Travel with me to the early ‘90s, kung fu style

Somehow, the pairing of Jackie Chan and Jet Li has never appealed to me as much as the paring of, say, De Niro and Pacino (I’m referring to “Heat” here, not the forthcoming “Righteous Kill”). Yet, apparently fanboys wanted the two martial arts icons to join forces and here they are, together for the first time, in Rob Minkoff’s placid, harmless “Forbidden Kingdom”. Here is a film with such mediocre effects and far-from-dazzling wirework that it’s hard to believe that it was released in 2008, and not 1993. “Forbidden Kingdom” is a (unintended?) throwback to the cheesy, insipid slap & kick movies of the early 1990s. Watching this, I was reminded not only of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” but also of the vastly superior ‘80s actioner “Big Trouble in Little China”. And knowing what Chan and Li are capable of, it’s hard to think of “Forbidden Kingdom” as anything but sub-par.

The story has something to do with a hero who doesn’t know he’s a hero; a drunken master; a silent monk; a white haired woman warrior with a whip; ancient immortals who take lunch breaks every 500 years; a magic staff and a Monkey King (also, embarrassingly, Jet Li). There is even a training montage where a character gets to know his inner warrior by exhibiting outer skill. And yes, someone actually says: “It has been foretold…” At first I thought that the film was conscious of its position in pop culture, but at the end I was not convinced. I suspect that all involved set out to make a film worthy of inclusion in the pantheon of martial arts movies, and failed.