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Monkey, and other varieties of happiness!
Apr. 21st, 2008 10:48 amThis may have been the film I saw when I was very small, somewhat before the Halloween of my first-grade or second-grade year. If it wasn't, it was another film on the same topic, and I loved it very much. That was the beginning of my introduction to Journey to the West, which didn't exactly have what one would call a profound impact on my life, but consider that I am born in the Year of the Monkey, and I do fit the stereotype for the crossover between Gemini and Monkey very, very, very well. For the next year or two, I was a mad fangirl (iron fangirl?) and thought the concept of a staff that was one of the Pillars of the World but could be shrunk to the size of a needle was a really awesome concept. Dad found a picture book, and I read it nearly to pieces. I later read a translation, and that took up nearly a whole summer, as it was several very thick volumes, and not exactly light reading.
As both my roommates and I are Jackie Chan fans, Forbidden Kingdom was not optional. The only question was when we were to go see it. The 'when' turned out to be last night, rather last-minute. While grabbing my shoes and purse, I called Darkside to see if he'd be interested in joining us. He confessed that this was perhaps the only movie I could have mentioned that would tempt him, but alas, he had school in the morning, and could not. He detailed me to observe carefully the fighting between Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and advise him which martial artist/actor was superior. (This has been a long-awaited battle on the part of many fanboys, I expect.)
(As an aside, I boggle a little every time I contemplate the concept "Darkside is a fanboy", because while he is a youngish male fan, and I do believe he's referred to himself in this fashion more than once, it's just that the fanboy and fangirl cultures are so separated, although I think of them as united, and since he's not part of the fangirl culture, I think of him as remote, even though he is all over the sorts of message boards in which one finds fanboys. Fangirls gravitate to LJ. Fanboys wind up on multiple small and devoted message boards.)
In any case, somehow we got around to talking gaming. This resulted in him gossiping on merrily about his recent World of Darkness character, which was the result of him creating a pure combat character. Said changeling recently pulled an ambitious stunt involving leaping from shuttlecraft to shuttlecraft, stabbing through the cockpits and into the pilots with a sword. This resulted in the moniker "Shuttleslayer". (Reader, I adore this man. May he be blessed with as much happiness as he has brought to me.) Fortunately, as I was too tired to drive,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
myrrhianna drove us to the theatre, so I got to enjoy more of the gossip.
The opening credits are a work of art. Multiple works of art. I called who the man with the golden whiskers was, too, because ... well. He sort of had to be. I called whose staff it had to be upon seeing it, because it sort of had to be, and that clinched who the guy was, too. The fighting was delightful, there were some very funny moments, there were some moments where they could have chosen to ruin the whole thing with sap or Disneyfication and they didn't, and the punch line for Jet Li's character nearly made me burst out sobbing in the good way. The framing story is good enough, though I would consider that some loose ends are left dangling. And while PG-13 is generally OK for most kids for most movies, this one, I advise parents with kids below 13 to pre-screen this one. That recommendation is mostly on the strength of the rain moment, because that's something that I would not want to be surprised with as a parent, even though it is hilarious. There were no bloopers at the end, sadly. Either that, or the theatre crew killed it before that, although I doubt it.
I had a very good day, I think. After we got home, I did laundry and read. (ZOMG Lady Stoneheart. ZOMG Arrya. ZOMG Sweet Cersei, hahaha. ZOMG final chapter [a/n this should have been longer but you guys are waiting so long I'm going to put this up in 2 parts, 'k?] ahaha.)
As both my roommates and I are Jackie Chan fans, Forbidden Kingdom was not optional. The only question was when we were to go see it. The 'when' turned out to be last night, rather last-minute. While grabbing my shoes and purse, I called Darkside to see if he'd be interested in joining us. He confessed that this was perhaps the only movie I could have mentioned that would tempt him, but alas, he had school in the morning, and could not. He detailed me to observe carefully the fighting between Jackie Chan and Jet Li, and advise him which martial artist/actor was superior. (This has been a long-awaited battle on the part of many fanboys, I expect.)
(As an aside, I boggle a little every time I contemplate the concept "Darkside is a fanboy", because while he is a youngish male fan, and I do believe he's referred to himself in this fashion more than once, it's just that the fanboy and fangirl cultures are so separated, although I think of them as united, and since he's not part of the fangirl culture, I think of him as remote, even though he is all over the sorts of message boards in which one finds fanboys. Fangirls gravitate to LJ. Fanboys wind up on multiple small and devoted message boards.)
In any case, somehow we got around to talking gaming. This resulted in him gossiping on merrily about his recent World of Darkness character, which was the result of him creating a pure combat character. Said changeling recently pulled an ambitious stunt involving leaping from shuttlecraft to shuttlecraft, stabbing through the cockpits and into the pilots with a sword. This resulted in the moniker "Shuttleslayer". (Reader, I adore this man. May he be blessed with as much happiness as he has brought to me.) Fortunately, as I was too tired to drive,
myrrhianna drove us to the theatre, so I got to enjoy more of the gossip. The opening credits are a work of art. Multiple works of art. I called who the man with the golden whiskers was, too, because ... well. He sort of had to be. I called whose staff it had to be upon seeing it, because it sort of had to be, and that clinched who the guy was, too. The fighting was delightful, there were some very funny moments, there were some moments where they could have chosen to ruin the whole thing with sap or Disneyfication and they didn't, and the punch line for Jet Li's character nearly made me burst out sobbing in the good way. The framing story is good enough, though I would consider that some loose ends are left dangling. And while PG-13 is generally OK for most kids for most movies, this one, I advise parents with kids below 13 to pre-screen this one. That recommendation is mostly on the strength of the rain moment, because that's something that I would not want to be surprised with as a parent, even though it is hilarious. There were no bloopers at the end, sadly. Either that, or the theatre crew killed it before that, although I doubt it.
I had a very good day, I think. After we got home, I did laundry and read. (ZOMG Lady Stoneheart. ZOMG Arrya. ZOMG Sweet Cersei, hahaha. ZOMG final chapter [a/n this should have been longer but you guys are waiting so long I'm going to put this up in 2 parts, 'k?] ahaha.)
