The Forbidden Kingdom
The Forbidden Kingdom is a 2008 Hollywood martial arts-adventure film directed by Rob Minkoff. It is the first film starring together two of the most well-known names in the martial arts film genre, Jackie Chan and Jet Li.
Lu Yan
[edit]- Remember what I taught you.
- Praying Mantis, very good. For catching bugs, but not tigers.
- Kung-Fu. Hard work over time to accomplish skill. A painter can have kung-fu. Or the butcher who cuts meat every day with such skill his knife never touches bone.
- The musician can have kung-fu, or the poet who paints pictures with words and makes emperors weep. This, too, is kung-fu.
- Formless, nameless, the true master dwells within. Only you can free him.
Monkey King
[edit]- [grinning impishly and merrily at the Jade Warlord] My turn!
The Silent Monk
[edit]- Learn the form, but seek the formless. Hear the soundless. Learn it all, then forget it all. Learn The Way, then find your own way.
- But do not name it, my friend, for it is like water. Nothing is softer than water yet it can overcome rock. It does not fight. It flows around the opponent, formless, nameless.
Ni Chang
[edit]- How romantic. Men will tell you what you want to hear, Sparrow, but in the end they will leave you with nothing!
Dialogue
[edit]- Jason Tripitikas: I can't understand you!
- Lu Yan: [in English, when he previously spoke in a Chinese dialect] That's because you're not listening!
- Silent Monk: What about two tigers, one mountain?
- Lu Yan: We can kill each other when this is over.
- Lu Yan: How can you fill your cup when it's full? Empty your cup.
- [Jason tosses tea out of his cup; it falls on the fire and puts it out]
- Lu Yan: It is hopeless! Hopeless!
- Golden Sparrow: How good is your kung fu?
- Lu Yan: He's got no kung fu. None!
- Jason Tripitikas: How long as he been imprisoned?
- Lu Yan: Five hundred years, give or take a few decades.
- Jason: So how do I get home?
- Lu Yan: You must return the staff you Five Elements Mountain, you must free the Monkey King!
- Jason: I can't free the Monkey King. I gotta get home
- Lu Yan: (ignoring Jason for the moment) Innkeeper, more wine!
- Jason: Geez, don't you think you had one too many?
- Lu Yan: Wine is my inspiration. In some parts, I'm known as a poet. Gan bei. (Mandarin for 'cheers')
- [innkeeper arrives with the bill]
- Lu Yan: In other parts, I'm known as a beggar. [gently moves the innkeeper towards Jason for him to pay]
- [Lu Yan is in bed, dying from his arrow wound]
- Lu Yan: When I was your age, I was a scholar-warrior in training. My arrow was good, so too my kung fu. I was chosen to take the several exams. To pass would place me among a short line of scholar immortals. I failed.
- Jason: You're not immortal?
- Lu Yan: If one does not attach himself to people and desires, never shall his heart be broken. ....But then, does he ever truly live? I'd rather die a mortal, with a care for someone, than to live as an immortal free from his death.
- Jason: I don't wanna lose you.
- Lu Yan: Forget about me.
- Lu Yan: It is said that master and student walk side-by-side, sharing their fate, until they go their separate ways.
- Jason: I will never forget you.
- Lu Yan: I guess that's what being immortal truly means.
- Jason: Is this a dream?
- Lu Yan: No, where you come from is the dream, through the gate of no gate.
- Jason: What is that, like a wormhole or something?
- Lu Yan: No, either you are a Zen Master, or you carry something very special.
- Jason: [points to the staff] This? It was in a pawnshop waiting for a guy to pick it up, and return it to its rightful owner.
- [guards come into the inn]
- Jason: What are we gonna do?
- Lu Yan: How good is your Kung Fu?
- [Jason does not reply immediately]
- Lu Yan: Ah! He who speaks, does not know. He who knows, does not speak. Surely, you're masterful.
- Jade Warlord: The seeker from the prophecy. Not quite what I expected.
- Jason Tripitikas: A man is dying on Song Mountain. I need the elixir.
- Jade Warlord: The power to save a life for the power to rule a kingdom, a most generous offer. This man, a good friend?
- Jason Tripitikas: And a good teacher.
- Jade Warlord: The man who honors his teacher honors himself.
Taglines
[edit]- The path is unsafe. The place is unknown. The journey is unbelievable.
- The battle for eternity is the fantasy of a lifetime.
Cast
[edit]- Jackie Chan - Lu Yan
- Jet Li - Monkey King/The Silent Monk.
- Collin Chou - Jade Warlord
- Liu Yifei - Sparrow/the Chinatown girl.
- Li Bingbing - Ni-Chang
- Michael Angarano as Jason Tripitikas
