Originally posted on Blogger.

Shinjuku Incident (新宿事件) is a 2009 film out of Hong Kong. The movie stars Jackie Chan, Daniel Wu, Xu Jinglei and Fan Bing Bing. The movie is based primarily in Japan with a few scenes in China. Starting from the 1990s to current times. I’ve been looking forward to watching this since February and recently rented it on DVD.

The movie starts with Jackie as Steelhead arriving in Japan via a boat (FOB). Jackie eventually makes it to the Tokyo area to reunited with someone from his village from China, Jie, played by Daniel Wu. Steelhead primary reason from coming to Japan was to find is girlfriend/fiancee, Xiu Xiu, played by Xu Jinglei. Because Steelhead and Jie are illegal immigrants, they take whatever they can get and run when the police come sniffing. Steelhead befriends a restaurant owner, Lily, played by Fan Bing Bing. Steelhead comes to the rescue of Lily as some punks try to rob her. Through it all, Steelhead displayed a world view of working hard and not taking advantage of the situation.

Steelhead finally finds Xiu Xiu. But Xiu Xiu is now married to a mob boss and has a daughter with him. On top of that, she’s changed her name to Eguchi Yuko. From that moment on, Steelhead’s outlook on life changes. In essence, Steelhead heads down the path of crime and destruction as all that he believed in before was betrayed by Xiu Xiu.

As advertised, its the “new Jackie”. Drama Jackie to be exact. Jackie does not display any of his comedy fu for you here and the action is based on reality for the most part. HK triad gritty movie moved to the hustle and bustle of Shinjuku, Japan.

The majority of the film is in Mandarin Chinese. The Japanese speak limited Chinese in this film and the HK boys speak Canto for some reason.

If you’re looking for comedy fu Jackie, go somewhere else. If your looking for a new triad story from HK POV, this is a fresh look.

A few fun observations. Kathy Yuen has a couple of scenes and she is quite lovely in both. Jack Kao plays Taiwan gang leader. The “making of” was quite interesting, so don’t miss it if you actually like the movie.

The LoveHKFilm guys love how Daniel Wu can integrate English terms so fluidly into his interviews and commericals. In the “making of”, Daniel does it effortlessly. But, if you’ve spent anytime with Americanized Chinese/Taiwanese, its the same. We don’t remember or can’t recall lots of Chinese, so I use the English terminology. And after we graduate high school or go off and start a family, its even worst.

Jackie Chan está que no para. Hoy nos llega el teaser de su nueva película “Little Big Soldier“, con Wang Li Hom.

Os dejamos el teaser de youtube, y el link al teaser en mejor calidad en sina.

Teaser en Sina.

Esta cinta lleva por nombre The Spy Next Door, donde Jackie Chan tiene una misión súper secreta y para poder cumplirla deberá hacerse pasar por una niñera de 3 niños, que seguro al final, pasaran de ser unos demonios a los mejores ayudantes.

En esta película participaran Jackie Chan, Madeline Carroll, Alina Foley, Amber Valletta, George Lopez, Billy Ray Cyrus y Katherine Boecher. La película se estrenara el 15 de Enero del 2010, es de la casa productora LIONGATES, aun no se sabe mucho sobre la historia de la película, pero con dichos talentos espero que sea muy buena, y no una copia de la pelicula de Vin Diesel, Niñera a prueba de balas (que por cierto, también muy buena y divertida).

De momento aquí les dejo el tráiler:

Ahora solo a esperar el estreno. Y no olvides dejar tus comentarios.

Y recuerda…Se Anime y Mas…

By

Narugo

This movie is a complete rehash (except for a few exceptions) of Vin Diesel’s The Pacifier. Darn it! How could I forget that flick when t’was our first movie date together.

Anyway, there’s nothing interesting about this except for Jackie Chan being on it. Funny man. Lame story.

Okay, here it is! Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

El póster de la cinta “The spy Next Door”

Tenemos otro póster exclusivo de una hoja para la cinta de “The Spy Next Door” la cual saldrá (se supone) el 15 de enero del 2010.

Esta cinta la protagoniza Jackie Chan, Madeline Carroll, Alina Foley, George Lopez, Billy Ray Cyrus, Amber Valleta y  Katherine Boecher.

Para muchos, Jackie ha caído en desgracia; de ser un gran artista marcial ahora es algo muy parecido al camino que tomó la roca y para otros, es un actor cómico que finalmente ha sido reconocido en Hollywood y que está recolectando los frutos del trabajo de toda una vida.

