15 May 2008

The Forbidden Kingdom

功夫之王, literally "the King (or Master) of Kung Fu" is called "The Forbidden Kingdom" instead as its official English title.

Why?

I don't know lar! Probably the same person who wrote the story line for the movie came up with the translation for the title?

After watching Iron Man a week prior to watching The Forbidden Kingdom, here's my not-so-neutral review of the movie.

Oh come on! All reviews are opinionated one, okay?

After you have seen this review, you no longer need to check the other reviews liao since this is the bestest.

=P

*Spoilers alert*

Image source

The story line sucks monkey balls is weird. A twisted mix of the Monkey King, the Chinese Gods and Goddesses, and time-space travelling of an American boy.

Mega stars Jet Li and Jackie Chan are probably the main reason people like me were conned into watching went to watch the movie.

And they did not let me down. The fighting scenes between the two kung fu masters were great.

Many scenes in the movie were taken at fantastic locations in China, they were beautiful.

Image source

In short, Chinese-kung-fu-wannabe-American-boy with weird dreams came into possession of a magical staff. The staff belongs to the Monkey King, who was trapped in stone form by the bad guy in another time-space and required the staff to set himself (the Monkey King) free.

Boy's job was to return the staff to the Monkey King. Boy helped along the way by an immortal (well, eventually) and a vase misguided girl full of teenage angst.

Bad guy sent lesser bad guys and a bad lady with fantastic hair/wig to stop the boy.

After overcaming obstacles, good guys finally reached the Monkey King and handed over the staff, Monkey King kicked bad guy's arse and everyone live happily ever after.

In between start and the end got a lot of kicks and punches lor.

A lot of jumping ah, running ah, falling ah, walking on people's head ah, etc.

A lot of fighting lor, then mar sure got a lot of "oofff", "ouch", "arghhh", "owww", "ah, I die liao", etc.

Image source

Funny how the bad lady with long white hair who should really do shampoo commercial with her super duper archery skill that sure hit one only chose to shoot a single arrow, and only after the good guys were running away.

Why not just fire a few more arrows to take care of business? It's not like she cared about taking them alive, she just wanted the staff only mar.

You know lady, just shoot them before you even approach them would have saved you a lot of trouble.

Oh well.

So, if I were to give Iron Man a 9.5 out of 10, then I would give The Forbidden Kingdom a 6 out of 10.

No comments: