The Forbidden Kingdom
A modern American teen who discovers the legendary Monkey King’s staff is thrust back to ancient China, where he must join a band of mythic warriors to restore the relic and free its master before the tyrannical Jade Warlord seizes ultimate power.
“The battle for eternity is the fantasy of a lifetime.”
Synopsis
An American teenager, deeply passionate about Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics, stumbles upon a remarkable find in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. Upon obtaining the lost relic, the teenager is thrust into an unexpected journey, traveling back to ancient China to join a group of warriors from martial arts folklore on a perilous mission to rescue the imprisoned Monkey King.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 29
These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Eric StrandShot by Peter PauScored by David BuckleyDesigned by Bill Brzeski
Box Office
2008 · Box office
⚖️ Fell short of break-even — grossed 2.3× its budget
Why 2.5×?
Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).
Worldwide gross
$127.9M
US & Canada: $52.1M — 41% of worldwide · International: $75.8M (59%)
Opening weekend: $21.4M — 41% of its US run. Front-loaded — most of its money arrived opening weekend.
Opening week (7-day): $27.0M — 52% of its US & Canada run.
Peak 3,151 theaters
Also known as
- Das Verbotene Königreichde
- Forbidden Kingdomde
- El reino prohibidoes
- Le Royaume interditfr
- Il regno proibitoit
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Cast & Crew
29 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Jackie Chan
as Old Hop / Lu Yan
Jet Li
as The Silent Monk / The Monkey King
Michael Angarano
as Jason Tripitikas
Liu Yifei
as Golden Sparrow / Chinatown Girl
Li Bingbing
as Ni Chang a.k.a White-Haired Witch
Juana Collignon
as Southie Girl
Collin Chou
as Jade Warlord
Morgan Benoit
as Lupo
Jack Posobiec
as Southie
Thomas Mcdonell
as Young Southie
Zhi Ma Gui
as Old Woman
Shen Shou He
as Farmer
Supporting cast
7Directors
1Writers
1Producers
1Other crew
7Parents Guide
AI Personalities
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