It pains me to note that The Forbidden
Kingdom has the feeling of a valedictory about it. The film is a
generally westernized recitation of archetypal martial-arts legends
and themes that uses an alternate-realities hook to palm off its main
character arc on Michael Angarano, a good-looking kid who comes off as a variation on a theme by Shia
LaBeouf, in a bid to give a generation of teenaged American
moviegoers a point of emotional entrée to the story of the
Asian other. That director Rob Minkoff had the sense to retain the
great Asian martial-arts choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping and lyrical
cinematographer Peter Pau is to his credit - they give the
film notes of beauty and authenticity that play against the inevitable Hollywood gloss slathered across the story (think
Karate Kid: The Next Generation) and characters.