Exotic Faraway Places

Naturally, it’s the long awaited match-up between Jackie Chan and Jet Li that stirs things up, along with adrenaline-rush fight sequences choreographed by Woo-Ping Yuen (“The Matrix”, “Fearless”). With a flurry of punches, kicks, jumps, drops, and wire-fu set within gorgeous mountain locations, abandoned temples, and foreboding palaces, “The Forbidden Kingdom” delivers the Chan-Li action goods. But, crucial to going along with fluffy fantasy, Michael Angarano is endearing as Jason, the aforementioned kid whose only contact with martial arts comes through video games and movies. Benefiting from a likeable everyman quality, he’s the Ralph Macchio to give heart to the story of a kid sent on a quest to return a mystical staff to its rightful owner, the wrongly imprisoned Monkey King (Li). Along with Chan and Li, who throw themselves into their dual roles – Chan as a shopkeeper and a drunken master, Li as the Monkey King and a monk – as well as Yifei Liu as Golden Sparrow, Angaro strikes the serious but not too serious tone needed to sell the film.

Jackie Chan is right, of course, in pointing out (http://movies.about.com/od/theforbiddenkingdom/a/forbidden041408.htm) that “those kinds of films [like The Forbidden Kingdom] are ridiculous.” But the answer to his question “Why, why do people like these kinds of things?” doesn’t require viewing “Crap Shoot.” Beautiful costumes, detailed sets, dynamic martial arts, romance, humour, villainous villains, heroic heroes and screenwriter John Fusco’s easter eggs (listen to Chan’s Old Hop character for a jokey reference to an obscure Hanna Barbera character); the mix may not yield a film to knock “Casablanca” off its golden pedestal – obviously – but it isn’t intended to. “The Forbidden Kingdom” aims to excite the optic nerves and make hearts beat a bit faster, and this it does wonderfully.