Forbidden Kingdom

I went to a press screening of The Forbidden Kingdom today in London.

The film's claim to fame is it's the first time Jet Li and Jackie Chan have appeared in the same film together.

It's also based on the Chinese folklore of Monkey which a lot of New Zealanders and Australians grew up with in the classic TV series (queue singing of the theme song "Monkey magic, Monkey magic...") made by the Japanese and dubbed into English.

Despite all that, my hopes weren't high. The movie was actually an American production, with a lot of wire work, and with a (potentially) irritating kid in the lead with a plot aimed at younger people and kids. I went along expecting the worst.

I was pleasantly surprised. We have Jackie Chan back to his most fun - showing off his mischievous "drunken" style of martial arts. His "cheekiness" is superb. Here his age wasn't a liability (he's 54 now and even Jackie Chan needs a break) and he wasn't nearly as "square" as his recent American films. It was worth seeing the film just for him.

Jet Li's main role was quite restrained compared to recent roles but he also starred as the Monkey King - and had a lot of fun with that. I couldn't help wondering if they'd seen the Japanese TV series too.

Like most films of this type we had 2 beautiful Chinese actresses - both who could kick most people's asses. The bad guy was also well done and since it was obviously aimed at a younger audience, his "evilness" wasn't ramped up just to be gruesome (something that should be considered by the directors of most movies) but he did look very competent.

The movie did depend on the (potentially) irritating kid. At an initial look I thought we were going to get the equivalent of Samwise Gamgee trying to learn kung-fu but it turned out Michael Angarano (who has an impressive CV for a 20 year old) was able to act subtly and to look like he might stand a chance in a fight (I don't know how much he trained for this but he looked capable enough at the end). I also liked how his character's name was Jason Tripitikas - having remembered the buddhist priest from the TV show, although that's enough to screw up the sexuality of most kids - the (male) priest was played by a hot looking Japanese actress!

We fortunately didn't get the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe effect where the kids somehow can defeat professional fighters when they haven't got any tangible skills and have just picked up a sword.

The film was good - I'd give it a 7 out of 10 - and is worth going to see (or wait for the DVD). It's good for kids and adults. It made me pop into HMV to pick up a martial arts DVD (oddly no Jackie or Jet - I picked up Chow Yun Fat in Curse of the Golden Flower).