SURROGATES

Imagine a world where you don’t have to get up early in the morning, shower, get dressed, navigate traffic, get to work on time, dodge annoying bosses and equally annoying colleagues, avoid being given memos or suspensions for low performance evaluations or for doing such inane stuff as forgetting to turn off the light after office hours or taking too many coffee or bathroom breaks. Imagine a world where you don’t have to be subjected to the daily rudeness of people cutting in during queues, rude people in supermarkets, or groceries, or movie theaters, or inside public transportation. Imagine being spared the kind of physical torture that daily living in the modern, post-industrialized world of pollution, acid rain, excessive UV rays and crime generates. Imagine being able to stay at home, having a substitute who looks and talks like you, being able to do that for you, and all you have to do is jack into a network to be able to keep in touch with your substitute you as he/she goes through the daily rituals of modern living. Would be pretty nifty, huh?

This is the premise of the movie “Surrogates”. Based on a comic book and directed by Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines), this movie takes our growing obsession with virtual reality (SIMS, online RPG games, farmville, facebook, myspace, twitter and so on) to a whole new level: we can have virtual selves, “surrogates” who walk and talk and act like us, doing the dirty work of living our lives while we stay in the comfort of our home viewing it from the sidelines. Except there is growing dissent and the predictable marginalization of people who cannot afford surrogates and thus is the stage set for virtual, and real racial tension between those who can afford surrogates and those who don’t and oppose their use. A series of murders involving surrogates and their owners occur and into this mystery steps in US Federal Agent Tom Grier (Bruce Willis in a freakishly photoshopped face and body…with blond hair no less…and bangs) and partner, Radha Mitchell as they try to solve these crimes. A series of convoluted plots later, Grier discovers that the founder of the company that produced the surrogates (James Cromwell – in a similar role he did in “I, Robot”) had engineered the murders to bring down the company he helped create so that he can destroy not only the company but also the surrogates and their owners. Needless to say, the real Grier emerges from his self-imposed isolation to solve the mystery, destroy the surrogates and save the day.

Verdict: Hmmm….hard to tell. It was entertaining, yes, but not compelling. There is something about a freakishly photoshopped Bruce Willis that is surreal. I doubt if virtual selves can be taken out of computers and online games and software and into real life. Thus, you would have to dismiss plausibility and delve into the philosophical and metaphysical aspects of the story. You already know what this story wants to say: Don’t live like a zombie, live your life authentically, etc.etc. A lot of other sci-fi (and non-genre) movies have already successfully tackled these issues. Perhaps what this film lacks is the same kind of thing that Mostow’s other movie, Terminator III lacked: spirit, soul, sass.

THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM

Let me just say, Jackie Chan rocks and Jet Li rules. For as long as I can remember, their movies dominated my childhood, along with the movies of such B-level actors as Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren and Sylvester Stallone (macho Philippines, what can I say?). I have never seen them in one movie before, and to see them in one movie now excites like no other. And this movie, does not disappoint. Forget the plot, I watch Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies for the kung fu.

But briefly: in the days of Middle Kingdom some thousands of years ago, the virtuous Monkey King (Jet Li) wins the favor of the Jade Emperor and thus earns the ire of the Jade Warlord who tricks him into giving up his powerful staff and his power during a duel, thereby making the Jade Warlord win the duel, imprison the Monkey King in clay and allow the Jade Warlord to rule over the kingdom ruthlessly.

Enter present-day, unlikely geeky hero —- who stumbles upon the staff while trying to save a Chinese shop owner from a gang of bullies. The staff brings him to the past, to the Middle Kingdom, where he encounters an immortal, played by Jackie Chan, a monk, played by Jet Li and a young musician hell-bent on exacting revenge on the Jade Warlord. As it happens, our unlikely geeky hero turns out to be the Chosen One, the one who will end the Jade Warlord’s reign of tyranny, free the Monkey King and usher in a new era of peace. Thus, the immortal and the monk train aforementioned hero and helps him defeat the Jade Warlord and free the Monkey King.

Suffice it to say, just watching Jackie Chan and Jet Li fight it out in their scenes together with balletic elegance is awesome. They’re like the Robert De Niro and Al Pacino of kung-fu movies.

