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Fresh off the heels of the recent summer action blockbusters Kick Ass, The Losers, and Iron Man 2 is another action-packed fantasy adventure film that is bound to captivate audiences.

Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time is an epic tale of a Dastan, a rogue prince who reluctantly joins forces with the mysterious Princess Tamina in the quest to safeguard an ancient dagger. This dagger holds a special power - to release the Sands of Time, a gift from the gods that will allow whoever possess it to reverse time and rule the world.

Taking an exotic world to new heights

Joining the bandwagon of motion picture adaptations, Prince of Persia is based on Jordan Mechner’s popular video game of the same title. When he created the game in 1989, he envisioned an exotic and untouched universe that had not yet been done in video games. Over twenty years later, he joins other video game creators whose creations have crossed over into a feature film.

Prince of Persia is produced by the legendary Jerry Bruckheimer.  In talking about his involvement with Prince of Persia, he said, “We love bringing audiences into new worlds they haven’t yet explored and ancient Persia is one of the most wonderful of them all. It has such a rich heritage of imagination and fantasy, and we’ve tried to honor that in ‘Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.'”

Directing the movie is Mike Newell. Bruckheimer praised Newell's work and was certain that the latter could do a great job bringing the story to life. He went on to say that Newell “has a really wonderful palette that he paints from” which helps make his storytelling style reach a broad audience. In an article, Newell shared, “I liked [Prince of Persia's] story…. I also loved the idea of going to a place I had never been before. We had the freedom to create this whole amazing world because no one knows exactly what it looked like.”

The film was shot in Morocco, where temperatures would rise to as high as one hundred and twenty degrees. Locals could not help but wonder why they were filming during the hottest season in the country (June to August), but Bruckheimer was convinced that it was the perfect place to shoot the film. He pointed out that the co-existence of modern and traditional lifestyles and architecture gave the movie a truer feel of the ancient world. Besides that, he gave credit to the Moroccans who are very welcoming and are great craftsmen too.

Parts of the film were also shot in Pinewood Studios in London.

The players of the game

Dastan is destined to become a prince, despite being born a penniless street urchin. From the beginning, a spark of greatness is seen in him, and this is brought to life by Hollywood actor, Jake Gyllenhall. Although this is his first time to portray the role of an action hero, Gyllenhall expressed excitement about taking it on, especially since he was a big fan of the video game when he was younger. Although he was not the clear-cut choice for the film, his name was the one the film’s director kept coming back to. Other names that were floating around before casting was set included that of Orlando Bloom and Australian actor Charlie Clausen.

Playing Princess Tamina is Gemma Arterton who was recently seen in the big budget film Clash of the Titans and also in a small role in Quantum of Solace where she played James Bond’s latest Bond Gil, Strawberry Fields.

Arterton shared in an article that her role in Prince of Persia was “a really big deal” for her. She also recognized that being the only woman in the entire film was “pretty immense” . When asked about how it was being the only woman on the set, she said that it was something that she got used to. However, working with veteran actors Sir Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina did intimidate her.

Bruckheimer describes Arterton as “a wonderful young actress” and predicts that she is “going to be a really big star”. It may be that Brukheimer’s prediction will come true as she is rumored to replace Megan Fox in the next installment of the Transformers franchise.

Adding star power to the cast of the Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time is Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE. He plays the role of Dastan’s uncle, Nizam. For Bruckheimer, Kingsley was “in every way, the perfect choice.”

Rounding out the cast is veteran actor Alfred Molina who plays Sheikh Amar.

On stunts and parkour

What would an action-adventure be without amazing stunts? The stunt teams, composed of  first-unit stunt coordinator George Aguilar, second-unit stunt coordinator Greg Powell, Morocco co–stunt coordinator Stephen Pope, co–fight coordinators Thomas Dupont and Ben Cooke, and parkour choreographer David Belle, did not disappoint.

The actors trained hard to get into shape to be able to tackle all the different stunts which included fantastic parkour displays of gravity, death-defying leaps, horseback riding and even ostrich races throughout the film. Gyllenhall, an athlete and an avid runner, said, “There’s no reason to do a movie like this if you can’t do the stunts”.

Parkour was used to incorporate Mechner’s video game character’s  ability to run up walls and other stunts. Parkour originated from the suburbs of Paris. It incorporates skills such as jumping and climbing in order to get from one place to another using the human body and public structures.

The cast also underwent training with horses under the tutelage of one of Spain’s top equestrians, Ricardo Cruz Moral.

Box-office reign?

The early reviews claim great family entertainment, but nothing really grand.  As this article points out, “[it] is a piece of machine-tooled family entertainment that’s hard to love, [but] it’s hard to hate too”. For Darryn King, however, the film has plenty of good points to be enjoyed, both for gamers and non-gamers. An added bonus to the film is its excellent musical score.

Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time opens May 27, 2010 and is distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.

Photo from the press kit.