Combines outrageously entertaining fight scenes with just enough of an ancient Chinese legend to keep us hooked
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04/20/08
The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
64
%
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Reviews Counted:123
Fresh:79
Rotten:44
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: This hotly-anticipated pairing of martial arts legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li features dazzling fight scenes but is weighed down by too much filler.
Theatrical Release:09-07-2008
Synopsis: East meets West and kung-fu legends collide as Jackie Chan and Jet Li square off in the fists-a-flying, family-friendly FORBIDDEN KINGDOM. Based on the classical Chinese novel JOURNEY TO THE WEST,... [More]
Reviews for The Forbidden Kingdom
The worst part of the martial-arts epic The Forbidden Kingdom [is] a moment near the halfway mark when there arrives a gag that involves Chan getting a face full of urine. This kingdom really should be forbidden.
04/17/08
The film tries to contain the best of two worlds - exaggerated, cartoonish comedy and disconcertingly brutal violence. Like Chan and Li, the two philosophies grind uncomfortably beside each other.
04/18/08
The story, which should be forbidden, keeps coming back for more. Whenever the plot pops up, from predictable love scenes to the villainess who hates men for no reason to the crypto-Confucian lines, you keep wishing for the next fist to fly.
05/08/08
Kingdom is a stiff, disturbingly ill-conceived fantasy film more consumed with playing slack-jawed fanboy than telling a compelling story worthy of these two giants.
04/08/08
Assigning Chan and Li to supporting status underscores how ordinary this would-be- extraordinary film turns out to be.
04/18/08
... a martial-arts variation on a middling musical with knockout dance numbers. It'll be tons of fun on DVD, when we can fast-forward to the good stuff and skip the plodding plot.
04/18/08
Jason's relationship with Golden Sparrow stays pretty locked in first gear, such that the movie might attend to kung fu%u2014sort of.
04/30/08
Every time the focus switches to Michael Angarano channeling his inner Ralph Macchio, The Forbidden Kingdom reminds you that it's primarily an act of occidental tourism.
04/18/08
While top-billed duo do indeed occupy plenty of screen time, this is basically the latest version of that post-Star Wars fantasy concept in which only a middle-class white teenage boy can save the universe from, y'know, Evil.
04/10/08
Top CriticIf you're an adolescent boy and kung fu flicks are your bag, this convoluted one is probably watchable.
04/19/08
You know you're in a fantasy movie when the central character has to traverse time in search of the 'Monkey King.' If only you were in a good movie.
04/17/08
A drab exercise in poor storytelling, empty-headed characters, low-grade aesthetics, and forgettable action sequences. This isn't 'so-bad-it's-good' we're talking about; it's 'so-bad-it's-bad.'
04/17/08
From The Lion King to the Monkey King director Rob Minkoff goes and along with him goes the reverse evolution of the American martial arts epic.
04/17/08
Minkoff and Fusco blur the line between homage and laziness.
04/17/08
While some of this material was drawn from Chinese legends, it still feels a bit half-hearted and as if it was cobbled together from bits of other movies.
04/17/08
It's too bad that the film isn't actually about Jackie or Jet; rather, it's about a bland, annoying, white kid.
04/17/08
For their first co-headlining film, Jackie Chan and Jet Li have chosen a rote piece of chop-socky that's liable to please only their most devoted fans. And even them, not so much.
04/17/08
A juvenile piece of cultural appropriation, The Forbidden Kingdom doesn't even have the good manners to focus on the two martial-arts masters.
04/17/08
Pairing Jackie Chan and Jet Li would seem like a slam dunk, but this big-budget martial arts drama, which borrows liberally from The Wizard of Oz, is something of a disappointment.
04/18/08
Latest News for The Forbidden Kingdom
September 09, 2008:
Kung fu fever and fluff mix it up with hordes of floating knights in shining armor with bad attitude, and just a little heavy on the dressing, courtesy of the costume department. 
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April 20, 2008:
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Audiences were fired up for the first-ever showdown between martial arts legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li as their new fantasy actioner The Forbidden Kingdom opened at number one... More...
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