Rob Minkoff talks to Sina about The Forbidden Kingdom!!!!

The Forbidden Kingdom’s director – Rob Minkoff – was interviewed on Sina TV and talked about the movie, his love for kung fu, his marriage to a descendent of Confucius, and what it was like to work with Jackie Chan and Jet Li (“the only way I can describe it is it’s like the Beatles”).

We’ve transcribed a couple of quotes and link to the full interview (in Chinese and English) on Sina.com, but there are some minor spoilers, so don’t click if you want to be completely unspoiled!

On what it was like having Jackie and Jet on the set:

First of all, they’re friends, so that makes a big difference, and they’ve been talking about doing a movie together for 15 years, so this was a culmination of something they both wanted to do. I just was concerned about providing a production that was a quality enough production in terms of the design and the sets and how we shot the movie and the look of the movie to support the two of them. The thing that I would always think when I was in animation was that we make movies not just for today, you really try to make a movie that will last.

On why they changed the title from Kings of Kung Fu:

When we were trying to find what the right title for the film was, I think that the first concept was (Kings of Kung Fu) I think it was first suggested by Peter Pau. But there’s actually an American film called Kings of Kung Fu, which is an American translation. So, in America we actually couldn’t use Kings of Kung Fu for that reason. But I think Kings of Kung Fu sounds better in Chinese.

Is the fight scene between them actually 20 minutes long?

We wanted to make sure to fulfill the promise and the expectation of the two of them being together, so we didn’t cut back. We made it as much as we could, but not 20 minutes.

After the hosts quiz him on his knowledge of Hong Kong movie posters, he names some of them as Game of Death, The Flying Guillotine and Come Drink With Me, then says,

When we were making the film we had to select all the different posters for what would go on the wall because they have to be cleared, meaning you have to get the rights to use them, so they presented me with an enormous book from Shaw Brothers and we ended up using something that I think will be quite exciting for the audience, for kung fu fans, all of these posters are used in the title sequence which is animated. And I think it’ll be interesting because when the audience sees the credit sequence, they’ll do the same thing, they’ll play the same game, which is which films have they seen and which ones do they remember. So, I don’t want to give away too many names.

It’s obvious to hear him talk about it what an amazing experience he had making this movie, a dream come true for any fan of these two titans. He even has a funny story of what it was like to go to the airport with them together, and the chaos it saw when their fans spotted them.

See the whole thing, in multiple parts with pauses for translation, on Sina (thanks to Jackie Chan Forum for the find and the pics! And also to Jet Li forum for the great new set pic).
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4
Link 5
Link 6
Link 7
Link 8