I'm REALLY looking forward to this movie. Not normally a Jackie Chan fan, but Jet Li I dig.
Thank you for the link all I can say is HOLY C***!!!!
Sorry but did anyone else get images of a live action Exalted movie when watching that trailer?
Stormriders was the last movie that had that effect, but dear god Jackie Chan AND Jet Li in the same movie!!!
Looks like a humdinger in the making!
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...did anyone else get images of a live action Exalted movie when watching that trailer?
Stormriders was the last movie that had that effect, but dear god Jackie Chan AND Jet Li in the same movie!!!
I'm currently reading a bunch of Exalted rule books, I didn't even make that connection. However, now I'll start using that imagery in my mind while reading... :)
(I usually think of the kung fu movie in terms of Champions or Providence or Feng Shui types of terms.)There have been several movies since Stormriders with those effects, I think the last one released in the U.S. was Warriors of Zu. (I know I've seen more foreign kug fu movies recently that re-released american ones...)
Month +2 to go... wwwwooooo!
Wow! That looks awesome! Thanks for some great linkage!
Good: Jack Chan! Jet Li! Cool! Also, I have to say the white-haired bounty hunter has got "awesome villian" written all over it - I could easily see making her a recurring character in a campaign. I haven't been this excited about a kung-fu type film since Hero. Overall, just looks stunning.
Bad: OK - so apparently "Jason" (the kid they train) arrives in China via some kind of mystic time-travel as the "destined" one. In other words, he's a modern teenager hanging out with legendary/mythic figures to save the world! This looks like it was done to appeal to an American/Western audience and just smacks of commercial pandering to me. It may be no big deal, but I just can't help but get that feeling that it may become too cliche'd or trite as result of trying too hard.
Also, would anyone in ancient China actually refer to their martial arts as Kung Fu? I know its taken out of context, but that was the one thing that seemed a little strange verbage...I know I'm splitting hairs here...just kinda struck with me.
Sorry to put a dark cloud on this; because overall I am really excited about it. Carry on!
PPS - is it supposed to be OMG!! OGM makes me think this was some reference to Open Gaming Module...;-)
(j/k)
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Just saw the movie, and I think it was lots of fun. Some of the acting was eh, especially from Jason and Sparrow (the cute musician girl), with the best from Jackie Chan and Jet Li. The action and plot is EXTREMELY overblown (especially the opening sequence with Son Wukong versus the Jade warriors), but it's so fun to watch that I didn't actually care.
Plus: Jackie Chan as Jason's mentor, the Drunken Immortal ("You want to learn kung fu? *whap!* That was called a strike. Tomorrow, I'll show you how to block."); the friction between the Drunken Immortal and the Nameless Monk (the rain scene is a classic ^_^); good ol' overblown wire fu special effects; great fight scenes.
Bad: Some of the acting, especially by Jason; bad accents by villains makes it hard to take seriously; no outtake reel (in a Jackie Chan movie?!? No way!)
Anyways, it's not Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (for one, it's less boring), but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I saw it and loved it. I am a very fussy guy when it comes to movie plots, and I get turned off very quickly by things like logical inconsistencies and hollywoodisation. This movie set out it's groundrules very early on, and stuck to them. Considering the budget and scope, there were a few populist cliches thrown in, but the film was still the best fantasy movie of the year. As an old Oriental adventures fan, I loved it. It was smarter than it seemed from the trailer. The kid was only annoying in the beginning, and as he learned, he matured. Go and see this movie. Let the studio freaks know that we like intelligence in our action, and that respect for source material goes a long way with geeks. This is a fantasy movie that will still be a favourite years from now. Awesome tribute to the Kung Fu movie legacy, with a real and vibrant setting, and great comic moments.
I expected formulaic crap and found a new favourite. This does for martial arts movies what Spider-man and Hellboy did for superhero titles.
I saw it and loved it. I am a very fussy guy when it comes to movie plots, and I get turned off very quickly by things like logical inconsistencies and hollywoodisation. This movie set out it's groundrules very early on, and stuck to them. Considering the budget and scope, there were a few populist cliches thrown in, but the film was still the best fantasy movie of the year. As an old Oriental adventures fan, I loved it. It was smarter than it seemed from the trailer. The kid was only annoying in the beginning, and as he learned, he matured. Go and see this movie. Let the studio freaks know that we like intelligence in our action, and that respect for source material goes a long way with geeks. This is a fantasy movie that will still be a favourite years from now. Awesome tribute to the Kung Fu movie legacy, with a real and vibrant setting, and great comic moments.
I expected formulaic crap and found a new favourite. This does for martial arts movies what Spider-man and Hellboy did for superhero titles.
Well said I agree with you completely. Also loved that they made fun of themself and kung fu movies in general. Great movie will be a long time favorite.
Fizz
As many have said before me, The Forbidden Kingdom is quite entertaining. But, I feel I must say that while watching it I couldn't shake the feeling of it being a mad combination of The Never-Ending Story and The Karate Kid.
