The Forbidden Kingdom

Huh. Another fantasy martial arts adventure. Must be the season for it.

It starts out looking like it's going to be a cross between The Neverending
Story and The Karate Kid. New kid in town is bullied, and in the course of that
finds himself cast through time and space into Legendary China(tm) where he
finds he has to go on a quest to return a mystical staff to its rightful owner.
He's joined in this by three misfits, and it's at that point you realise that
you're actually watching a martial arts reworking of The Wizard of Oz. Only
given that the Scarecrow is a drunken-kung-fu-master Jackie Chan, and the Tin
Man is Ninja-monk Jet Li, a lot more awesome. Basically, whenever The Wizard of
Oz would have thrown you a song and dance number, The Forbidden Kingdom throws
you a kick-ass martial arts sequence.

It's not without its flaws; basically when the fight scenes aren't happening,
it's not so good. I'd say the worst of it was the direction and editing. Lots
of overlong scenes and really abrupt cuts, almost as if it was thrown together
at the last minute for release.

Overall, it's well worth a watch, if only to see Jet Li and Jackie Chan kick
hell out each other for a good five minutes. The final battle scene is also
pretty storming. Just be prepared to sit through some stuff.

7/10, but probably could have been edited better into an 8/10.