Touted at the time as the first movie to
star both Jackie Chan and Jet Li, The Forbidden Kingdom is about a traveler
from the modern day going back into Ancient China. His task is to return the staff to the Monkey
King. It is a fantasy epic and a fairly
decent one, if you like stories where the protagonist begins with no knowledge
but accumulates it throughout the journey to overcome the villain at the end,
then this movie is good. One of the
thing that does stand out is that while 99% of the cast is Asian, in order to
appeal to Western audiences the main character is not. Not saying that it is bad but it sticks out…
a lot. Otherwise, the numerous fight
scenes are good although you see that a few tends to rely on poor quality
CGI. The special effects were very
obvious and fake. The story’s pacing is
decent, spending just enough time to set it up and off it goes. It makes it easier to watch although the
final fight wasn’t as good as you would have hoped. It’s a fun movie and unique in its concept.
