Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Sat Nov 08, 2008 11:18 pm**

Damn that was fun!

Gotta love a good Monkey King movie!

Anybody remember this one?

Anyway, good story. Good wire-fighting, as well as lots of regular fighting that was well choreographed.

Nice to see Jackie and Jet together. I'm not the biggest Jet fan, but this is second only to Hero for me. (Thanks to some folks here, I've come to outright love Hero, whereas I only liked it a lot when I first saw it.)

Posted: **Sun Nov 09, 2008 3:14 am**

The Forbidden Kingdom was great! Loved it.

Never saw Alakazam.

Posted: **Sun Nov 09, 2008 12:05 pm**

Alakazam was on tv maybe 35ish years ago. I think it was on once a year for a few years when I was a kid.

Posted: **Mon Nov 10, 2008 12:15 am**

Wait a minute, The Forbidden Kingdom was about the Monkey King? Not really a Jet Li fan myself, but I would've gone to see this film had I known it was about the freakin' Monkey King!

(Yeah, I need to get out and see more movies.)

Posted: **Mon Nov 10, 2008 2:26 am**

I didn't know either until I watched it on Pay Per View yesterday.

Here's another take on the big guy.

Posted: **Mon Nov 10, 2008 9:03 am**

Fist and Faith wrote:Alakazam was on tv maybe 35ish years ago. I think it was on once a year for a few years when I was a kid.

35 years ago? No wonder I haven't heard of it!

I'm barely in my 20s!

Posted: **Mon Nov 10, 2008 11:02 am**

Brat!

Posted: **Mon Nov 10, 2008 1:30 pm**

Hm, I've heard of the Monkey King thing but knew nothing about it. After seeing this thread, I did a bit of reading on it. He's the inspiration for Son Goku? That disturbs me...

Posted: **Mon Nov 10, 2008 1:35 pm**

CovenantJr wrote:Hm, I've heard of the Monkey King thing but knew nothing about it. After seeing this thread, I did a bit of reading on it. He's the inspiration for Son Goku? That disturbs me...

heh...

Whereas if it is related in anyway to Son Goku, Beorn is going to love it.
I'll need to see if my Blockbuster has a DVD of this.
Thanks Fist.

Posted: **Mon Nov 10, 2008 5:49 pm**

CovenantJr wrote:Hm, I've heard of the Monkey King thing but knew nothing about it. After seeing this thread, I did a bit of reading on it. He's the inspiration for Son Goku? That disturbs me...

Yes. They didn't have those tails for nuthin'! While I am no expert on Asian culture, I think it is fair to say that the classic Monkey King story has been the basis for many things.

Posted: **Mon Nov 10, 2008 7:13 pm**

I remember looking at illustrated books of the Monkey King's adventures when I was young. I suppose it's accurate to say they were Chinese versions of superhero comics. I followed the Monkey King the way kids in the West thrilled over the exploits of their favorite DC or Marvel heroes. The world of the Monkey King was bizarre - I remember the imagery in those Chinese illustrations being surreal stuff.

Posted: **Mon Nov 10, 2008 10:05 pm**

Yeah, that Alakazam is somewhat surreal. If my memory serves, anyway. It has been a loooooooong time. I gotta get that from amazon, though. I'd be thrilled to see it again!!

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 8:56 am**

Hmm.

I didn't really care for it. But I've never been a fan of wire-fighting, so that threw me off greatly. I did get in for free, though. So that's something.

Posted: **Tue Nov 11, 2008 3:01 pm**

I was always opposed to wire-fighting, too. My first exception to the rule was CTHD. The reason, as I've said elsewhere, is that the sacred techniques taught at Wudan show how to manipulate your chi to an incredible degree, so that you can do that kind of stuff. Hey, it's a fantasy movie, and they can have fantasy rules, eh?

Hero disappointed me at first. No explanation for why they can do the crazy stuff they do. But someone in that thread suggested viewing it as a myth. I can do that, and now I can appreciate the beauty of the choreography and the technical wizardry behind it all. This is different from Jet Li's Fearless, which is supposed to be, more or less, a true story. Set in our world. That kind of crap shouldn't be happening, imho. Heh.

TFK clearly is a myth. Or at least based on the myths of the Monkey King. I don't have any problem with gods and Taoist Immortals being able to do things normal humans can't.

Posted: **Thu Nov 13, 2008 8:02 pm**

Jet Li was beautiful as the immortal Monkey King. He really got into the spirit of it. Chan cracked me up as the Drunken Immortal.

I always feel a little gypped when some kid learns to fight with combat masters in about four days. That doesn't work for me at all-- but it was a fun movie.

Posted: **Thu Nov 13, 2008 9:38 pm**

deer of the dawn wrote:I always feel a little gypped when some kid learns to fight with combat masters in about four days. That doesn't work for me at all

As a martial arts guy I feel pretty comfortable saying that it doesn't work for anyone.

Also, the best old Shaw Brothers' movies were the ones where the student got the snot drilled and beaten out of him (or her) over a long period of time by their teachers before they had any fighting skill.

Posted: **Thu Nov 13, 2008 11:18 pm**

Funnily enough, I just watched this last night. I was looking forward to it, liking both Jackie Chan and Jet Li, but ultimately disappointed (although Kimberly enjoyed it).

Basically, I'm not a fan of wire-fighting at all. Or at least, the overtly mystical stuff. CTHD was a great movie, because the fighting was actually secondary to the emotional aspect of the film. Additionally, many of the Jackie Chan comedies have more believable fighting than this, because of the way they're made to appear to be grounded in the real world (I'm thinking his string of movies during the 90s when he sometimes made 3 or 4 movies a year - Rumble in the Bronx, Supercop, et al).