ADVENTURELAND

Remember those times in your life when everything just persists on being shitty? When you were young and had a kick-ass degree and upon graduation realize that neither your youth nor your degree can save you from a shitty life or from getting shitty jobs that pay shit wages? Well, don’t look now but somebody came up with the bright idea of making a movie out of your life. And mine, as it happens.

Jessie Eisenberg plays fresh comparative litt major whose father gets demoted and thus has to move with the whole family to Pittsburgh to be able to survive on the father’s salary. Jessie’s dreams of graduate school and of a summer spent in Europe are dashed to pieces, and he must now get a dead-end minimum wage job at “Adventureland” as one of the operators of the games. His life would have been infinitely boring and tedious had it not been for Em (the, must-admit, cute Kristen Stewart), the cool, laidback colleague he becomes mildly interested in and who shares a mild attraction to him as well, but who is, in fact, sleeping with the resident technician cum wanna-be rockstar, played by Ryan Reynolds. Things come to a head when Eisenberg finds out that Em has, in fact, been sleeping with the married Ryan Reynolds, but they make up in the end.

Ok So here is their 10 with no details (As in if you dont know who they are click the link at the bottom and read about them later)

10. Wiz Khalifa

9. Jackie Chan

8. Chip Tha Ripper

7. SL Jones

6. U-N-I

5-1 after the jump

5. Theopilus London

4. Nickelus F

3. Yelawolf

2. Finale

1. The Jacka

I agree with some of these but, when I first read it I thought “who the f*ck wrote this bullsh*t” “Wow, what a list”.. I mean but why 10? And if it was gonna be 10, where is Jay Electronica? Where is Curren$y? Where is J. Cole? Where is Drake? (Thats a joke for those who dont know) Where is Wale? Are we talking underrated or under radar? There is a big difference.. F*ck outta here Complex, I’m disappointed..

If  you wanna see the sh*t sandwhich list click here

1. First, happy birthday to my brother! Hope the day is a good one.

2. Tomorrow, after Cavorter gets out of work, we’re driving to Chicago for a familial visit. We will bring birthday and Christmas presents for my various nieces. Buying adorable presents for infants reminds me of the more pleasant moments of my kids’ own infancy. But not quite enough to mask the memories of sleeplessness, poop, and spit-up.

3. Tern is giving the weekly music lesson to the kids as I type this. M is faintly adorable as he sings, and K’s piano playing is progressing nicely.

4. Last night Cavorter and I watched Jackie Chan’s Operation Condor. I could not, at this moment, tell you the plot. In fact, I’m not sure I could tell you the plot of any Jackie Chan movies. I sort of zone out and think about writing projects or look around the house, wondering what needs cleaning, when the plot are happening. But I love the martial arts set pieces. I would buy and love a dvd that was nothing but excerpted Jackie Chan fight scenes.

5. We still have not eliminated the mice. A friend of ours mentioned that she had to dig three feet down all the way around the outside of her foundation to find and plug the mice entrances. This thought fills me with despair.

Here is a work in progress list of Martial Arts Movies (note that many of these movies have different names in other countries, I have chosen the most common US names for the movies).  I have highlighted the ones that I have seen already.

Above the Law     (Steven Seagal)

Battle Creek Brawl     (Jackie Chan)

Big Trouble in Little China     (Kurt Russell)

(The) Black Mask     (Jet Li)

Bloodsport     (Jean-Claude Van Damme)

(The) Chinese Connection     (Bruce Lee)

Cradle 2 the Grave     (Jet Li)

(The) Enforcer     (Jet Li)

Enter the Dragon     (Bruce Lee)

Firewalker     (Chuck Norris)

First Strike     (Jackie Chan)

Fist of Legend     (Jet Li)

Fists of Fury     (Bruce Lee)

(The) Forbidden Kingdom     (Jackie Chan, Jet Li)

Game of Death     (Bruce Lee)

Good Guys Wear Black     (Chuck Norris)

Gorgeous     (Jackie Chan)

Hard Target     (Jean-Claude Van Damme)

Hard to Kill     (Steven Seagal)

(The) Karate Kid

(The) Karate Kid 2

(The) Karate Kid 3

Kung Fu     (David Carradine)

Kiss of the Dragon     (Jet Li)

(The) Legend of the Drunken Master     (Jackie Chan)

Lethal Weapon 4     (Jet Li)

Lone Wolf McQuade     (Chuck Norris)

Meltdown     (Jet Li)

