Kung Phooey

I just finished watching "The Forbidden Kingdom" - the martial arts film that came out this summer that starred both Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Essentially this film took a bunch of existing ideas, gargled them for a few seconds, and spit them out at the viewer. If you have any desire to see this film be warned, spoilers below.

The main character is a kid from Boston who likes Kung Fu movies. He has a dream about a monkey warrior fighting soldiers on top of a mountain. He wakes up and decides to buy some Kung Fu bootlegs down in China Town. He goes to little dark, dusty pawn shop, which happens to be run by an old wise man. Already this is reminding me of D-War. The kid finds some DVDs and then happens to see a magical staff that is hidden in the back of the shop. The old wise man tells him the legend:

About 500 years ago there were immortals, and they got together to have a picnic. One was a Jade warrior and one was a Monkey warrior and they didn't like each other because the Jade warrior thought the Monkey warrior was a goofball. The leader immortals were all glowing in white and said, "we think everyone's a-okay! Let's go to Heaven and pray for 500 years. Whelp, see ya later!" I don't really know what the point of those people are. The Jade warrior says, "Hey Monkey warrior, let's fight!" And Monkey warrior says, "Oooo-ooo-Aaa-aah. Okay!" And they fight. Monkey warrior weilds the magic staff, by the way.

Halfway through the fight, the Jade warrior says, "Hey, man, how about we fight without weapons or magic? " Monkey is trusting and puts down his staff. Jade guy is lying and uses magic to turn Monkey into stone, but Monkey has just enough time to fling his staff to the other side of the planet for the Prophesized one to return it someday.

Then some bullies back in Boston try to rob the pawn shop and shoot the old man and chase the kid. The kid runs away and falls off a building and wakes up in China. This kid, by the way, looks like Hayden Christensen, but isn't as good an actor (Darth Vader: "NOOOOOOO!!!). In China he quickly meets Jackie Chan, who is stumbling drunk. Some Jade soldiers start to attack and Jackie Chan does some drunken fighting. I'm pretty sure the writers were like, "Hey, let's take 'Iron Monkey' and 'Drunken Master' and make it, like, a super Kung Fu movie! Jet Li can do the 'Iron Monkey' stuff... we'll even make him a monkey! And we'll have Jackie Chan play 'Drunken Master', cuz he WAS drunken master!"

(p.s. Iron Monkey = best martial arts movie ever.)

So Jackie is drunk and then they decide to go to the palace to return the staff of destiny. Along the way they meet an orphan girl who says her villiage was destroyed by the Jade immortal and she has the only thing that can kill an immortal- her hairpin. I don't know where she got this, or why the hairpin is the only thing that can kill an immortal, but it's her mission to join the two. She also reveals that Jackie Chan is immortal and that he has to keep drinking because that's his elixir. If he doesn't drink, he won't be immortal. Every immortal has an elixir, although the other immortals just walk around and are fine, but Jackie has to drink every two seconds or he gets weak. This movie is so stupid.

Then Jet Li joins the group. He's a monk tried to steal the staff and he and Jackie Chan fight to a draw and then Jet Li says, "I am a monk and have to return the staff," and the group says, "No, we do, " and Li says, "Okay, I'll go with you," and Jackie Chan says, "We can kill each other later."

Li and Jackie train Hayden (I don't know what his real name is) and the Jade immortal sends a witch after them. Hayden and the girl look at some clouds and the girl says, "That one looks like a two-headed lion" and Hayden says "That one looks like the green monster." Great. The group crosses a desert and Jackie says, "If we don't get water soon, we'll all die." The orphan girl suggests that, because he's immortal, he can create rain. Jackie says, "Yeah, that makes sense" and starts to write on a scroll. Jackie Chan then thinks that it's starting to rain and looks up happily, but really it's Jet Li peeing on his face. THAT IS GROSS! Then they look to their right and say, "O, nevermind, we're not in the desert anymore and the palace is right there." What?!

The witch finds the group says, "I'm fighting you to get the staff to trade for the Jade immortal's immortality juice," and they fight and run away and the witch shoots Jackie with an arrow. Hayden says, "it's okay, he's immortal!" But then Jackie say, "No, man, that orphan girl is crazy. I'm not immortal, I'm gonna die. But it's okay, I'd rather be mortal and truly live than to be immortal and have nothing." I think this was supposed to be some deep, meaningful message, but it didn't really make sense, much like the rest of the film.

Hayden knows that the Jade immortal has immortality juice so he goes to get that to save Jackie. Jet Li, the orphan girl, and Hayden fight the Jade immortal, the witch, and the army inside the palace. Some villagers drag Jackie up there and he gets the immortality juice and he starts to fight too. I guess his message about how he'd rather be mortal and have meaning doesn't hold true anymore. Jet Li gets stabbed mightily by the Jade immortal but manages to smash the staff into frozen-in-stone Monkey warrior. Jet Li dies and the Monkey warrior lives, and then it turns out that the monk Jet Li was actually a piece of hair from the Monkey warrior (also Jet Li).

Monkey and Jade immortals fight, the orphan girl tries to get her revenge but dies, Hayden picks up her hairpin and stabs the Jade guy and he dies, because that's the only thing that can kill him. Then the 500 years is up and the white glowing immortals show up and say, "Heyyyy.... what's up?" And Hayden says, "Can you bring orphan girl back to life?" And they say, "NO!" This was the best part of the movie! They let her die! HA!

Jackie Chan and Jet Li do not fight to the death, and are presumably buddies with the glowing immortals. The glowing immortals say to Hayden, "we can grant you anything you desire" (with the exception of saving orphan girl, I guess). Hayden gives a goofy shrug and says, "I just want to go home!" Back in Boston the pawn shop thugs find Hayden and try to beat him up, but now Hayden knows Kung Fu and wins. The old pawn shop wise man is seen being carted into an ambulance. Hayden says, "are you okay?" The old man reveals that he is also immortal. Then we see that the orphan girl works in a jewelry shop next door, and Hayden says, "Hey, baby, wassup?" Then the movie ends.

This movie was not awesomely bad like Dragon Wars, it was just bad.