Jackie and Jet team up, not some boy we don't give a shit about. Lucky for the writers, they feel our pain.

 

Jackie's character seems to be basically the master character from his classic film Drunken Master, hell, he even does his classic moves from Drunken Master in this film! Although in the beginning of the film Jackie seems to be the main attraction, he literally becomes the second banana to Jet after Jet shows up. I swear to God that when Jackie teaches the kid Kung Fu, he's basically redoing the training scenes from Drunken Master all over again, only this time he's the teacher, not the student.

 

Jet's character on the other hand might be based somewhat on his character from Fist of Legend, although I can't be sure. Basically, Jet screws up his lines a lot as opposed to Jackie (Probably a product of Jackie having more experience in American films than Jet) But Jet does get some awesome action in the film. I think to balance out Jackie having to do a lot of wire fu at the expense of Jet, Jet had to do some funny comedy bits at the expense of Jackie.

 

Considering that both Jackie and Jet get equal billing in this film (Hell, they even fight each other! Bonus!) And despite the stupidity of that kid, it is a great film and it's awesome for fans of either actor.