Chan plays a drunk again and Li is a gay Hindu monkey god. See ZOMBIE STRIPPERS instead.

I was in China last week and visited the Shanghai Kung Fu School, so I rushed to see megastar Jackie Chan’s newest movie.

Chan is too long in the tooth to play the buffoon. So instead, he’s now a drunken immortal (a role he pioneered decades ago). He’s still falling down, but instead of bruising out-takes, we have Chan as a drunk stumbling around. Again. What’s up with that? Drinking is the only thing that tethers his character to the material world.

A meek, bullied teenager, Jason (Michael Angarano), is an obsessed Kung Fu movie fan. His DVD collection comes from a Chinatown pawnshop owned by Old Hop (Chan).

It takes years of practice and discipline – physical, mental and, I assume, spiritual – to master Kung Fu moves. One person who has ignored the ethics of the training is martial arts master – and 40 year old high school bully – Lupo (Morgan Benoit) who is constantly beating up Jason. Let’s put the Freudian homoerotic interpretation aside – even though it’s a Chan signature. What exactly does Lupo have against Jason? Lupo beats Jason up again and then enlists him to rob Old Hop. The robbery goes horribly wrong and Lupo shoots Old Hop. Grabbing Old Hop’s mounted gold staff, Jason is suddenly transported back to an ancient Chinese village. It’s Kung Fu Jason in Wonderland.

Jason is caught up in a village raid and captured by a warlord named Jade Warlord (Collin Chou). He is then summarily rescued by Lu Yan (Chan), a drunken Kung Fu master. Jason is the mysterious foreigner everybody has been waiting for. His sudden presence has been foretold in a prophecy. The gold staff belongs to the sand-blasted Monkey King (Jet Li). The Monkey King, Yan, and Warlord are immortals – only Yan has aged in the future as Old Hop (in the alternative universe known as our reality).

Yan and Jason make a very unlikely pair, so they conveniently meet young love interest Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei) who has taken it upon herself the task of killing the Jade Warlord for slaughtering her parents. Not to be outdone by Chan playing two roles, Li also turns up garbed in a flowing white gown as Silent Monk. 

There’s another white witch to contend with, but she’s on the Warlord’s payroll.

I think that about sums up the muddy KINGDOM’s plot.

What haven’t we seen before? Surely not the CGI effects or fight choreography.
Chan’s enthusiasm for his crucible typecasting is showing while Li seems to enjoy glamming and hamming it up as a flying monkey god. I would have liked to know more about the Monkey King (or is it Monkey “Queen”?) and advised Jason to change schools.

This is the kind of movie you not only summarize on the way to the theater, you can criticize it without making a mistake. It’s that predictable.

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