Mortal Kombat

Mortal Kombat: Annihalation

(The) Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor     (Jet Li)

(The) Next Karate Kid

(The) Octagon     (Chuck Norris)

Once Upon a Time in China     (Jet Li)

Once Upon A Time in China 2     (Jet Li)

Once Upon a Time in China 3     (Jet Li)

(The) One     (Jet Li)

Ong Bak     (Tony Jaa)

Only the Strong     (Mark Dacascos)

Operation Condor     (Jackie Chan)

Out for Justice     (Steven Seagal)

(The) Protector     (Tony Jaa)

(The) Quest     (Jean-Claude Van Damme)

Return of the Dragon     (Bruce Lee)

Romeo Must Die     (Jet Li)

Rumble in the Bronx     (Jackie Chan)

Rush Hour     (Jackie Chan)

Rush Hour 2     (Jackie Chan)

Rush Hour 3     (Jackie Chan)

Shanghai Noon     (Jackie Chan)

Shanghai Knights     (Jackie Chan)

Sidekicks     (Chuck Norris)

Street Fighter     (Jean-Claude Van Damme)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Secret of the Ooze

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3

Timecop     (Jean-Claude Van Damme)

(The) Tuxedo     (Jackie Chan)

Under Siege     (Steven Seagal)

Universal Soldier     (Jean-Claude Van Damme)

Unleashed     (Jet Li)

War     (Jet Li, Jason Statham)

Source: CRI

With about 100 action films under his belt, kung-fu king Jackie Chan says he is not proud of all his movies and calls some of his early films “a mistake.”

“It was a mistake to make ‘Drunken Fist,’” Chan said Thursday about his 1978 blockbuster. “The film was all about getting drunk to fight. It misled the audience.”

Chan added that he “tried to correct the mistake in the 1994 sequel which tells the audience to be tolerant.”

The Hong Kong star was in Beijing to promote an online game spin-off of his new film “Big Soldiers.”
“Most of the video games available today are about fighting and killing,” Chan said. “This is not good for children. I hope by playing our game, youngsters will get a message of peace.”

In the role-playing game, players can follow the development of the story in “Big Soldiers” about an old soldier who kidnaps a young general and takes him on a long journey to collect a reward.

Chan, who also wrote the story, took 20 years to complete the plot. He said the film is about lives during wartime and is a strong message that peace is priceless.

“Big Soldiers,” in which Chan plays the soldier and singer-turned-actor Lee-Hom Wang portrays the young general, will open in Chinese cinemas next Valentine’s Day, which is also Chinese New Year’s Day.

Chan is also the film’s producer, while Ding Sheng is the director.

The video spin-off will be released next month.

Source article: http://www.china.org.cn/arts/2009-11/20/content_18925993.htm

SJ-M attends radio station activities, Hangeng (front row, third from left) indicated a wish to co-act with Jackie Chan.

CCTV’s Music Radio called The Sound of Music, the worldwide Chinese-language radio and pop music station, voluntarily joined a collaboration — Global Chinese Golden Charts 全球华语流行金榜, established today in Beijing. Organizers also invited popular boy band Super Junior-M for support, thus making the scene crazy. However, it was a pity that one of the members, Donghae, could not attend due to catching a cold.

When handsome Hangeng appeared, the scene turned into chaos. He revealed that in future, he and the team members will hold album conferences and concerts in Taipei, Nanjing, etc; next year they will even shoot a film. When asked about the role the wants to act in the most, he said, “I want to act in hero-like roles. (Which star do you most want to collaborate with?) I want to collaborate with Older Brother Jackie Chan the most because, from the films that I’ve seen of his, I think that his martial arts looks really good.”

รายการ วู้ดดี้เกิดมาคุย เฉินหลง (Jackie Chan)  ออกอากาศ วันที่ 29 มีนาคม 2552 …

รายการ วู้ดดี้เกิดมาคุย เฉินหลง (Jackie Chan)  ออกอากาศ วันที่ 29 มีนาคม 2552 …

CCTV’s Music Radio called The Sound of Music, the worldwide Chinese-language radio and pop music station, voluntarily joined a collaboration — Global Chinese Golden Charts 全球华语流行金榜, established today in Beijing. Organizers also invited popular boy band Super Junior-M for support, thus making the scene crazy. However, it was a pity that one of the members, Donghae, could not attend due to catching a cold.

