Posted on Fri, Apr. 18, 2008

A lot of 10-year-olds are going to come out of The Forbidden Kingdom proclaiming it the best movie ever made.

That rapture may not be long-lived -- the summer movie season still awaits, and it is loaded this year -- but the enthusiasm is understandable. This restless, furiously paced fantasy, which marks the first on-screen pairing of martial-arts titans Jackie Chan and Jet Li, overcomes a clunky opening 10 minutes to become a feature-length rush of Saturday-matinee adventure and fun.

That opening, in which Jason (Michael Angarano), a Boston teen obsessed with kung-fu movies, runs afoul of some bullies, gets The Forbidden Kingdom off to a woefully familiar start. But once Jason gets his hands on an ancient staff that magically transports him to ancient China, The Forbidden Kingdom becomes one high point after another, with practically no fat between its scenes.

Director Rob Minkoff (The Lion King, Stuart Little) has whittled down John Fusco's screenplay, which is based on a traditional Chinese legend, to its barest, purest essence. That leaves you little time to ponder the plentiful plot holes or prevailing silliness of the story, in which Jason learns he is destined to use the staff to free the ageless Monkey King (Jet Li) from a stone trap et by the tyrannical Jade War Lord (Collin Chou).

Assisting Jason on his quest are a drunk-fu master (Jackie Chan) who may or may not be immortal but can drink like he has no liver, and a white-robed monk (also played by Li) who is one of the Monkey King's tireless disciples. Chan and Li's first scene comes around 45 minutes into the film, and director Minkoff makes the best of it, allowing the subsequent martial-arts confrontation (choreographed by The Matrix's wire-fu master Woo-Ping Yuen) to play out for an extended, thrilling chunk of screen time. Chan and Li may be older and not quite as agile as they were when they became film superstars, but their first encounter here delivers as much of a thrill as Al Pacino and Robert De Niro's initial sit-down in Heat. This one also happens to involve a lot of kicks in faces, too.

The bulk of The Forbidden Kingdom was shot on location in China, and although the cinematography by Peter Pau (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is lovely, the movie can't avoid looking like it's often taking place on sets. The movie incorporates both subtle and obvious homages to classics of this genre (fans of The Bride With White Hair will get a kick out of the whip-wielding villainess here played by Li Bing Bing), but the comparisons only help to remind you how shallow an adventure this really is.

And some of the major kung-fu sequences, such as a showdown between Chan, the boy and a troop of the War Lord's soldiers inside a tea house, are edited together in a way that obfuscates the action instead of showcasing it. More than once during The Forbidden Kingdom, I wondered what someone like Steven Spielberg might have done with this material. But then Chan or Li did something else onscreen to pull me back into the film (a highpoint: a scene in which they team up to teach the skinny little American kid some kung-fu). I can't imagine anyone with even a passing interest in fantasy films not being completely engrossed in this winsome, exciting picture by the time of the big action climax, in which the grossly outnumbered heroes square off against the War Lord's entire army. The Forbidden Kingdom may be nothing but disposable fun, but it is a great, heaping, overflowing helping of fun. If you're 10, it may also seem like Citizen Kane.

Cast: Michael Angarano, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Collin Chou, Liu Yifei, Li Bing Bing

Director: Rob Minkoff

Screenwriter: John Fusco

Producer: Casey Silver

A Lionsgate release. Running time: 113 minutes. In English and Mandarin with English subtitles. Brief vulgar language, chopsocky violence. Playing at area theaters.