You’ve heard of “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”? Well, here’s another Hollywood variation on author Mark Twain’s concept. Otherwise known as “Forbidden Kingdom,” today’s fantasy culture clash might just as well have been called “A Boston White Boy in Jackie Chan’s Feudal China.”
Whatever you decide to call it, the promotional hook is that this marks the first time martial arts icons Chan and Jet Li have ever been paired together. For fans of the genre, the even more exciting news is that Chan was not put in change of the choreography, as he usually is for his pictures. Thus, we get less of his trademark tongue-in-cheek stunt stylings and more gracefully hard-core kung-fu sequences, courtesy of the great Woo-Ping Yuen (“The Matrix,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”). Yuen takes charge of staging perpetual, gravity-defying action enhanced by sumptuous, transporting production design.
