The Forbidden Kingdom Review
Saturday, May 31st, 2008 | Movies
Tags: forbidden kingdom, jackie chan, jet li, Movies, review
I think this movie is likely to generate different reviews from two different sets of viewers: viewers who take this movie as a shallow entertainment and viewers who expect a movie with depth and novelty. I am reviewing this movie from the latter, a Chinese viewer who is familiar with the original novel Journey to the West. Of course, if one judges this movie from the standpoint of the first set of viewers, I think the review is probably positive. We can simply disregard the fact that the plot of the movie is completely different from the original novel. It simply borrowed pieces from the novel and invented a story of its own. We can also ignore the fact why some characters in the movie are not able to understand Jason, while all the main characters miraculously became bilingual the moment they met Jason. However, I do not want to be too harsh on this part of the movie, after all the characters need to communicate with each other, so let’s just consider that in a fantasy world anything is possible.
Furthermore, all the characters felt dull and disconnected. Most importantly, they were never able to establish a strong chemistry between them. They felt like puppets of the director, just bumped into each other and each played their role accordingly. They were not convincing, and they definitely did not establish the bridge with the audience.
However, I can sort of see that this can be an entertaining movie for kids, or for those who are fascinated with Chinese martial arts. There are a lot of fancy fightings in the movie. For me, I wish I could just watch the part where Jet Li fights with Jackie Chan, and then simply skip the rest so I can do something else with the time.
June 01, 2008
8:33 pm on Sunday
this movie is great and the leading lady is super cute
June 02, 2008
11:14 am on Monday
I heard that Jet Li had said he would not make any more movies after making Fearless. I guess he changed his mind…
I have this movie in my Netflix queue; the trailer looked good. From you review, guess I shouldn’t expect much else.
June 02, 2008
12:08 pm on Monday
Yes, indeed, Jet Li did issue a statement like that after Fearless. But, we can never take celebrities’ words too serious, especially statements about retirements.
June 02, 2008
4:58 pm on Monday
I never paid much attention to Jet Li but after I saw Fearless, I really liked him because he seemed to have been so affected by the movie and said that movie was a reflection of himself and he also felt he has changed and did not plan to make any more movies, so I admired him for that…but now that he has changed his mind about making more movies…guess I’ve changed my mind about admiring him as well…what I admired about him is not there anymore…but I’m fine in seeing him in other movies too.
By the way, thanks for your recommendation on Atonement; we saw it and I thought it was pretty good. I’m still not a fan of Keira Knightley but I liked the story…I’m a sucker for unrequited love stories (;
June 03, 2008
1:35 am on Tuesday
Mona, I am glad you liked Atonement. Did you like the music in which the sound of typewriter is used? I thought that piece of music was excellent, it fit the movie perfectly and in a way it made the made better.
June 03, 2008
11:09 am on Tuesday
yeah, that was very cool (:
June 07, 2008
5:30 pm on Saturday
I didn’t like … it was too like karate kid style movie. Its not a good film.
Just ma 2 cent
June 10, 2008
6:05 am on Tuesday
The only part I quite enjoyed was the fight scene :)