The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
Directed by Rob Minkoff
An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself travelling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.
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What critics compared The Forbidden Kingdom to
Mulan, played by willowy screen veteran Liu Yifei (“The Forbidden Kingdom,” “In Harm’s Way”) is the daughter of a former soldier (Tzi Ma of “The Farewell”) and a mother (Rosalind Chao, “The Joy Luck Club”) who have to remind her — constantly — that “a daughter brings honor (to the family) through marriage.”
Liu Yifei (“ The Forbidden Kingdom “) plays the titular Hua Mulan, a warrior in a woman’s body (in a setting where being a woman forbade them from being able to serve in the army).
Under the guidance of New Zealand director Niki Caro ( Whale Rider ), working from a script where three of the four writers are women, the tale of Mulan (Liu Yifei, The Forbidden Kingdom ) disguising herself as a boy to join the Chinese army in lieu of her hobbled older father Zhou (Tzi Ma, The Farewell ) receives a decidedly feminist sheen.
We still have young Mulan (Yifei Liu: The Forbidden Kingdom), chafing at the limitations placed upon her as a girl in imperial China, where the only way she can bring honor to her family is by becoming a silent, obedient wife to a man she won’t even get to choose for her husband.
Lavishly mounted in keeping with today, this movie is visual kin to House of Flying Daggers but turns back to the simpler martial arts humor of Bruce Lee while resonating Back to the Future, Stargate and, in dual rôles in real and dream realms (plus, albeit the exact opposite of malevolent, a Flying Monkey), The Wizard of Oz .