One review I read compared it as a variation on Last Action Hero, with the Kung-fu/Martial Arts' cliches and themes replacing gun-toting action heroes and urban landscapes. He mentioned it might have been called "Last Kung-fu Hero" instead of the Forbidden Kingdom.
I really enjoyed the movie - the beautiful action sequences combined with the mythical qualities that are evoked really made it appeal to me. It's a movie I'll probably go see again just to get a few of my friends to watch it. However, I'll admit that I did agree with one thing the reviewer said:
" Most people are very surprised...they had no idea there was a kid involved at all. That's because the TV spots left that detail out after the poor response the original teaser and trailer received. Instead of focusing on what the story is about, the TV spots centered around the fact that Jet Li and Jackie Chan are in a movie together. This is yet another example of trailers giving a false impression of how a film is really going to play out."
If I hadn't read something about this before going to see the movie, I would have been equally surprised. When I found out that tangent of the movie, I'll admit I was more hesitant - but my disappoint was minimal after watching the movie.
Something I should mention, though, is that I saw a different version to all of you. I saw the Chinese version, which has the characters speaking Mandarin through most of the movie. The parts in the 'real world' were in English, but once he is summoned to the Kingdom, everything reverts to Chinese. The western kid did his own lines, and did them damn well. I understand from seeing the trailer on apple.com, that the western version has everyone speaking English through the whole film. I loved watching the movie like it was a classic gong fu film, in Mandarin with subtitles. Definitely the way to see it. Jackie is way better at acting in Chinese than in English. Something a language purist can appreciate, is that the Mandarin was influenced by period. The Jason character had modern Mandarin, with a Cantonese twist, and the others spoke classical Mandarin. Beautiful.
Out of curiosity, did Sparrow refer to herself as in the third person, as "she" until she was released from her vow of vengeance? In the English version, I mean.
Out of curiosity, did Sparrow refer to herself as in the third person, as "she" until she was released from her vow of vengeance? In the English version, I mean.
Yes she did refer to herself in third person up until the end.
Fizz
Cool better see this.
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My wife and I both loved this movie. I'm not usually one to give a gushing review, but this was well worth the price of admission. I found Jet Li's character to be at least as funny as Chan's, which I really did not expect.
I also appreciated the western-style 'romance' part of Jason's adventure was not over-the-top sappy or disney-esque in its ending.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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As many have said before me, The Forbidden Kingdom is quite entertaining. But, I feel I must say that while watching it I couldn't shake the feeling of it being a mad combination of The Never-Ending Story and The Karate Kid.
After seeing it last night, my wife made this exact correlation, even having never seen this thread. Creepy.
So, I took my wife to see Baby Mama which she loved. It was quite funny and just right considering she's pregnant with our fist child together. (I say it like that as I do have a 7 year old daughter that lives with us - but it's like it's all new all over again...)
She's 9 weeks and earlier in the day we had an ultrasound.. saw the "naked molerat" as she lovingly calls the picture and heard the heartbeat.
Then... on an impulse.. we snuck into The Forbidden Kingdom as we both love Jackie Chan and Jet Li. However, we left shortly after Jason was whacking the weeds with the staff. Jason was awful. Very awful and I felt Chan and Li, although they were trying very hard, couldn't save it.
So, although I didn't spend the $14 matinee prices to see it with her.. I'm very glad I didn't. I'll probably watch it again on DVD.
And that was a lot of information in a round-a-bout way just to say I didn't like the movie.
:D
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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This movie has joined Princess Bride, Time Bandits, and some others in my collection of astonishingly good, favorite movies.
I liked the way that once Jason meets the street gang, he's out of his depth, but in different ways and to different degrees. I think it could have been a one-note performance, but that Mike Angarano did a good job of nuance there.
I liked the solution to the language issue. "I ... can't ... understand ... you!"
Both Jet Li and Jackie Chan were double-cast. When Mike Myers or Eddie Murphy is multiply-cast, it's a stunt. ("He's also the barber!!") Here, there's a real reason for each.
We'd seen that Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, can create duplicates. So it was hinted, through the casting, that the Silent Monk was just such a doppelganger. Likewise, it was hinted that Hop, the Boston shopkeeper, was The Drunken Immortal.
I saw Iron Man a couple days ago. It was nice. But Forbidden Kingdom is much more.
This movie has joined Princess Bride, Time Bandits, and some others in my collection of astonishingly good, favorite movies.
Don't forget Stardust!
[...]and The Karate Kid.
Sorry to be so negative, but this movie was just terrible, and yes, it had all the cliches from The Karate Kid packed into it, along with every other martial arts/wuxia/westerner in China/comeback kid cliche every invented. The acting was abysmal, with the possible exception of Li's madcap Monkey King, and the dialogue was painful. Sure, the action scenes were decent, but in that respect I'll take Hero or House of Flying Daggers any day.