Two of Hong Kong’s greatest actors are finally doing a film together in “The Forbidden Kingdom”; yet another tale loosely based on Journey to the West. Yuen Woo Ping (or God in my boook) is choreographing working alongside the cinematographer from Crouching Tiger. With such a magnificent pedigree one would assume that they would also have chosen a proven director to steer this project into masterpiece territory, but no.
Instead, we get Rob Minkoff, a man best known for such action epics such as “The Lion King” and the “Stuart Little” movies and the recent balls to the wall martial arts extravaganza “The Haunted Mansion”. Yes folks, the film we’ve dreamed about for ages will most likely end up being a PG rated family film.
I’m not asking for Zhang Yimou or Stephen Chow here, I understand that this is a film being targeted at mainstream American families, but it still seems like a tremendous waste of talent. There are quite a few American directors who would actually be much better suited for this sort of film–a kids film with action elements. With the “Spy Kids” movies (at least the first two), Robert Rodriguez has proven that understands what makes a good kids movie and we know from the rest of his repertoire that he’s well versed in the language of action choreography. Even Jared Hess would be a better choice, just see “Nacho Libre”.
In the end I fear that “The Forbidden Kingdom” will end up like so many other American attempts to bank on big-name Asian stars, namely the vast majority of Jackie Chan’s and Jet Li’s domestic works.