Forbidden Kingdom sucked.

Yes. It sucked. And er yeah, minor spoiler warnings, I’ll put a warning if I’m about to reveal something major like Jackie Chan and Jet Li go brokeback on each other, I’m not really going to narrate the movie don’t worry.

"We had that much space for innovation? I had no idea!!!!!!"

Forbidden Kingdom was THE movie that put both Jackie Chan and Jet Li, TOGETHER in one movie. That alone was probably enough to make people want to watch the movie. The released trailer showed some dazzling fighting choreography as well as gratifying shots of the girls. I was a bit miffed with the language though but still…

A bunch of my friends and I got together at Glorietta 4 to watch the movie. The first few scene in the "real realm" were enough to pique our interest. The room of the protagonist was laden with Chinese paraphernalia which our gang tried madly to identify (we’re all Chinoys) and read. The next scene with the white dude (more on this later) foreshadowed how horrible and Western and boring the plot would be. Oh and, ensemble acting was horrible. Everything was UNORIGINAL. Considering that this was in the first few minutes of the flick, very very bad idea. I don’t know if that was some artsy way of depicting the dichotomy between that realm and the scenes set in China, it may have worked aesthetically, but content-wise, the script sucked.

So yeah, the movie progressed to the locations that you saw in the trailer. Pretty pretty scenery, very date-worthy shots :p. And……. the first few Chinese lines were WITHOUT subtitles. It wasn’t a problem for us (thankfully they were speaking in Mandarin and not Cantonese) the scenes were pretty self-explanatory but I’m pretty sure that there are probably some moviegoers who are like me and have some kind of a psychological disorder that requires them to hear and understand every single line in the movie who would have found that bit incensing.

Then… the ENGLISH. 
The ENGLISH was epic FAIL.

I have no idea how Jackie Chan and Jet Li could ever be fishes out of water in China. But heck this movie did the job! I’m not one to criticize their English, Jackie Chan was great in Rush Hour 1 and 2. Jet Li was great in Romeo Must Die. But for some reason putting two Chinese people who WON’T speak Chinese in a movie set in CHINA boggles the mind. It’s all that white kid’s fault. Horrible white kid, had to ruin everything!

The English was also unnatural. It was very clear that the script was written by a Westerner. It did not really lend itself to the cultural sensitivities of the Chinese language. You’ll get the impression when they start quoting the Dao De Jing (a philosophical text that most Chinese people hold as canon.)

Come forth white kid so Westerners won’t feel unrepresented! You see, the English and Chinese shift throughout the movie, I’m not that sure if the ""explanation" mentioned early in the movie was sufficiently philosophical to clarify whatever wtfuckery they had with the shifting languages. But all in all, the shifting languages just really, really threw me off.

Consider the scenes when the actors speak, for extended periods of time. Pay attention to one of the ladies, it looked like she had a mental checklist up there ticking off boxes whenever she delivered a line in English with proper diction and technique. It showed. And the white-haired lady’s lines struck me as being dubbed by someone else. I don’t know, it’s just a feeling I have. I’m not entirely sure nor did I bother to research.

Watching Jet Li say "No, FOOL!" was epic funny. The acting, the acting… was pretty good. Jackie Chan delivers as usual. And Jet Li, er major spoilers here so… let’s just say that he was all flavors of AWESOME! He depicted his "special" character very well and very accurately if you were to compare it to traditional depictions.

Of course, the fight choreography was dazzling! The training part was quite interesting too, if a bit corny as the movie really did emphasize the various fighting stances and techniques that were named after animals.

What was with the title anyway? Seriously, there wasn’t anything "forbidden" there anyway, and here we were making cracks at how epic it would be if someone were to make a "Forbidden Kingdom" R-18 movie ala Pirates (2005) [I only watched that because it was the best of the genre haha, honest!] But seriously, that’s a big idea right there if anyone wants to cash in on it. I want royalties!!!!! I can write the script :p

If the title of the movie were those characters in large golden-orange text, then the English translation would be "Kung Ku King" which would have had made more sense than "Forbidden Kingdom."

But as my friend says, "The plot was strictly better than The Transformers. Bad guys come to Earth,good guys kick bad guys’ asses. Happy ending." While I realize that Forbidden Kingdom, by the simple virtue of having Jackie Chan in it, could never have the mind-blowing impact of Hero or Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I still do not understand how badly they can screw up the script. Jackie has Rush Hour 1 and 2 as well as Shanghai Noon and Knights (sp?) all in all great movies that I would watch over and over again. Don’t get me wrong, Jackie was the same funny Jackie that you always see. An actor no matter how good can not bring an epic fail script to epic win movie.

All things considered, the movie was visually-appealing but severely lacking in originality and depth. I’d watch it once, then just forget it eventually like I did Rush Hour 3. (RANT: The trailers were really really good!)

Is it just me or is Hollywood trying to sabotage Jacky Chan’s career by giving him movies with crappy storylines?