Chan vs. Li

It is FRIDAY and I am ecstatic.
This week has been a mix of speedy and slow. Just when I thought it was slow it sped up and just when I thought it was flying by it began to crawl. But the other way around. Hehe...
This past weekend I saw "The Forbidden Kingdom" which I was very skeptical (excited but skeptical) about. It turned out to be really good. The Chinese was authentic (which is rarely the case) and understandable and I liked that some parts of the movie weren't translated into English so I got to be a semi-translator. The story of the monkey king is very famous over in China so I was totally stoked about the whole idea of the movie from day one to say the very least. I highly recommend checking it out. But don't go in there expecting Jet Li's "Hero" or "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon." It's not a serious movie. Expect some Jackie Chan humor as well as just...I don't know how to explain it any other way..."monkey-king-ness." I know this doesn't make any sense unless you have a history of hearing Monkey King stories so for those of you who didn't grow up hearing them or watching the show, so sorry. I wish they had gone a little further with the Monkey King himself (just the whole style...I dig some of the mannerisms that come out in the Beijing Opera versions of him and in the older shows...this isn't quite what I meant but it gives you a look at the Beijing Opera version...click here) but either way Jet Li did great and I'm stoked Jackie Chan and Jet Li finally made a movie together. So much for Jet Li never doing Kung Fu movies again...hehe...One movie to definitely check out is Kung Fu Hustle. The only way to explain it is...a Chinese movie with a semi-western twist. Watch it. It'll make sense.