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'Forbidden Kingdom' Is a Doofy Union for Chan, Li

By Kenneth Turan
Published April 18, 2008 at 6:00 AM EDT

Jackie Chan and Jet Li, two well-known martial arts film stars, just finished their first collaboration. Morning Edition and Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan says their new movie, The Forbidden Kingdom, was not worth the wait.

The great martial arts films of the past had a hard-core integrity that reveled in exhilarating action and didn't worry much about market share. The Forbidden Kingdom keeps referring to arcane martial arts moves with names like the Buddah Palm and the dreaded Iron Elbow, but it never overcomes its overall doofiness.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan is the film critic for the Los Angeles Times and NPR's Morning Edition, as well as the director of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. He has been a staff writer for the Washington Post and TV Guide, and served as the Times' book review editor.
See stories by Kenneth Turan