China The Forbidden Kingdom is a China–Hong Kong co-production — one of only a handful of such cross-border film titles indexed here.
Synopsis
“The battle for eternity is the fantasy of a lifetime.”
An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself travelling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.
Audience Engagement
1,542 audience reviews — more than 95% of China films in our index.
Popularity sits at the 95th percentile among China films.
China × Hong Kong Co-Production
Other China×Hong Kong titles
Titles With Overlapping Themes
Films and series that share thematic tags with The Forbidden Kingdom. Number on each card indicates how many keywords overlap.
Action + Adventure in China
135 China titles in our catalog blend the Action and Adventure genres. Below: the top-rated of them (excluding The Forbidden Kingdom itself).
The 2007–2009 China Window
The Forbidden Kingdom holds position #30 of 63 China films in the 2007–2009 window, below highlighted by audience rating.
The 2000s China Landscape
Catalog density by release year across the 2000s in China, 142 titles in total. Highlighted year (yellow) is when The Forbidden Kingdom premiered alongside 16 others.
Budget & Box Office Efficiency
At a 1h 44m runtime, production spent $529K per minute on screen and earned $1.2M per minute back.
Position in Catalog
Released alongside 16 other China films in 2008.
The 177th China title from China we index (earliest catalogued entry: 1935).
Our China catalog contains 946 titles in total (747 films).
Thematic Fingerprint
Tags on The Forbidden Kingdom, grouped by how common each theme is across the full Asian catalog. Rare tags are more distinctive signals.
- medieval · 5
- villainess · 3
- tempel · 2
- urination · 1
- staff · 1
- action hero · 25
- shaolin · 16
- fistfight · 14
- legend · 10
- east asian lead · 10
- warrior · 10
- temple · 9
- martial arts · 369
- based on novel or book · 288
- time travel · 70
- wuxia · 35
Reception Benchmarks
Ranked #504 of 946 China films indexed here (47th percentile by TMDB audience score).
Among China Action productions specifically: #147 of 319 (top 46%).
Production Details
| Primary Country | China |
|---|---|
| All Production Countries | China, Hong Kong, United States of America |
| Original Language | En |
| Spoken Languages | Mandarin, English |
| Production Companies | Casey Silver Productions, China Film Co-Production Corporation, Relativity Media, Lionsgate, The Weinstein Company |
| Runtime | 1h 44m |
| Release Date | April 18, 2008 |
| IMDb | tt0865556 |
| Official Site | www.forbiddenkingdommovie.com |