The Forbidden Kingdom 4K 2008 Ultra HD 2160p

Teenager Jason, obsessed with kung fu and Hong Kong action movies, finds an ancient staff in an antique shop in Chinatown that transports him to ancient China in the company of traveling martial artists. With their help, he learns the secrets of oriental martial arts, preparing for a battle with the army of the Jade Emperor, who imprisoned the owner of the magical staff, the Monkey King, in a mountain.

User Review
To the delight of numerous fans of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, the inevitable has finally happened: two recognized martial arts masters united in one film. And let it happened not in the late eighties - early nineties, when both masters were in a much better physical condition due to age, but now - in 2008 it has produced an expectedly great resonance.

So, “Forbidden Kingdom” is an adaptation of the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West”. Naturally, the plot was completely remade, as it is simply impossible not to take into account the fact that the film stars Lee and Chan. In addition, the film was conceived (and first of all the idea and concept of the film belong to producer Casey Silver) not as a philosophical parable in the spirit of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, but as a fairy tale, not devoid of humor and suitable for both children and adults. In addition to the already mentioned Jet Li and Jackie Chan in the film took part Yifei Liu until now has not gained fame in cinema, Colin Chow (Seraphim from the second “Matrix”), who played the role of the main villain, Li Bingbing, as well as Michael Angarano, responsible for attracting children's audience. To put the picture entrusted to Rob Minkoff before working mainly in animation. It is worth noting and the operator of “Kingdom”. After all, he was the famous Peter Pau, who helped Ang Lee with his “Tiger”.

Screenwriters saturated the movie with spectacular scenes of martial arts, which helped the story narrative to become more coherent and complete. The movie does not reveal a single sag in the movie. The picture was filmed in Hengdian, which is in China. Therefore, it is not surprising that visually “Forbidden Kingdom” even though it looks too “glamorous”, but the eye that is called, attracts. Humor in the picture is not so much. And, unfortunately, to make the viewer laugh actors can hardly. And the scene when Jackie's character tried to make it rain caused the utmost surprise. The music is quite “Chinese”. When necessary, it gives a sense of peace, but when the battle begins, the viewer is bombarded with an incredible cacophony of sounds.

As a result, “Forbidden Kingdom” is watched in a single breath. But there is such a feeling: do not go to the creators of their own mercantile interests, put more effort and energy into the project, and could have been a much smarter movie. Except that there would have been a problem - the movie would have left the PG-13 age rating and would have rolled in the direction of a much older audience. And that, sorry ladies and gentlemen, is wasted money! As it is, it's a perfectly acceptable, and even more than that, not bad, teen movie.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (81.7 Mb/s)
Resolution: Upscaled 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Info Audio

#English: Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
#English: Dolby Digital Plus with Dolby Atmos 5.1
#English:Dolby Digital 2.0 (Commentary by director Rob Minkoff and writer John Fusco)

Info Subtitles