Sunday, June 1, 2008

the forbidden kingdom!

lol. I just finished watching 'The Forbidden Kingdom'! A movie packed full of action, kungfu and bad english. A lot of bad english. The only characters speaking reasonably good english were the American boy and the Chinese girl. >_>

Action was pretty cool though, as there were some magical elements as well, like the Jade General guy shooting 'chi power' everywhere.

Plot was very stupid, though.

PLOT SUMMARY
*500 years ago*
Sun Wu Kong (Monkey King) is gallivanting around and goes to the Jade Emperor's peach party. Emperor is happy, but Jade Warlord is not. When Emperor goes to some 500 year meditation, leaving Warlord behind to govern China (evidently America and any other country was not included in the bargain), Warlord plots to defeat Monkey King. However, Monkey King has his golden stick, which makes him undefeatable. Warlord tricks Monkey King into dropping stick, then turns him into a nice stone statue. During the stonification process, Monkey King shows good sportsmanship, moving into a nice pose.
Monkey King Bar
A powerful staff used by a martial arts master. Grants +75 damage, 15% increased attack speed, and a 30% chance to deal 100 bonus damage on every attack stopping channeling spells. (not stated, but it also gives immunity to Jade Warlords >_>)
*TRANSITION INTO SOUTH BOSTON*

There is an American boy (Jason) who is some crazy kungfu fanatic, so he frequents a chinese pawn shop for kungfu videos. He later gets beaten up and forced to betray the pawn shop owner by this evil gang of older kids, where they rob and shoot the old owner. After shooting him, they go all "Oh noes! He's a witness!" and chase him to the rooftop, where Jason is pulled over the edge by the magical golden stick given to him by the owner.

*TRANSITION INTO CHINA*

Jason wakes up in a village where everyone speaks Chinese and where there are
NO ENGLISH SUBTITLES. Evil Jade army comes and plunders village. Squad captain sees staff and tries to get it and Jackie Chan (drunk guy who pretends to be an immortal until he gets fatally wounded) saves him. Whee. It's all good up to this point, where Jackie Chan speaks his first word of english. After some plot development filled completely with either Chinese or bad english, two good characters Jet Li (Monkey King's kage bunshin) and Chinese girl (pipa-playing avenger) are introduced. A bad character is also introduced, which literally translated is the White Haired Witch, with Rapunzel-like powers of hair manipulation. There is a lot more fighting with nameless noob soldiers, then Witch shoots an arrow and it hits Jackie Chan, where it is revealed he can die! Jason goes to trade the golden stick for the Elixir of Immortality, but Witch wants the Elixir too, so they fight and Jason loses. Then Jet Li and girl and random monks from a nearby temple siege the place and Warlord hastily opens his portal to Mount Doom, hidden under Monkey King's statue. Jet Li then stops him from throwing the stick into the hot lava and after some fighting Witch dies and girl dies and Monkey King comes back after his kage bunshin dies. Warlord is then killed, dropping into Mount Doom and Jason is brought home by Emperor who returned from meditation.

*TRANSITION BACK TO BOSTON*

Jason owns the evil gang with his new-found kungfu skills. He then meets this Chinese girl who looks exactly like the dead one (evidently impossible as her family had died and she was too focused on revenge to think of continuing the family line). THE END.

Yup. It's silly all right.

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