The Forbidden Kingdom
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Forbidden Kingdom |
| Original title | The Forbidden Kingdom |
| Country of production |
USA China |
| original language |
English Chinese |
| Publishing year | 2008 |
| length | 104 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Rob Minkoff |
| script | John Fusco |
| production |
Ryan Kavanaugh , Lynwood Spinks, Casey Silver, Yuen Woo-Ping Raffaella de Laurentis, David U. Lee, Philip Lee, Zhongjun Wang |
| music | David Buckley |
| camera | Peter Pau |
| cut | Eric Beach |
| occupation | |
| |
The Forbidden Kingdom ( Chinese 功夫 之 王 ) is a mixture of martial arts and adventure film from the USA. It is the first joint work of the two martial arts film stars Jackie Chan and Jet Li . The film is not a direct adaptation of the historical novel The Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en , but some characters appear who are also represented in the novel and part of the plot is reinterpreted. The action takes place shortly before Sun Wukong's journey to the west, this is confirmed at the end of the film: “The Monkey King traveled west in search of the truth. The traveler returned to his world, set out on the path of warriors and found his own truth. ”The premiere took place on April 18, 2008 in the USA. The film opened in German cinemas on April 16, 2009.
action
The film begins with a fight between the Monkey King and some heavenly warriors above the clouds on a high peak. It is later revealed that it was a dream of Jason Tripitikas . He wakes up in his room, the walls of which are hung with kung fu movie posters. After getting dressed, he goes to a pawn shop to buy new kung fu DVDs. There he talks to the owner of the shop, Hop. While rummaging through the DVDs, he came into a room full of antique objects and noticed the golden staff there. Hop explains to him that the staff has to get to its owner and pushes him out of the room again. On the way home, Jason is attacked by the thug Lupo. This forces Jason to give him and his friends access to the shop so that they can rob it. Hop defends himself and is shot by Lupo. Before he passes out, he orders Jason to return the staff to its rightful owner. Jason takes the staff and runs to the roof. There he is caught and threatened by Lupo. Suddenly the staff pulls Jason off the roof and makes him travel back in time.
When he wakes up, he finds himself in ancient Chinese clothes in a medieval village in China. This village is attacked by fighters from the Jade Army who are trying to take his staff away. However, he is saved by Lu Yan. In a tea house, Lu tells Jason the story of how the Monkey King wreaked havoc at the feast on the Mountain of the Five Elements. The Jade Emperor , who came back from his meditation every 500 years and brought the potion of immortality with him, was very amused and gave the Monkey King a heavenly title. The Jade Warlord was not pleased with this. After the meal, the Jade Emperor left the world again and left the rulership of heaven to the Jade Warlord. This challenged the Monkey King to a duel and turned him to stone with a trick. Before the Monkey King was completely petrified, he threw his staff into the earthly world. Lu Yan ends his story with a person he calls "Seeker" who will save the Monkey King and defeat the Jade Warlord. Then Jason and Lu Yan are attacked by Jade fighters. You are rescued by a woman named "Golden Sparrow". Sperling's family was killed by the Jade Warlord. Lu Yan, who pretends to be immortal, decides to help them.
The Jade Warlord was notified that his troops had seen the Monkey King's magical staff. He then uses his bounty hunter, the white-haired witch Ni Chang, to get the staff for him. When Jason wakes up the next morning, he is attacked by a person in a white robe. This takes the staff away from him. Lu Yan and Sperling follow the man's trail and find out that he is a monk meditating in a temple. In this temple, Lu Yan and the monk fight each other. During the fight, the monk realizes that the staff is intended for Jason, since he is the seeker. He reunites with the group and the four go to war against the Jade Warlord.
