The Forbidden Kingdom

Brilliant and biting satire of all those stupid kung-fu movies that were merely conceived as star vehicles, punctuated with contrived plots and calculated for commerciality. They even poked fun of the ridiculous English dubbing by having everyone speak third grade-level lines.

Their self-deprecating sense of humor is never more evident than when it makes even more of a joke out of Boston's joke of a Chinatown and made fun of the fact that, like the bible, nobody actually reads Journey to the West, so what would be the point of actually adapting it?

Nothing spells "naughty, mischievous fight humor" like Jackie Ch...eh?

Everything about the movie felt as authentic as the Jet and Jackie's top billing or its marketing campaign.

The Forbidden Kingdom: 3/10

Harold and Kumar 2: Yellow Fever

Yes! Yes. This movie gets it. It's about time we minorities fought back against racism by being racist back to the white people, thus pre-emptively out-racist-ing them into submission (except without the slave chains and cotton plantations, of course). It worked for Afghanistan and Iraq, why not in the real world?

In fact, this entire spring has been a coup for us yellows. I noticed a total of three Oriental-oriented movies on the marquee tonight: The Forbidden Kingdom, Harold and Kumar 2, and, of course, 21.

The only thing about the film that briefly disappointed me was that the entire Escape From Guantanamo Bay only took about 10 minutes (and no, that's not a spoiler -- the fact that it's stated in the title disqualifies it), but then I realized that nobody laughs at racism from Cubans -- we at racism from white people, because, you know, all white people are racist. Everyone knows that.

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay: 4/10