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.
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