Twitch teammate Al Young has been all over The Forbidden Kingdom since mid-May of last year when he first posted Jackie Chan's diary entry regarding his first "fight" with Jet Li, choreographed by martial arts choreographer Yuen Woo Ping.
Since Al's initial entry, his coverage has been continuous, providing production stills, teaser trailers, character posters, a behind-the-scenes video, the "Heroes" music video, a Flickr gallery, and IGN clips from the film. He and Swarez have both expressed concern that the long-anticipated stand-off between Chan and Li will fail to satisfy diehard kung fu fans, smothered in a wuxia fantasy adventure rendered from the perspective of a white kid.
There's no doubt about it. The Forbidden Kingdom is as sweet as a fortune cookie and its "wisdom" commensurate to whatever you'll find when that cookie's cracked open. Other than for the fun worthwhile fight sequence between Chan and Li, diehard fans will most likely be antsy during the rest of the film's fantasy tale, which unabashedly caters to youthful audiences wanting to identify with the film's non-Asian male protagonist Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano). This is wuxia twice, maybe even thrice, removed from its golden age predecessors, respectfully leaning on those genre influences even while mixing them up into a recognizably monomythic Western hybrid.
That being said, the film succeeds at its formulaic entertainment—sporting some breathtaking landscape photography, colorful costumes, energetic wire-fu, and clear-cut good guys and bad guys. No thinking allowed. The Forbidden Kingdom might just possibly do well at the box office, precisely because it's not really trying to pretend it's anything other than what we know it is. Even if it all falls somewhat short of what we all might have imagined it could or should be.
It marks director Rob Minkoff as one of contemporary auteurism's new breed. This ain't your daddy's auterism! Recently, over at Girish Shambu's eponymous site, there's been an engaging discussion on auteurs and auteurism. To help us get our thoughts in order, Girish recommended and linked to Dana Polen's Screening the Past essay "Auteur Desire" wherein Polen distinguished developing attitudes towards what constitutes an auteur. Whereas traditional auteurism imagined that directors drew inspiration intuitively and from hidden depths of insight, contemporary auteurism focuses more on the material activity of a director—"how he/she works in precise material ways with the tools and materials of his/her trade"—and perhaps even more importantly, how a new industrial history of film would have to look "not so much at the director's 'art' but at his success (or not) at dealing with the business of filmmaking, with the forces of authority that govern the political economy of film production."
That sure seems to be the approach when you read the press notes on The Forbidden Kingdom's director: "Rob Minkoff is a filmmaker whose work displays his abilities to produce films that embody both artistic innovation and commercial success. In whole, Minkoff's projects have grossed almost one and a half billion dollars worldwide and comprise some of cinema's most imaginative and inspiring films." Let's recount, he was part of the creative team for The Lion King, which "garnered two Oscars, three Golden Globes, and earned almost $800 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing traditionally animated feature in the United States." Then there was Stuart Little, which earned more than $500 million worldwide. That kind of business-savvy auteurism informs this film at every level, not the least of which is casting two of the greatest martial art stars in recent history.
One always hopes with a vehicle like this that it will inspire young audiences to explore the original material. But perhaps young kids these days don't identify that well with those older films? I don't know. But I do know this: identification sells.