this is an excellent independant film with a first time director

it's pure shiite, get over it.

1:30 hour loss of everyone who watches it life's.

OK. I agree with jamikeclark-1.

This is not a Jet Lee movie nor does it have choreography by Wo-ping Yuen.

So what?
WendyBrad I agree with most of your points, but this is not an Asian martial arts film...
it is an American FAMILY film that is a tribute to Hong Kong movies in the "Wu-Shu" style. Wu-Shu roughly means "chivalry" and as a film term means stories involving warriors and sorcery like "Zu - Warriors of Magic Mountain", (Made by Chinese director Tsoi Hark, who went to university of Texas, and then produced John Woos early movies with Chow Yun Fat).

The most famous and arguably best early Wu-shu film is King Hu's "A Touch of Zen"; "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was not only another tribute to this film, but also featured the heroine of "Zen" as the villainess with the needles.

As for racism and "Forbidden Warrior", we have a Latino and a Eastern European playing Japanese wise men, a main actress who is Japanese-American, and a warlord's honorable son who is Korean American, etc.

So, given that this is an AMERICAN movie, is it racist to cast a variety of Pacific Rim people as Chinese, or is it more inclusive to cast a variety of people in a film that is a tribute to all of the 80s and 90s HK and Japanese action movies that we love?

If there is racism in involved in responses to "FW", I think it is that people are more willing to overlook visible wires and bad special effects in Hong Kong movies because after all, "How could those people actually REALLY compete with HOllywood". So reviewers talk about "frenetic filmic energy" and "energetic homegrown cinema" but only two HK filmmakers (John Woo and Kirk Wong have made the jump to Hollywood.
So Hollywood tributes to HK cinema almost always get negative notices, especially the more like the original source material they are.

I think that there is a certain amount of "Look, these third world types ALMOST make good movies... really fast and cheap" involved in American HK fandom. Jackie Chan's "Armour of God II", which at the time was HK's most expensive film ever, cost 5 million. Contrast this with the 120 million spent on "Terminator 2".
(Then again, that same year Robert Rodriguez made "El Mariachi" for 7 THOUSAND DOLLARS.)

All three movies are equally good, in my opinion.

In case you haven't gotten it yet, my point is that one needs to take perspective into account when watching movies of any type.

I've seen more than 150 hong Kong movies, and not just action ones, and I in no way see "Forbidden Warrior an insult to them. As I said it is a tribute. For kids.
I would say "Bulltproof Monk" more of an insult, and that had Chow Yun Fat.
Also, "Forbidden Kingdom" was really no better than this, despite a higher budget, and the presence of Jackie Chan AND Jet Li.

The approach is not to ask "Is this a great action film" (it's not) but "Is this a movie with appropriate values that I would like my 7 year old niece to watch?" (I would).


So to rephrase wendybrads comment about negative postings...

Don't post unless you can articulate the following:

1) What was the filmmaker trying to accomplish?
2) Did s/he accomplish it?
3) Was it worth doing?

My feelings (or rather IMHO) are as follows:

1) Make a Wu-Shu movie for American children that the parents could watch.
2) Yes, and fairly well. Better than a stupid slapstick movie that makes adults look like idiots.
3) A good family movie is always worth doing.