The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)

I have always had a certain penchant for watching Kung-fu, be it live, tv shows or movies. In fact if I could change anything in my life, I would have decreased the time I spent in playing sports and reading and would have gave that time away to train in Kung-fu. The art of Kung-fu astonishes me. I love the movements, attitudes fights associates with Kung-fu. I have started to divert from the main topic right now. I have logged in mainly to discuss The Forbidden Kingdom, a Action/Fantasy/Kung-Fu movie. The movie stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li as a Kung-fu master and a monk respectively. A teenager, mostly living in daydream land is dragged into the esoteric world of China on a quest to save the imprisoned Monkey King.

The movie starts out with the introduction of a teenager who is lost in his dreams of Bruce Lee and Kung-fu dreaming that he will one day be a Kung-Fu expert. In reality, the teen is just a wimp, being beat up by bullies and wishing that life may be different for him. He seas an old man injured(who is actually the Jade Emperor) and sick in the Chinatown area and then goes into the nearby coffee-shop. Things take change abruptly from there. He finds himself teleported to a strange land accompanied with the beautiful Sparrow, the same girl he met at the coffee-shop whom he recognized. They then meet Jackie Chan, a homeless scholar, a master in Kung-Fu who teaches him the art of Kung-Fu. Accompanying them is the strange and stubborn monk (Jet Li). The quadruple encounter the villains, the white-haired assassin(I thought she was really cool) and The Jade Warlord. The quadruple then fight the antagonists to free the enslaved Monkey King.

The movie was quite entertaining and a good first time watch. The best part of the movie is probably the fight at the end of the movie. Chan's role however, as not as entertaining as his roles in more prominent movies. I would give this movie a rating of 6.5/10.