James Hong stars in the newest film in his career that goes as far back as the 1950s: The Keepers of the 5 Kingdoms. Big Trouble in Little China, Batman: Soul of the Dragon, Everything Everywhere All at Once and Kung Fu Panda are just but a few of the movies he has featured. He is among the most prolific actors, having appeared in over 450 films to date. Aside from being an actor, he has also directed a number of films – the most recognized being his 1989 horror film entitled The Vineyard.
In the film, he acted as the grandfather of the heroine Patsy Lee, which is portrayed by Michelle Mao (Cosmetic Criminals, Metal Lords). In the film, Chuck Lee is married to Patsy Lee, the protagonist’s grandfather. Not much information is given about her birth family other than her being of Chinese ancestry.
But that is about to change when she ends up having an otherworldly box, a box which was let go of by Frank (Dante Basco, Sightings, Asian Persuasion) and Hank (Dave Sheridan, That’s a Wrap, How to Kill Your Roommates and Get Away With It) whose clumsiness makes them two of Kuang’s (Bai Ling, Exorcism at 60, 000 Feet, The Haunted Studio) roughy-like mannequins. It is perhaps too much to expect them to be very effective as they were recently a rat and a chicken.
They do not wait for long and Patsy and her grandfather along with her best friend Squirrel (Anna Harr, Shadow Master, The Dark Side of Opulent), Crush Hopper (Matthew Sato, Imaginary, Doogie Kamealoha, M.D.), and the box together get transported into another dimension. Obviously, it is the one in which Kuang is locked up in. They will have to come up with a way to use the box to leave this dimension before the evil sorceress and her creatures can reach Chen to use the box and break themselves from the dimension and destroy the earth.
The screenplay is surprising for its inventiveness and the fact that it was intended for kids. Directed by Ace Underhill and Zack Ward (who also filmed Tales from the Other Side and Restoration), the pretty standard story in which kids want to be heroes is surrounded by other interesting details and ideas. There are shots of a dragon in the shot, Trader Joe’s in a lizard suit played by Zac Albright, and a voice similar to Gedde Watanabe for AO the Wise. In my opinion, there are also several more actresses who voiced the vampire monks. The Keepers of the 5 Kingdoms have a lot going on that should engage their audience. A lot more than you would expect from a film that was clearly shot on a limited budget.
Despite the low budget of The Keepers of the 5 Kingdoms, the expected texture remains remarkable. There’s CGI, puppets, and performers in suits all being employed to bring the film’s fantasy world to fruition, together with Knifecorp & Beyond Paranormal’s Clara Gonzalez-Garza, the team of practical effects performed commendably. Of course, it is also true that much of the film’s VFX does not work, with some of the VFXs of Umar Shoaib (The Way Out, A Promise of Light) not reaching the desired level, though it is nonetheless better than the majority of what you expect from an Asylum film. The strange part is that this time the movie’s VFX supervisor was Joseph J. Lawson who worked for The Asylum in a number of their titles including Flight 666, Alien Siege, and 6 Headed Shark Attack.
As much as the effects are spot on, the majority of The Keepers of the 5 Kingdoms story is pretty good but some elements are lost. In this case, Hank and Frank are simply too over-the-top silly, and their antics are much too focused on pratfalls and gross-out gags to be entertaining. The finale also seems a little excessive, as it treats the message and lessons pretty positively, bordering on too many moral lessons. Most disappointing perhaps is witnessing someone of Hong’s artistic ability spend the majority of the movie talking as though he’s reading proverbs off a fortune cookie.
Sure, I am watching a children’s film as an adult, and for this reason, some of the problems I have will most likely not be of any concern to the intended audiences of The Keepers of the 5 Kingdoms. And plenty enough does work that adults who sit through the film with their children should be amused for a large portion of the films running time which is a hundred and ten minutes. And equally pleased as their children with the final scene teasing the sequel.
For watch more movies visit: 123Movies