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The Forbidden Kingdom Our rating: Your rating:   MPAA rating: PG-13 (for sequences of martial arts action and some violence) Genre: Action Theater release: April 18, 2008 by Lionsgate Directed by: Rob Minkoff Runtime: 1 hour 53 minutes Cast: Jackie Chan (Lu Yan), Jet Li (The Silent Monk), Michael Angarano (Jason Tripitikas), Yifei Liu (Golden Sparrow), Bingbing Li (Ni Chang), Collin Chou (Jade Warlord), Morgan Benoit (Lupo), Deshun Wang (Jade Emperor) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Martial-arts fans have been waiting for years to see Jackie Chan and Jet Li co-star in the same movie, and when these two living legends finally meet for the first time in The Forbidden Kingom, you can sense that the filmmakers wanted to make the most of this historic moment.

Chan plays Lu Yan, a slightly comic figure who is always drinking wine and does a lot of his fighting "drunken" style, while Li plays a mysterious figure known only as the Silent Monk—and their first encounter, in an abandoned temple, leads to a seemingly non-stop series of kicks and blows, choreographed by The Matrix's Yuen Woo-ping, that looks incredible but eventually begins to seem a little long.

Silent Monk (Jet Li) and Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) in one of their fight scenes

You know how musical numbers are sometimes called "showstoppers"? That's pretty much what this fight scene does: it puts the story on pause, and as it goes on, you begin to realize that neither of these men is going to win the fight. Both of them have devoted fan bases, after all, and while both sets of fans will no doubt be thrilled to see their heroes in action, you can't really let either group down by declaring, in effect, that one man is more powerful than the other. It's like those old comic books where Superman engages The Flash in a foot race, and it ends in a tie.

Why are the two men fighting? Because the Silent Monk stole a magical staff from a friend of Lu Yan's. And the fight comes to an end when this friend finally shows up and reclaims the staff. But here's the part that martial-arts fans probably didn't expect all those years: The friend in question is an American teenager, and the first film to co-star Jackie Chan and Jet Li casts them both as supporting characters in this teenager's story. What's more, the film, directed by former Disney animator Rob Minkoff (The Lion King, Stuart Little), almost feels like it was made for kids.

Michael A. Angarano as Jason Tripitikas

I say "almost" because it does feature enough violence and off-color bits to qualify for a PG-13 rating, beginning with a sequence set in the present-day U.S. in which the teen in question, Jason Tripitikas (Sky High's Michael Angarano), is accosted by bullies who use his friendship with a Chinese merchant to break into the merchant's store, and then shoot the merchant when he tries to defend himself. Jason, holding on to a staff that he found in the merchant's shop, tries to flee the bullies, but instead falls off the roof, after which … well, maybe he goes back in time, or maybe he sort of dreams it, Wizard of Oz style. Or, given the movie posters that adorn Jason's bedroom wall, perhaps he is transported into a kung-fu movie itself.

At any rate, Jason finds himself in a corner of China that is currently being oppressed by the Jade Warlord (Collin Chou), a supernatural military figure who, many years before, tricked a godlike entity known as the Monkey King into setting aside his magical staff, and thus turned him to stone. It seems that the staff in Jason's hands is the staff that once belonged to the Monkey King, and so it is up to Jason—along with his newfound friends, Lu Yan and the orphaned, revenge-seeking woman Golden Sparrow (Yifei Liu)—to liberate the Monkey King by bringing him the staff and setting him free so that he can fight the Jade Warlord one more time.

Yifei Liu as Golden Sparrow

Along the way, Jason meets the Silent Monk, and once they realize that they all have the same basic goal—to get the staff back to its rightful owner—they decide to team up, with Lu Yan and the Monk taking turns training Jason for the fights to come. In addition to the usual physical challenges, this means dispensing the odd bit of wisdom, such as when Lu Yan tells Jason he must abandon his preconceptions if he is ever to truly learn: "How can you fill your cup when it is already full?"

The film touches on other noteworthy themes, albeit briefly, such as the dangers of hate, the nature of immortality, and whether a life without attachments—the Buddhist ideal—is worth living. As Lu Yan puts it, a person who eschews personal attachments will never suffer a broken heart, "but then, does he really live?"

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