The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)

A discovery made by a kung fu obsessed American teen sends him on an adventure to China, where he joins up with a band of martial arts warriors in order to free the imprisoned Monkey King.

Director:

Rob Minkoff

Writer:

John Fusco

Stars:

Jet Li, Michael Angarano, Jackie Chan

4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Jet Li	...	The Monkey King / The Silent Monk
Michael Angarano	...	Jason Tripitikas
Jackie Chan	...	Lu Yan / Old Hop
Yifei Liu	...	Golden Sparrow / Chinatown Girl
Collin Chou	...	Jade Warlord
Juana Collignon	...	Southie Girl
Morgan Benoit	...	Lupo
Bingbing Li	...	Ni Chang
Jack Posobiec	...	Southie
Thomas McDonell	...	Young Southie
Zhi Ma Gui	...	Old Woman
Shen Shou He	...	Farmer
Bin Jiang	...	Young Village Man
Shaohua Yang	...	Jade Soldier
Yu Yuan Zeng	...	Inn Keeper

Storyline

An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself traveling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.

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Plot Keywords:

warrior | china | martial arts | kung fu | american | 

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Taglines:

The battle for eternity is the fantasy of a lifetime. (Canadian poster)

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Fantasy | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of martial arts action and some violence

Details

Official Sites:

Lions Gate Entertainment [us] Official site [jp]

Country:

USA China

Language:

English Mandarin

Release Date:

18 April 2008 (USA)

Also Known As:

Jackie Chan/Jet Li Project

Filming Locations:

Anji bamboo forest, Jiangsu, China

Box Office

Budget:

$55,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£676,217 (UK) (11 July 2008)

Gross:

£1,215,459 (UK) (18 July 2008)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Casey Silver Productions, China Film Co-Production Corporation, Huayi Brothers

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min

Sound Mix:

SDDS DTS Dolby Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This film marks the reuniting of star Jackie Chan and legendary action choreographer Woo-ping Yuen after nearly 2 decades.

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Goofs

When Jason is fighting the witch in the Jade castle, he jumps to recover the staff. You can clearly see that he has his hands on the pole when lands. In the next shot, the pole is several feet away from him. The shot after that, it's just within fingers reach.

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Quotes

[Lu Yan meets the Silent Monk for the first time]
Lu Yan: Ahh, good to get off my feet! Long day. So, where you from? Shangdong Province? You look like the Shangdong Province type. You come here often?
[the Monk doeesn't answer]
Lu Yan: That staff doesn't belong to you. You have to give it to me, or somebody might get hurt.

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Crazy Credits

Jackie Chan and Jet Li are credited together before the title. Jackie Chan's name is spelled out horizontally, but Jet Li's is spelled out vertically, and the same "J" is used for both.

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Connections

References Virtua Fighter 2 (1994)

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Soundtracks

"Tosehe Sugze Laa Part 2"
Written by The Tibet Foundation
Performed by The Tibet Foundation
Courtesy of Extreme Music

User Reviews

The Forbidden Kingdom - Great mix of action, comedy and a coming of age story.

The Forbidden Kingdom starts in a way that is similar to The Karate Kid, with Jason (Michael Angarano), the boy new to his local high school who loves kung fu movies, but is helpless to defend himself against the neighborhood bullies. These same bullies force him to help them into a pawn shop whose owner is shot but still passes on a mysterious staff to Jason. The staff turns out to be that of the legendary Monkey King and Jason is transported into ancient China where he journeys to use the staff to free the imprisoned Monkey King. In the end Jason must prove himself as he faces both fantastical and real life foes.

Once in China Jason acquires several companions; Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) a wine drinking kung fu master, Golden Sparrow (Yifei Liu) a vengeance driven young women and later a monk (Jet Li) who protect him and later train him in the art of kung fu. Together they journey to Five Elements Mountain to attempt to free the Monkey King and end the reign of the evil Jade Warlord (Collin Chou) who sends innumerable troops to stop them.

This movie works on many levels, none too deep, but very satisfying none the less. First of all it is a great action movie with very well done kung fu action scenes involving Jackie Chan and Jet Li, two of the greatest kung fu movie stars in the past couple of decades. In the midst of all of this is a great deal of fairly well done comedy, sometimes not perfectly executed, but generally fun, especially during the kung fu training of Jason. Last but not least this is a classic coming of age story in which Jason journeys from being a boy who fantasizes of adventure to a young man who can fight and suffer for what is right.

This is a fantasy based movie, so expect some magical displays and references to immortal beings, but this is not too heavily done so the story is fairly easy to follow. Refreshingly the movie has relatively little in the way of moral ambiguity, with villains that are really evil and those who oppose them being flawed humans but still striving to that which is right.

In regards to the appropriateness of the movie for varied audiences, the violence in this PG-13 rated movie is never graphic, though possibly disturbing for young children. There is no sexual content with the exception of an implied impending assault by the Jade Warlord (we see nothing actually happening here). I saw the movie in a pre-screening with mostly college students whose applause and laughs made it clear they enjoyed it, but I am quite a bit past college and found it just as enjoyable.

One last comment, while virtually all of the dialogue between main characters is in English, there is a fair amount of Mandarin Chinese being spoken during the movie. In the few instances when knowing the content of this is important there are English subtitles and I did not find the un-translated portions to be an issue.

Overall this is a movie that is exciting, fun and generally very satisfying to watch.