The forbidden Asian
 |
|
An early version of the Monkey King makeup; the final is much more subtle |
On one hand, current box office champ The Forbidden Kingdom has Jet Li in blond capuchin hair playing Sun Wukong, the mischievous, powerful Monkey King. He flies around mountaintops, battling baddies with his magical bowstaff. All that’s missing is Hanuman’s inflated cheeks.
On the other, the plot was written for four-year-olds, a Karate Kid remake with the Chinese Mystic from Gremlins, a Fu Manchu / Flash Gordon villain in eyeshadow, Ancient Chinese Seekrits and a beta male bullied by moustache-twirling older teens, South Boston’s finest.
On one hand, Kingdom has an American filmmaker trying to bring wirework kung fu into the American mainstream by casting Chinese actors who speak passable English.
On the other, the first thing Rob Minkoff wondered was apparently, ‘How do we work a white guy into this?’ So the story centers around a white American teen who learns kung fu, saves the world and gets the Asian girl. Original. Didn’t you know? The last samurai was white, the MIT card sharps were led by a white guy, and when they rehabilitate Malcolm X, he’ll be played by Macolm Mahoney from Dorchester.
Does it work? Kingdom and 21, both terrible films, topped the box office their opening weekends. But is it necessary? The real draw in Kingdom was never Michael Angarano. (Who?) It was JACKIE CHAN AND JET LI TOGETHER AT LAST. Chan fights drunken style, Li plays a monk and the Monkey King, and the combat is a blast. As the flick’s marketing evolved, the trailers got rid of the extraneous teen. It’s a pity the film editors didn’t have the sense to do so too.
Here’s the trailer:
on Monday, April 21st, 2008, 9:24 pm in Film, Religion, Video clips › 
Email this
› 
Facebook this
› 
Reddit this
› Link
› Reader links
The bounty hunter isn’t exactly “Bride With White Hair” but she does have a cool name: Bing Bing.
Trailers are always better than the films.
totally agreed, manish. yet another film in the v popular *only a white teenage boy can save the universe from doom* genre. verdict: LAME
Yes, there are a number of cliches constantly being encouraged by action movies - i really get annoyed at times. Such as :
the first two are yours, a bit deconstructed:
1-WHITE kid saves the world - Hollywood types can only identify with themselves. The greatest problem with the USA, IMO.
2- white BOY/MAN must be main character/savior, even when others are provably smarter or more capable. It’s Destiny or some such garbage.. in reality, Hollywood demographics-based analysis which ignores most of the world, or that they create the environment to a large degree and thus shape perceptions.
Both of these indicate a profound subconscious belief by Hollywood that ‘white male’ = DEFAULT HUMAN. Grrr… idiots!
3-’The One’ - jeez, haven’t we had enough of this ‘there’s only ONE’ tht can save everything garbage, with 6 billion+ people in the world? Really, i think humans have serious difficulty getting their heads around the concepts of teamwork, cooperation, or anything but a hierarchy with ONE at the top (our lovely primate heritage)
4. Being special has nothing to do with actually BEING SPECIAL - e.g. uniqueness of vision, personal authenticity, keen insight, integrity.. all the things that require some difficult personal choices. No no… it’s DESTINY you see, so possibly YOU/anyone will ‘dall into’ specialness, rather than needing to introspect, exert effort, construct your own self. Incredibly misleading and disinformation to young people who, given the right guidance, could actually seek to evolve and *become the special people they are*. Bleh!
5. Women barely exist in the world, except as love interests.
Hmm.. apparently we approach ‘equality’ if one gets to be a villain, too, so that there actually TWO WOMEN in the whole movie! woohoo!
I have a game i play, annoying to my friends.. when they show the intro credits for actors for a tv show, i read them out: “white guy, white guy, white guy, white guy, white woman, black guy, white guy, white guy, woman of color. By this an objective observer would perceive that the ratio of humans on earth goes something like 7 white males, 2 non-whitemales, 2-3 women.
Again.. grrr.. and don’t get me started on how in the same environment, men are wearing turtle-neck sweaters with suit-jackets and women are wearing spaghetti-strap tops with mini-skirts. I guess ‘hot’ translates to ‘temperature-wise’, eh?
thanks for letting me rant.. nice blog ;)
I’m eager to see “The Last N!gga on Earth” starring Tom Hanks.