When handsome Hangeng appeared, the scene turned into chaos. He revealed that in future, he and the team members will hold album conferences and concerts in Taipei, Nanjing, etc; next year they will even shoot a film. When asked about the role the wants to act in the most, he said, “I want to act in hero-like roles. (Which star do you most want to collaborate with?) I want to collaborate with Older Brother Jackie Chan the most because, from the films that I’ve seen of his, I think that his martial arts looks really good.”

SOURCE: DaHe/cpopaccess.com

CREDIT: stalker93@sapphirepearls

Action filmmaker and producer Luc Besson has always had an eye for action and having the ability to showcase it in a strange and unusual way. He honed the skills of Jet Li and Jason Statham with glorious success. He even turned his ex-lover Milla Jovovich into a female wrecking machine.

Now Besson hopes to find the next great action star in French sensation David Belle who founded a new form of martial arts called parkour. This new form is basically where the artist attempts to pass obstacles in the fastest and most direct manner possible by running, jumping, climbing, sliding, ducking and so forth.

Co-writer Luc Besson and director Pierre Morel sculpt out a story where an undercover cop (Cyril Raffaelli) must infiltrate one of the nastiest neighborhoods in 2010 Paris. The neighborhood is District 13.

The cop is joined by a convict (David Belle) who will guide him in his pursuit to find a neutron bomb somewhere in the district. But the convict also has an agenda all his own. Don’t they always.

The film’s plot, setup, direction and cinematography leave a lot to be desired. But if they were all state of the art and amazing then I guess we wouldn’t really be able to see what Belle can do with his “parkour”.

The sequences where parkour is focused are amazing and the stunt work flawless. It kind of reminded me a lot of the better Jackie Chan movies. You know where you stop and say to yourself, how do they do that?

The acting in the film reminded me of old “Godzilla” movies or Power Rangers episodes because even though I saw the film with subtitles and in its original French it still looked like it was dubbed and the audio was horrendous.

A-class stunts + lame ass plot = rental. Or at least it does in my books.

1 out of 5

So Says the Soothsayer.

Documentary:  Bruce Lee Bruce Lee (San Francisco, 27 november 1940 – Hongkong, 20 juli 1973) wordt algemeen beschouwd als de grootste oosterse vechtsport-acteur van de 20e eeuw.

LE MAITRE CHINOIS – THE DRUNKEN MASTER- ( ZUI QUAN )

De Yuen Woo Ping, 1978, Hong-Kong, vo ch st fr., 107′

Avec Jackie Chan, Siu tien Yuen, Jang Lee Hwang,…

Espiègle et malicieux, le jeune Wong Fei-Hong ne s’attire que des ennuis. Son père Wong Kei Ying, Maître de l’école de Kung-Fu où il s’entraîne, lui interdit de se battre ; interdit qu’il brisera en affrontant un autre jeune garçon sur un marché. Lorsque le père du jeune homme arrive pour réclamer un dédommagement, Kei Ying s’enrage et décide, après une scène de combat, de l’envoyer auprès de son oncle Soo Hua Xi…

De toutes les légendes de l’histoire des arts martiaux, il n’y en a sans doute pas de plus importante que celle de Huang Feihong. Il est sans conteste une figure charismatique de l’histoire des arts martiaux chinois, reconnue et révérée pour sa contribution dans le domaine et plus spécialement au kung-fu. Considéré par beaucoup comme le père des arts martiaux modernes, il a beaucoup apporté à l’un des plus anciens styles de combats chinois : le Shaolin hongjia

