An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself travelling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.
martial arts fantasy martial arts based on novel or book temple legend villainess time travel fistfight shaolin tempel urination east asian lead staff medieval wuxia warrior action hero
burnhill reviewed The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
Jet Li & Jackie Chan saves
Jet Li and Jackie Chan in the same movie. Watcher's are given exactly what they want. Very nice martial artistic scenes from both of them and yes, they are also fighting each other. At the beginning of the movie the scenery reminded me awfully a lot of Fearless which I think is one of the best movies I've seen so far. Unfortunately this isn't as good as Fearless, not even close.
A teenager (Michael Angarano) who's obsessed with Kun-Fu movies makes discovery in a local movie rental - golden stick belong to legendary warrior, the Monkey King. After this bizarre discovery our hero -_-' unexpectedly finds himself traveling back to ancient China. His task is to return the staff to it's rightful owner and during his journey he meets great martial artists who helps him to fulfil his destiny...
I was really annoyed by Michael Angarano even though he did somewhat decent job. I don't think that anyone else would have done any better at the role he was given. The whole manuscript for this movie was a compelete disappointment for me. I hope that we'll see Chan and Li in the same movie which is actually good (storywise) in the future. Even though the plot isn't anything there are couple great aspects in this movie: Chan & Li. I don't like the wires, but they still manage to make excellent scenes. Once again they show their talent as a martial artists. Few bonus stars from me for that. As a movie The Forbidden Kingdom is pretty mediocre. I might watch it again, but if you seek a great action movie with martial artistic scenes Fearless is what you're looking for.