The Forbidden Kingdom

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Director Rob Minkoff (The Lion King) and writer Jon Fusco (Young Guns) do their best to inject humour into this kung fu escapade, but the irony is that if they took their film a little more seriously The Forbidden Kingdom might have been a lot more fun. In a plot that misses the '80s something rotten, teenage kung fu fan Jason (Tom Hulce look-a-like Angarano) is given a magical staff by an old man, which transports him to ancient China with a mission to return the staff to its rightful owner, The Monkey King (Li) - turned to stone centuries before by the immortal Jade Warlord (Chou). Helping him in his quest is the drunken master Lu Yan (Chan), a monk (Li again) and a woman hell bent on revenge (Yifei Lui). There are some things to like about this: Minkoff picks some beautiful locations for his fight scenes and it's nice to see Chan and Li, in their first collaboration, go at it. On the whole, though, The Forbidden Kingdom doesn't work for a rash of reasons: the characters are nothing more than plot devices, the Chan / Li fight scene isn't exactly memorable, there's no real consequence if they fail in their mission, and why do they want to return the staff to The Monkey King in the first place? The guy is really annoying. Really. This is a second hand martial arts movie that will be forgotten about next month.