Me, Her, the Boy and a Dog

OK, so I DVRed CSI (the original) and two new shows that I’d been looking forward to seeing so I could watch the Kung Fu action adventure movie The Forbidden Kingdom. It wasn’t a great movie, as I’m sure you could have imagined, but if you like movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Fearless, then this movie is probably one that you would enjoy.

Also, if you are a Jet Li or Jackie Chan fan, you’ll also enjoy this movie. If you like movies like Dirty Dancing, Ghost and Nights in Rodanthe … um, you might, uh, wanna skip this one. Just sayin’. :)

The story is about modern day American kid who is obsessed with Kung Fun movies. The neighborhood punks rough him up and then force him to steal from the video store run by an old Chinese man, played quite convincingly by Chan. Chan fights back, but gets shot by the punks. He tells the whimp-of-a-kid to return an old golden staff to its rightful owner. Huh? The kid runs from the gang of hoodlums and when trapped on a roof, the staff forces the kid off the roof … d’oh.

Right as the kid hits the ground, he jumps out of bed somewhere in China and somewhere in the very distant past. Enter Jackie Chan, the drunken warrior; Jet Li, the dignified and unshakeable monk; and a young Chinese girl whose parents were killed by an evil Chinese Warlord. It turns out the rightful owner of the staff is a Kung Fu master called the Monkey King, who years earlier had been betrayed by the evil Chinese dude (and there’s always an evil Chinese dude in Kung Fu movies) and turned to stone.

Before the Royal Monkey guy turned into rocky, he banished his staff to be hidden from the evil dude with the evil-looking facial hair. The American Kung Fu freak, who doesn’t know any actual Kung Fu, travels with the two good guys and one good girl, avoiding the evil-doers while the American kid learns Kung Fu. They must defend the staff and yet somehow return it to the stoned out Monkey Duke, er, King, who’s trapped inside the evil guy’s palace.

That’s it. That’s all I’m going to tell you. I’m sure you could get a much more professional and dignified synopsis (oooh, big word) at IMDB.com, but I do this for free so what you get is what you get. Wanna make something of it? Well do ya? Yeah, I didn’t think so tough guy. Besides, I just watched a Kung Fu movie and have mastered the Tiger Claw, sooooo… WYYAAHHHHHH!

Ahem. Decent movie with cool fight scenes. The Chinese actors are much better at the Kung Fu fight scenes. The American dude looked kinda weak. I bet those Chinese stunt guy and girls were pissed that they had to pretend to ge their butts kicked by some wimpy unknown American actor with no Kung Fu. I don’t blame them.

Well, the couch and DVD player are closed. Until next time, keep your hands off my popcorn unless you wanna draw back a nub. :)