X
- 2008
- PG-13
- Lionsgate Films
- 1 h 44 m
- 2008
- PG-13
- Lionsgate Films
- 1 h 44 m
Summary While hunting down bootleg kung fu DVDs in a Chinatown pawnshop, Jason Tripitikas makes an extraordinary discovery that sends him hurtling back in time to ancient China. There, Jason is charged with a monumental task: He must free the fabled warrior the Monkey King, who has been imprisoned by the powerful Jade Warlord. Jason is joined in...
Directed By: Rob Minkoff
Written By: John Fusco
- 2008
- PG-13
- Lionsgate Films
- 1 h 44 m
- 2008
- PG-13
- Lionsgate Films
- 1 h 44 m
The Forbidden Kingdom
57
6.4
Where to Watch
Summary While hunting down bootleg kung fu DVDs in a Chinatown pawnshop, Jason Tripitikas makes an extraordinary discovery that sends him hurtling back in time to ancient China. There, Jason is charged with a monumental task: He must free the fabled warrior the Monkey King, who has been imprisoned by the powerful Jade Warlord. Jason is joined in...
Directed By: Rob Minkoff
Written By: John Fusco
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 27 Critic Reviews
57
48% Positive
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
48% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
4% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 27 Critic Reviews
57
48% Positive
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
48% Mixed
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
4% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Kung fu purists may scoff, but escapists with a sense of humor should romp through The Forbidden Kingdom.
For martial arts action fans, The Forbidden Kingdom may be the best fantasy story since the genre was opened to a wider audience by "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 64 User Ratings
6.4
56% Positive
36 Ratings
36 Ratings
33% Mixed
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
11% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 64 User Ratings
6.4
56% Positive
36 Ratings
36 Ratings
33% Mixed
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
11% Negative
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
I was surprised by this movie since I didn`t hear much about it. I guess I shouldn`t be cause Jet Li, and Jackie Chan are a great **** sounds the action all make for a great **** Heroes and the Villans give you a feeling of a different world, and that`s what I look for in a movie.
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Unashamed about giving its audience a good time, and the high spirits go a long way toward counterbalancing the cliches.
The missing link between '00s wushu, '80s kids' fantasy and '70s chop-socky, this manages to be thoroughly entertaining - and the face-off between Chan and Li is worth the entrance price alone.
Minkoff lets the fight scenes go on for a while, which is nice, and all the best bits are in the middle, when Jackie and Jet spend a lot of time playing off each other.
It's perhaps best suited for genre vets who can be satisfied with spot-the-reference games and Chan and Li's chemistry, or for undiscriminating kids who'll enjoy the "Karate Kid" vibe. But it's less a culmination of Li and Chan's careers than a passable footnote to better things.
This kingdom really should be forbidden.
This is a great and entertaining movie on one hand but on the other hand if you think about Jackie Chan and Jet Li in one movie it misses the expectations a bit. Also it is their first collaboration which is mindblowing looking at both actors long list of roles in the same genre. I like the story, worldbuilding and characters atop of the humor. I don't think I need to mention that the martial arts and fight scenes are really good when you have both legends Jackie Chan and Jet Li atop on others and choreographer Yuen Woo Ping in the team. The story starts with Kung Fu fan Jason Tripitikas who after a chain of unlucky events ends with an ancient staff and is drawn into the (mythical) ancient China. Here he is told that the staff is far more important than he imagined and is chosen on a quest to return it. I am vague here because of mayor spoilers. The story is excellent and uses a lot of legends and myths of China. Be it elements from Journey to the West, the legendary eight Immortals and fantasy tropes. I think it uses a lot of care and love to make staples and tropes enjoyable and worthwhile. While I am at it I want to praise the visuals to. Be it the sets, costumes and locations. Everything adds to the style and atmosphere of the movie. Lets continue with the actors. Jet Li and Jackie Chan deliver. It might be neither s best performance but it is enjoyable, humorous and entertaining. Michael Anagarano as Jason Tripitikas is surprisingly good. A good heroes journey. The villains are enjoyable too with Collin Chou as ruthless and well plotting Jade Warlord and Li Bingbing as intimidating and unrelenting Ni Chang. From Liu Yifei as Golden Sparrow I wished to see more as she is a great addition. I think the cast delivered a great and fitting performance. Then there is the humor. It may not be a comedy but it delivers some good humor. I still remembered the summoning rain scene;-). The humor is a good addition and well integrated into the story. There is a fine balance for movies between being serious and still have humor. Too much or bad humor harms a movie with serious themes. Overall this was an enjoyable movie and worth watching. I fully admit that I expected more but this did not harm my experience. (Yes this is possible but a rare event). Might not be the greatest movie but a well crafted fairy-tale with good characters and enjoyable martial arts.
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The plot in this movie is bogus and the dialog is cheesy, it will scratch the Kung-Fu maniacs itch, there is a lot of reasons to love or hate this movie, I would recommend trying this for yourself.
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From the beginning of this movie (which I just decided to watch while channel surfing) I was not sure what I was getting into but was intrigued. This is a GREAT story that kept me interested, watching and completely entertained. Even the ending was well done and I never felt like the director "jumped the shark" with any plot lines or insulted my intelligence. Who knew the kid star in this movie had some serious skills! At the end I felt great about the movie and made sure to save it so my kids could watch it to. For kung-fu fanatics the opening scene may worry you a bit but the action gets better and better all the way to the end.
