Overall Rank:

Avg. Rating:

# of Ratings:

Genres:

Rating:

Language:

DVD Release:

Director:

Actors:

Jackie Chan
Jet Li
Morgan Benoit
Collin Chou
Yifei Liu
Michael Angarano

Plot outline:

Add Plot +

View Plots +

Jason Williams (Michael Angarano) finds a staff at an old antique store. The staff magically transports him back in time where he meets the drunken martial-arts master Lu Yan (Jackie Chan), the Silent Monk (Jet Li) and the Golden Sparrow (Crystal Liu Yi Fei). They help him train and bring the staff back to its rightful owner. -- Josh C

11/01/2008 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

Never Ending National Karate Kingdom's Treasure

Fairly good, but a little hokey overall. The film did not appear to take itself very seriously, but did take itself seriously enough not to be funny. In so doing, it lands into that cinema limbo land where the audience isn't quite sure how to take the film conceptually.
The martial art scenes were good in places but did get repetitive over time and again relied on high fantasy martial arts instead of more natural martial arts physics. This should not be exactly considered a downside, so-to-speak, as this is the genre of action style that Wu Ping is renowned for pioneering.

In summary, I would class this as the National Treasure of Martial Arts with a slight hint of Never Ending Story and Karate Kid dashed on top.

Rating of
2/4 

09/30/2008 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

Hiyah!!!!

Targeted more toward adolescent males than fans of actual Chinese acrobatic fighting, The Forbidden Kingdom may polarize viewers expecting one thing but getting another. Chan and Li are together for the first time and there choreography and fight schenes are remarkable. The FX are appealing and the characters interesting, especially the Monkey King himself. Those willing to accept the fact that this isn't the hardcore, choreographed fight movie fans have been waiting for will likely find something to enjoy here. And 10-year old boys, the likely target audience, will probably flip for this stuff. Face it all of us have a 10 year old in us.

Rating of
4/4 

09/29/2008 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

The Never-Ending Story - China Edition

I never realize that the Never-Ending Story could be remade into a kung-fu movie. I liked this aspect. It was a neat story, good action, beautiful cinematography and Jackie Chan's character was good and funny like usual. I thought that with this type of story that they should have made it PG, I think it would be better for children than for adults.

Still, I wasn't annoyed and the action kept me involved even thought the story was a bit predictable. I also thought they could have improved the ending when Jason (Michael) goes back to his own time and he has the most unrealistic bully beating him up. The resemble a gang out of the 60's vs one from today. Clearly that was one of the downfalls for this movie.

Rating of
2.5/4 

09/09/2008 (0 of 0 found this helpful)

Mindless Fun, Nothing More

Even though the story is cheesy and the script isn’t as sharp as it should have been, this was fun to watch because it has so much energy and there are so many exciting action sequences. I also liked the exotic locations, may they be CGI or not. The duel between Jackie Chan and Jet Li was nothing short of epic; I’m still surprised that they haven’t been in a kung fu film together until this one. As for Michael Angarano, I couldn’t take him seriously because, to me, he’ll always be Jack’s son in “Will & Grace.” (I also saw him in “The Brainiacs.com” on Disney Channel back in 2000.) Nonetheless, he wasn’t bad at all. Most of the time, he was just there either getting beat up or being teary-eyed. Thankfully, there were some girl-power here–one good, one evil. As much as the evil one pissed m...

Rating of
3/4