The Forbidden Kingdom

H

Huy Vu

Veteran
God, I just saw the trailer for this film, and I'm angry to say the least. This is Hollywood's latest rape of another culture's classics literature. I'm not a racist by any mean, but I think that it's offensive to shoehorn a Caucasian lead into a story set in ancient China; a kid no less. It's said right there in the trailer, "It has been foretold that a seeker will come who will rid the land of the evil blah blah blah..." So there we have our Chosen One who needs to be taught the wise and mysterious ways of the Orients. And how convenient for him that everybody in ancient China speaks English with an accent. It's condescending as hell. I've read and love the legend of the Monkey King, and this film has nothing to do with that. Nada, zip, zilch. This is exactly how I felt when they casted Zhang Ziyi as a Japanese geisha and made the film entirely in English. No respect at all for the culture they're trying to portray; everything just gets turned into stereotypes.
 
You have a very good point there. I agree whole heartedly. But these are the rules of the game... It sells, the american audience likes it ( big box office) and the job is done.

Unfortunately, sticking with ethnicaly accurate casting doesn't work for a global "Coca-Cola" Culture audience... Its all about the money...

But look in the bright side... Jackie Chan VS Jet Li!

On a curiosity note, this movie was shot on the Genesis camera. Went to a seminar where the DP of the movie talked about the joy of using it...
 
I greatly look forward to the movie. I do not overanalyze which ethnicities are involved in production or which actors have crappy home lives, or which have recently jumped on couches. I go to the movies to see a story. If told well, I like the movie. This seems like it may turn out to be a fun ride. we will see.
 
whoa double whoa?!! huh man im just going to huh about it?
i read the thread and was amazed by the topic and the tiltle of the film ,but its like polital impact time ..hmm dont let it bother you to much if i wasnt all medicated from the dentist id be angry to i guesse hollywood has its strange way of showing
its cultral pride ? isnt hollywood an asian who introduced film making to americans?
 
hollywood is a money generating place. i'm chinese myself and i saw the trailer and understood y they would have a caucasian lead that saves china. i may not agree with it, i may not like it, but i know that if it's an hollywood made film with an all asian casting, it's not going to do as well. producers don't want to chance it, and it's greatly psychological in bringing people into the theaters. movies like that are for the sheer entertainment value, special effects, and martial arts choreography. i doubt the story is gonna be very good, it's superficial and there as mindless eye candy. you just have to take it for what it is, and seeing my two childhood action heroes in it at the same time (jacky chan, and jet li) it's too hard for me not to see it. it sucks, but name me 1 american born asian male, that is an A list actor in hollywood? it will happen soon, but we still go ways to go.
 
I don't know. A lot of Jackie Chan's move in the film looks too obviously CGI. Jet Li still has that brutal quickness to his moves though. Let's hope they put in some real choreography and not that slap stick comedy stuff to appease the kids.

As much as I dislike it, I probably will still be catching the film in theatre. I think it can still be an enjoyable ride if they make Jet Li and Jackie Chan the centerpiece, and NOT that snot nosed looking kid. He looks like a Gary Stu character to me.
 
That snot nosed kid is actually a good actor. He did a phenomenal job in SKY HIGH (which is a really good movie, by the way.)

I'll be there. This movie and Iron Man's gonna kick off my Summer Theater Spending Spree.
 
One thing is for sure: The cinematography will be excelent, from what I've seen.

On a side note, it was on that before mentioned preview/seminar that I attended that I was "educated" on the main downer of the RED vs the Genesis: Dinamic Range. The movie is full of very high dinamic range variations shots- on a forest, on dailight shots in interiors with windows, etc.

And, sincerely, seeing some of these scenes projected on a Sony 4k projector looked fantastic. The Genesis is expensive to the point of "not being for sale" for a reason...
 
saw the movie. was everything i expected essentially. terrible performance by that "snot nosed kid" he was way out of place, and it was comical at times to see him try to pull off classic "training" montage images. jet li and jacky chan did a good job though, choreography is as good as any high rated hong kong or china kung fu flick, they hit every martial arts movie cliche from the cherry blossom field fight scene, to bamboo woods, and flying around. editing i think was atrocious, ackward cuts, and people appearing out of nowhere with poorly chosen jump cuts.


on other news it was a very pretty film. according to imdb it was shot on 35 mm, actual film film. not genesis. so feel free to correct me if imdb is wrong. so it looked gorgeous, fighting was good, and i got to see jet li and jacky chan go at it. that's all i was there for... oh and the girls are hot...


effectively it was a good bad movie night.
 
xmephestox said:
on other news it was a very pretty film. according to imdb it was shot on 35 mm, actual film film. not genesis. so feel free to correct me if imdb is wrong. so it looked gorgeous, fighting was good, and i got to see jet li and jacky chan go at it. that's all i was there for... oh and the girls are hot...

IMDB is wrong. I went to a Preview/Seminar with the DP of the movie with Panavision. Basically it was a Genesis showcase/ workshop. He detailed shot for shot the advantages of shooting genesis.

He did say film was used for certain high speed shots, but nothing else.

The majority of the film was indeed shot on the Genesis.

IMDB needs to be corrected.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
xmephestox hit it on the head with his comments. I saw it today and it was pretty much what I expected. The fight scenes were good, as expected, although it's just too sterilized for my taste (no blood, doesn't seem like anyone actually "died" etc.). He was right on with the jump cuts too. There were several points where the music builds and builds and then just...stops, cut to something else. The song doesn't end, it just stops. And in the last scene the heroes just starts showing up out of nowhere, despite the fact that there was supposed to be an entire army between them and their goal.

The dialogues were atrocious, where we get such gem as "I will kill you, orphan *****!" that are delivered in the most stilted Chinese accents possible; not to mention a ton of exposition dumps that we didn't need. I literally cringed every time someone opens their mouth. The sad thing is I think the director actually told the actors to add as much accent as possible to their delivery, possibly to make it "exotic." And the script seemed to switch between Chinese and English randomly; some scenes are all Chinese, others are English. I can understand using English when speaking to the kid, but why would the villains, who are all Chinese, speak English to each other? Ironically, the subtitled scenes are the easiest to understand.

Jet Li and Jackie Chan are incredibly charismatic performers, and they went a long way toward making this film watchable. I think it would have work much better if the filmmakers had done it as more tongue-in-cheek. There were moments like that and they work, I just wish there was more.
 
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