Monkey magic
For true fans of martial-arts flicks, the first-ever collaboration of the genre's two biggest stars, Jackie Chan and Jet Li, might have generated more sparks than the film itself. The Forbidden Kingdom features the long-awaited pairing of the two most celebrated martial arts movie stars in the world. Despite both actors being in their forties, with their best work behind them, they still pack quite a punch. Though it's an American production, from an American director and writer, the team delivers a film worthy of its stars and provides the ideal canvas for Li and Chan to showcase their talents.
Inspired by the Chinese classic Monkey King, the plot is typical of the genre - a young kungfu nerd teenager Jason Tripitkis (Michael Angarano) in New York discovers a magical staff in a Chinese pawnshop. After some high school bullies rob the store, Jason flees with the staff which then reveals some magical powers transporting him into the fantasy world he idolizes from his kungfu movies.
Jason befriends a local drunk Lu Han (Jackie Chan) who tells him the story of his magical lance. Jason assumes the Frodo role as the prophecy's keeper and journeys to the mountains to return the staff to its rightful owner - the imprisoned Monkey King. Along the way, the duo pick up a feisty female warrior, The Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei) and humble warrior monk (Jet Li). The monk and Lu Han educate Jason on the ways of kungfu, which come in handy when everyone is eventually forced to fight against the evil forces that want the sacred staff.
The film arrives with a great many doubts about its efficacy. The Forbidden Kingdom is not a Chinese film, it's American, told mainly in English from a director with absolutely no action or martial arts directing experience. Rob Minkoff may have no business being the man directing these two great artists, but he is smart and humble enough to hire the great fight choreographer Yuen-Woon Ping and Peter Pau (Crouching Tiger) as his chief aides. He also shoots the film mostly in China, which offers some of the most exquisite locales.
Hollywood comedy 27 Dresses opened this week. Katherine Heigl, who earlier this year got Knocked Up in the hit motion picture comedy from Judd Apatow, and nabbed an Emmy for her starring role as a surgical resident in Grey's Anatomy, is always a bridesmaid but never a bride in the romantic comedy 27 Dresses. From the screenwriter of The Devil Wears Prada, 27 Dresses centers on Jane (Heigl), an idealistic, romantic and completely selfless woman, a perennial bridal attendant whose own happy ending is nowhere in sight. Jane has always been good at taking care of others, but not so much in looking after herself. Her entire life has been about making people happy - and she has a closet full of 27 bridesmaid dresses to prove it. But when younger sister Tess captures the heart of Jane's boss - with whom she is secretly in love - Jane begins to re-examine her always-a-bridesmaid lifestyle.
Other films showing at cinemas citywide include:
Taken, a French action movie about a retired spy (Liam Neeson) whose daughter (Maggie Grace) is kidnapped by a group of gangsters in Paris, and the former spy is forced to rely on his old skills to save her. Screenplay by Luc Besson and directed by Pierre Morel.
Apocalypse Code, this Russian action movie explores a story in which a secret agent organization made up of a group of beautiful Russion ladies is appointed to break the code to defuse four nuclear bombs set by terrorists in four big cities in the world.
The Children of Huang Shi also has proven to be a box office hit since its debut in Chinese theaters on April 3. A heroic blockbuster set in 1930s war-torn China, the $40 million project is a joint production by studios in China, Australia and Germany. Helmed by Roger Spottiswoode, director of 007 series, Tomorrow Never Dies, this film took more than two years to complete. The movie tells a story of a young British journalist who saves a group of orphaned Chinese children with the help of an Australian nurse in the late 1930s.
(China Daily 04/26/2008 page6)
