| | | "Blu-Ray Disc, Beyond High Definition."
Features: Widescreen, English, Subtitled, Spanish
Individually, they've starred in the most adrenaline-pumping martial-arts adventures ever. Together for the first time, Jet Li and Jackie Chan join forces to create the greatest epic of them all - The Forbidden Kingdom. As ancient Chinese warriors, they must train and mentor a 21st century kung-fu fanatic who's been summoned to fight a centuries-old battle and free the imprisoned Monkey King. If you're a fighting fan, the wait is over. The team is ready. The Kingdom has arrived.
"A faithful and disarmingly earnest attempt to honor some venerable and popular Chinese cinematic traditions." A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"...great fun, with a good balance between computer effects and athleticism." David Edelstein, New York Magazine
"...may be the best fantasy story since the genre was opened to a wider audience by "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."" James Berardinelli's ReelViews
"To see the two of them on screen together, even past their primes, is a delight." Maitland McDonagh, TV Guide
"...the best martial arts epic ever made!" Mike Sargent, WBAI Radio
"...a great, heaping, overflowing helping of fun. If you're 10, it may also seem like "Citizen Kane."" Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
"The result is joyous and exhilarating." Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Editor's Note
East meets West and kung-fu legends collide as Jackie Chan and Jet Li square off in the fists-a-flying, family-friendly FORBIDDEN KINGDOM. Based on the classical Chinese novel JOURNEY TO THE WEST, the film begins in modern-day Boston. There, while teenage kung-fu flick enthusiast Jason (Michael Angarano) is buying bootleg DVDs from his favorite shopkeeper, Old Hop (Chan, aged by prosthetic makeup), he is drawn to an ancient golden staff. When a local bully forces weakling Jason to help rob Old Hop, Jason escapes with the staff and is magically transported to ancient China. He is soon rescued from the forces of the Jade Warlord by Lu Yan (Chan), a raggedy wanderer whose wine-guzzling ways conceal his kung-fu mastery. Yan reveals the truth of the staff, and that Jason is the fabled Seeker who must return it to the Monkey King (Li) to prevent the warlord's evil plans. The two are joined in their quest by a kung-fu master, Silent Monk (Li), and a beautiful orphan (Liu Yifei) who harbors her own personal vendetta. Despite their differences, the two masters teach Jason the ways of the kung-fu warrior. And when Lu Yan is gravely wounded by the warlord's sexy assassin, Jason must bring his newfound skills and courage to bear if he is to save one world and return to his own. Choreographed by action impresario Woo-ping Yuen (THE MATRIX, KILL BILL) and shot on location in China, FORBIDDEN KINGDOM is an appealing family adventure about the importance of working together and the value of believing in one's abilities.
| Features | Audio: English DTS HD 7.1 Surround Sound, DD-EX 5.1 Surround Sound | | Blooper Reel | | Bonus View Picture-In-Picture Exploration Into The Film's Casting, Locations & Other Filmmaking Secrets With Interviews By Director Rob Minkoff, Writer John Fusco, Producer Casey Silver, Jackie Chan, Jet Li & More! | | Deleted Scenes With Optional Audio Commentary By Rob Minkoff & John Fusco | | Feature Audio Commentary With Rob Minkoff & John Fusco | | Featurettes: The Kung Fu Dream Team, Dangerous Beauty, Discovering China, Filming In Chinawood, Monkey King & The Eight Immortals, & A Previsualization Featurette With Optional Audio Commentary By Rob Minkoff | | Includes A Digital Copy Of The Film! | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, Spanish | | This Is A Blu-Ray DVD Made For Blue-Laser Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture & Sound |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Lions Gate |
| Release Date: 9/9/2008 |
| Running Time: 104 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2008 | | Catalog ID: 23838 | | UPC: 00031398101147 | | Number of Discs: 2 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Available Subtitles: English, Spanish | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew
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| | Professional Reviews | New York Times
"FORBIDDEN KINGDOM is a faithful and disarmingly earnest attempt to honor some venerable and popular Chinese cinematic traditions....[With] a lot of wildly inventive fighting." 04/18/2008Sight and Sound
"For genre fans there's a feast of sly references..." 07/01/2008 p.58 Empire
3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he two stars don't disappoint, either when sparring together or in taking on hordes of enemies under the direction of legendary fight choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping. 08/01/2008 p.59 Reel.com 7 of 10
Is it possible to recommend a movie based on a single scene alone? If it's The Forbidden Kingdom, the answer is an obvious "yes." This long-awaited pairing of Hong Kong action giants Jackie Chan and Jet Li is a scattershot combination of Eastern promise and Western gobbledygook. It's so '80s Hollywood it should have standing reservations at Morton's. Yet thanks to a wicked wire-fu confrontation between the aging action icons and some additional high flying fisticuffs, we gladly suffer the uneven casting and mangled mythology...Let's end the suspense, shall we, and get to the part where Chan and Li strap it on. Like all quality professionals, they take the insane fight choreography from Crouching Tiger and The Matrix and transform it into an athletic ballet. Their big battle--a standoff between grace (Chan) and gravitas (Li)--is a sight to behold. It's everything you'd ever want in a one-on-one face-off: close calls, unbelievable acrobatics, carefully constructed (and landed) combinations, and a sense that both men are enjoying the hell out of the experience. If all of The Forbidden Kingdom had been this electrifying, we'd have a Western-made modern classic on our hands...Luckily, the Eastern element of the production saves enough filmic face to keep us interested. - Bill Gibron
The Village Voice 7 of 10
The plot is pure choose-your-own-adventure: A bullied wuxia fanboy from South Boston (Michael Angarano) is teleported back into a LARP fantasia of feudal China, where he's singled out as the long-anticipated "Chosen One" prophesied to topple the despotic warlord. Our nominal hero then recedes behind the two Mr. Miyagis who adopt him: a Lisa Bonet-bewigged Jackie Chan and warrior-monk Jet Li (English line readings: 75 percent intelligible). This is the first collaboration between kung fu's Astaire and Kelly, and, as that, it disappoints. Like so much here, the fight arrangements by choreographer Yuen Woo-ping aren't so much bad as undistinguished: The camera placement is off, the tempo unvaried, and Chan's movements are obscured by his piled-on robes. The cinematography lacks storybook indelibility; Collin Chou's Jade Emperor is a stock archvillain (though Li Bingbing's bullwhip-toting "White Haired Demoness," announced with apocalyptic reverb, is lovely) . . . and then there's the scene where Li actually pisses in Chan's face--a degradation familiar to viewers incensed by the demographic-outreach casting of white-dude Angarano. Taken as a whole, though, it's an amiable lost-and-found of epic-adventure tropes. As I still illogically treasure Willow, many a 10-year-old who sees Forbidden Kingdom will remember it fondly in spite of its flaws. - Nick Pinkerton
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