I just got back from seeing The Forbidden Kingdom. I really had some skepticisms during the opening scene... but the movie sorted itself straight away. Really neat storyline, a whole lot of fights. I'm a big Jackie Chan and Michael Angarano fan, and seeing them together was a treat.
What I was really into was all of the Drunken Masters references in the movie. I'm not so much into the wire work, even though I should still respect it as an art form. I did find that it didn't bother me too much because of the storyline and circumstances with immortal beings. Another problem was with the wig one character wore. If you have enough money to produce a movie with this much CGI, I'm sure you can afford a wig that looks more natural than this. She looked like she just walked out of a Anime Convention.
During the movie I couldn't help thinking about the future of Kung Fu movies, if CGI and wire fighting has won once and for all. It's not like Jackie Chan is a spry young man anymore, but I really long for the fight scenes with a longer camera angle so you can tell that what you are seeing was properly choreographed and pulled off. At times this movie gave me a bit of a sensory overload with all of the CGI and fast angle changes.
Overall this movie did it's job. It pulled together elements from many classic Martial Arts films and combined it with the style of more recent ones. Very entertaining. The costumes were beautiful and even moreso the shooting locations in China.
B+
I want to see it again soon.
Martial Arts films make me teary-eyed because I miss karate so much.