On the way to the mountain, Lu Yan and the monk Jason teach kung fu. The journey takes the group through forests and rivers, valleys and deserts. After months of crossing the forests and a large desert, they are attacked by Ni Chang and some Jade warriors, but they are able to flee on horses. Ni Chang shoots an arrow that hits Lu Yan. They take a break because Lu Yan is injured and hide in a monastery. There they find out that only the elixir of immortality can save Lu Yan, who explains to Jason that he was never immortal because he had not passed the exam to become an immortal teacher, so the wine cannot help him either. Jason, desperate to help Lu Yan, leaves the monastery alone, having heard that whoever brings the staff to the Jade Warlord will receive an elixir of immortality. When he gets to the Jade Warlord, he has to duel with Ni Chang, who also wants to become immortal, in a fight for life or death. When the monk finds out that Jason has left, he follows him with Sperling. Jason loses to Ni Chang; however, he is not killed because the Jade Warlord orders Ni Chang to stop. Instead, he orders his own warriors to kill Jason a little later. This in turn is saved by sparrow and the monk, who join them. During the battles between the Jade Warlord and the monk or Ni Chang and Sparrow, Jason seizes the elixir of immortality and throws it to Lu Yan, who was also brought to the scene by monks from the monastery. Lu Yan drinks the elixir, gets his strength back and fights with Ni Chang on the balcony. The monk is mortally wounded in a fight with the Jade Warlord and throws the staff at Jason. He takes the staff and frees the monkey king. The monk dies and turns into a golden hair, like another magical person who was created by the Monkey King during his duel. The fight between the Monkey King and the Jade Warlord continues. Sperling tries to kill the jade warlord with a mystical jade throwing arrow, but the arrow is stopped by the warlord's powerful aura (or qi ). After a long battle, Lu Yan defeats Ni Chang by kicking her from the balcony. Jason manages to mortally injure the jade warlord with the arrow, whereupon he falls into a hole full of lava and dies. Jason rushes to the injured sparrow. She thanks him and dies. At a celebration, Jason is praised by the Jade Emperor and returned to his world as a reward. When Jason wakes up, he's lying flat on the floor under the building he fell from and is attacked by Lupo's gang. But this time he can defend himself and defeats Lupo. Hop survived the shot and was taken to the hospital. He explains to Jason that he is immortal. Before Jason leaves the scene, he sees a girl who looks just like sparrow. She congratulates him and tells him that they will see each other later. Then she goes to her shop, which is called "Goldener Sperling". In the final scene, Jason can be seen performing a kung fu form on the roof of his house with a staff. The viewer learns through Lu Yan's voice that the Monkey King went to the West in search of truth and Jason is following the path of the fighter and is looking for his own truth.
background
- The action scenes were choreographed by Yuen Woo-Ping . a. was responsible for the choreography of Matrix and Tiger and Dragon . He last worked with Jackie Chan over 15 years ago in Twin Dragons .
- The film initially had the working title The J&J Project and was only renamed The Forbidden Kingdom in April 2007 .
- The film was shot in the Gobi desert , among other places .
- After the first test fights, Jackie Chan and Jet Li were impressed by each other and were enthusiastic about how easy and natural the fight synchronization between the two worked.
- In the English-language original version, the figure of the Golden Sparrow speaks of itself only in the third person . Only in her dying scene does she thank Jason by using the first person form for the first time ( I thank you. - "I thank you."). This trait is completely absent in the German-language dubbing.
- The making-of of the special edition also shows the missing kissing scene between the Golden Sparrow and Jason, as it was originally intended, but was then seen as superfluous.
reception
Reviews
"A slightly more ambitious first joint project as 'Forbidden Kingdom' would have been wished for the two of them, because the film turned out so silly in places that some 16-year-olds might feel too old for it."
“The fact that screenwriter John Fusco does not add anything new to the convention may be interpreted as respectful modesty; In any case, it is more sympathetic than the alternative of trying to outdo the role models with Hollywood funds. "
"The entertaining film serves its western target audience with skillful craftsmanship with the familiar genre conventions and shines with acrobatic fight scenes, especially at a 'summit' meeting of the stars Jet Li and Jackie Chan." "
On Rotten Tomatoes , the film (as of April 28, 2013) had a positive ranking on the Tomatometer of 64%.
Gross profit
| Grossing results | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| territory | $ | € | CHF |
| Worldwide | 128 million | 107.4 million | 115.6 million |
 United States and Canada
|
52.1 million | 43.7 million | 47 million |
 Germany
|
0.3 million | 0.3 million | 0.3 million |
 Austria
|
0.05 million | 0.04 million | 0.05 million |
 Switzerland
|
Not available | ||
| As of April 28, 2013. | |||
In the USA, the film jumped to number 1 on the box office chart in its first week, with sales of 20.9 million US dollars (17.5 million euros ; 18.9 million Swiss francs ).
Awards
- 2008 Teen Choice Awards : Nominated for Best Actor - Action / Adventure for Jackie Chan
- 2008: Teen Choice Awards: Nominated for Best Motion Picture Action / Adventure
Web links
- The Forbidden Kingdom in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Forbidden Kingdom at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Official website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for The Forbidden Kingdom . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , April 2009 (PDF; test number: 117 403 K).
- ↑ Age rating for The Forbidden Kingdom . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ Jackie Chan's diary from April 26-29, 2007 JackieChan.com from February 26, 2007.
- ↑ Double Ace: Dr. Bob C and Ms. Anne E. new movie - Star Online (English); accessed June 1, 2013.
- ↑ Daniel Sander : Eternal Grownups. Spiegel Online, accessed April 16, 2009 .
- ^ Film Service : Forbidden Kingdom. (No longer available online.) Deutsche Zeitung GmbH, Bonn, formerly in the original ; Retrieved April 16, 2009 . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The Forbidden Kingdom. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ The Forbidden Kingdom. at RottenTomatoes.com (as of April 28, 2013).
- ↑ The Forbidden Kingdom at BoxOfficeMojo.com (English); Retrieved April 28, 2013.
- ↑ The Forbidden Kingdom's grossing results outside of North America (USA and Canada) at BoxOfficeMojo.com (English); Retrieved April 28, 2013.
- ↑ spiegel.de/kultur - Spiegel-online