Da. Vedeţi bine. Televizorul dăunează grav sănătăţii. Cum am ajuns la această concluzie?
Vă uitaţi la filme. Sunt sigură. Şi eu mă uit. Sunt filme în care dragostea e perfectă. Ea merge pe stradă senină, brusc se trânteşte de un făt-frumos, ohii le strălucesc amândurora, soarele îi luminează speciaell pe ei (sau reflectoarele, cum vreţi). Şi totu-i bun şi frumos. Şi acum, în zilele noastre, vezi fete care ies tot mai des pe stradă, că dee aşa au văzut în filme, şi se trântesc de băiatul care le place. Dacă vede că nu le merge, se mai trântesc o dată. Poate, poate. Sau vezi scenă de dragoste perfectă, ea adoarme zâmbind în braţele lui şi dimineaţa dragii mei, se trezeşte mai aranjată ca niciodată, părul perfect, faţă perfectă şi mai au chef de nu ştiu câte mii de pupături, că deee, nu-i ”pute” gura. Departe de realitate dragii mei. Mulţi în ziua de azi aşa aşteaptă să şi fie. DEPARTE! Ea se trezeşte cu părul vâlvoi, cu faţa umflată, cu puchi pe la ochi şi el… amărâtul de el, părul lui e ca o căpiţă de fân proaspăt răsturnată. Asta e realitatea.
Te uiţi la Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan şi la James Bond, şi încerci multe lucruri de-ale lor în viaţa reală. Mergi pe stradă umflat de parcă ai înghiţit 3 kg de heliu, ai pălărie cu boruri pe care o mai ridici cu vârful degetelor şi te prezinţi lumii ca : ”X-ulescu. Gheorghe X-ulescu.” Dar când e vorba să se ia cineva de tine, te învârţi ca nuca în ceaun.
Te uiţi la ”Blonda de la drept” şi crezi că dacă ea a reuşit, poţi şi tu. Aşa că te îmbraci toată în roz, mesteci gumă, vizitezi zilnic coaforul, ţii geanta pe mâna care parcă e scrântită şi mergi şi-ti dai admiterea la drept. Wake up! Eşti tu blondă oxigenată, cu sânii mari şi ai o pasiune aparte pentru roz, dar… alta e realitatea fetiţo!
Ce ar fi să ieşim de sub lumina reflectoarelor care ne orbeşte şi să realizăm adevărul? Nu v-aţi săturat să trăiţi o viaţă a actorilor? Nu v-aţi săturat să vă jucaţi prost rolul? Spre deosebire de voi, actorii sunt plătiţi!

Like most people, I got duped pretty hard on this movie. I was under the impression this was a Jackie Chan and Jet Li driven vehicle film but in actuality, The Forbidden Kingdom follows the main character of Jason Tripitikas.  As Jason is heading out of Chinatown, he gets stopped by some local bullies. They make fun of him about his kung-fu movies and then show him some of their own fighting style. After they beat him down they tell him to rob a pawn shop and runs into an old man with a staff. Jason runs from the thugs with a staff that the old man hands him. As Jason tries to get away, he falls and lands in a different world in a different time. He comes across a man named Lu Yan who tells him about his staff. That it once belonged to powerful man named The Monkey King and how he was tricked into a non fair fight and before the King was imprisoned he sent his staff away so that someone could come rescue him with it.

Obviously, this white kid is his saving grace.  By now, you should know if this movie is for you or not as this film may be America’s tribute to Asian cinema.  Truly, what better way to capitalize on these two Kung Fu stars than by pitting them against each other and letting the film capture as much of this once in a lifetime chance of getting these two Masters together in the same movie. While the fighting scene involving these two megastars is a very minor part of the film, the scene is undoubtedly the best fighting scene in the film. Jackie Chan vs. Jet Li was truly fun to watch. We all know it could’ve been Much better though if they were probably 10 or 15 years younger than they are, but it was still a great fight scene. Praying Mantis, Snake, Tiger, Crane, all types of Kung-Fu was used. It was definitely something to witness.

As they all travel across China to the fabled Five Elements Mountain, both the Lu and the Silent Monk take it upon themselves to teach Jason the art of Kung Fu, which will be a long and arduous process. The film overall can be regarded as a kung-fu fantasy and a better made one than a lot of others over the years. I suspect the Asian market may not care for it, as America-Asia films cross the cultural border very poorly. I think most martial art film fanatics will be slightly disappointed by this film, but many will enjoy this movie for what it is – entertainment with a couple of excellent choreographed martial art scenes.

The Forbidden Kingdom may not be a Martial Arts flick for the ages, but I have to say I really enjoyed this one. The movie is just so much fun that any flaws that can be found are quite easy to overlook. This isn’t gonna go down in history as one of the greats, but due to the first teaming of Li and Chan it will go down for that. We have young people, old people, amateur fighters and pros, pretty girls with pretty moms, exotic locales and a lot of seriousness mixed with goofiness and Chinese mythology. So if you haven’t come to a conclusion about this film yet, it doesn’t live up to the caliber of the actors involved but its a fun way to spend two hours.

This has no relevance to anything on the rest of this blog, but it needs to be said. I have seen a great film on late night Kazakh television– City Hunter, made in 1993 with a youthful Jackie Chan.

You can watch it on Youtube, or peep the first ten minutes right here: