Forbidden Kingdom, The

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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.

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