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Watching teenage oriented Jackie Chan movies is a bit **** pleasure of mine at times and I had seen an advert for the movie so I though it might be of interest, now having seen it, I'm left with the usual feeling that it was neither a bad nor a particularly good movie. I can't decide how to feel about such movies, their the kind of movie where you feel when your watching it that its quite entertaining and interesting but a day or so afterwards, you struggle to remember most of the story and its highly doubtful that I'd want to watch it again. The movie is quite fantasy based with the scenes with 'Golden Sparrow' (the female love interest, who appears like an angel) for example and some of the landscape shots and im sure it would look quite impressive if played on a large widescreen TV, the cinematography in itself is pretty good, although equally it doesn't have the feel of being a film where the largest budget was spent either (its somewhere inbetween, if that makes any sense), its not quite Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the scenes in mythical China have an almost animated feel to them. I thought that it reminded me of the Final Fantasy console games perhaps. The characters were interesting at first but the story seemed to lack something and thats what lets it down, I feel. I'm pretty sure that a good amount of young teenagers will enjoy this movie for the fighting scenes, which are quite good and the whole coming of age element to it but if you analyse the movie in terms of the character development and what substance there is other than the pretty good scenery, your not left with all that much. The story just seemed too much of a 're-hash' job, I mean there are so many similar movies really and I feel this had the potential to be better. The main character of Jason I didn't feel was overly likeable either, not much is really told about him until quite far into the movie and I think perhaps if more was somehow told and there was more background information provided on both Jason and his small group of followers that end up joining him on his quest, then that would add quite a bit to the movie, it certainly helps when the viewer feels sufficiently keen to see a good outcome for those involved but there didn't seem to be enough details provided to make the viewer feel particularly strongly either way, IMO, which is perhaps a little cruel but either way I do think this movie badly lacked enough character development to give us viewers a strong enough vested interest in the result of 'the big finale'.
As it turns out, Jackie Chan is joined by Jet Li in this movie, both of which are, obviously, very successful actors but yet they only play secondary roles as Jasons companions and it did feel as if their potential hadn't been fully used, which was a shame. Watching the scenes where they all walked through deserts and other landscapes on their way to fight the Jade Warlord, it dawned on me that this movie is perhaps somewhat also like the Lord of the Rings movies/stories perhaps, in that its trying to be an epic comg of age type adventure or discovery or something, so it certainly had lofty ambitions, you could say, it just doesn't quite come up to scratch somehow. Its not a very long movie, however, at under two hours long and it would probably keep the attention of a younger audience (its rated 12 so young teenagers, which is clearly the intended audience anyway, I guess im getting old to be watching such movies lol) compared to the Lord of the Rings movies and it is just one movie and not three, which is perhaps an advantage to some! I just felt that it wasn't anything particularly new, story wise really, its a movie that feels like it has potential and they tried to make it seem quite fantastical, indeed the scenery is quite impressive at times and the acting is pretty good but the characters lack real depth and the story is somewhat formulaic, plus the ending I felt was rather unfulfilling and might disappoint others. I can't say that I feel this is an awful movie because I did enjoy some aspects of it, some of the scenes such as the fight scenes, were done well and the landscapes are quite impressive, there's a pretty good cast and its entertaining enough to pass the time it just could have quite a bit better and its a shame it wasn't I think. Its quite possible that younger people (ugh I really must be getting old lol) will enjoy it more than I did and I wouldn't say its not worth giving it a chance if it comes on TV but its not a movie I'd rush out to see in itself. Basically it could be better but it could be worse, I'll give it a 5 out of 10 for effort! lol.
If your particularly interested in seeing this due to the cast then I'd recommend you rent it rather than buying it because its really not the sort of movie I think many people would want to re-watch and so I can't recommend purchasing it specifically. Its not really bad but its certainly not memorable either, in my opinion.
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On se réjouit de voir enfin réunis les deux virtuoses du Kung Fu dans le même film (non, ce n'est pas le mariage pour tous...) ; les deux stars s'affrontent gentiment mais spectaculairement, puis se taquinent mutuellement pour la plus grande joie du spectateur.
En même temps, on regrette que cette superbe occasion soit si mal organisée, si niaise et si maladroite... car dans le "Royaume interdit", nos héros sont déjà bien vieux et s'effacent devant le véritable "héros" de l'histoire (à dormir debout), en l'occurrence un jeune gogol double combo (tronche de cake -et- tête à claques) qui doit remettre le bâton perdu au Roi-Singe prisonnier...
L'occasion en tout cas de moult combats très correctement filmés qui n'abusent -pas trop- des câbles... et outre nos deux vieux (pas si vieux tout de même, j'exagère...) la présence de deux beautés chinoises ravissantes (une gentille et une méchante...).
Trop bêbête et trop grand public, le film ne convainc jamais et se révèle un rendez-vous manqué, vite oublié mais qui restera dans les rouleaux de l'anecdote super...ficielle.
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Production Company
Casey Silver Productions,
China Film Co-Production Corporation,
Huayi Brothers Media,
Prosperity Pictures,
Relativity Media
Release Date Apr 18, 2008
Duration 1 h 44 m
Rating PG-13
Tagline The path is unsafe. The place is unknown. The journey is unbelievable.
Awards
Golden Trailer Awards
• 2 Nominations
Teen Choice Awards
• 2 Nominations
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
• 1 Nomination
