Hitherto, exporting Hong Kong action stars to Hollywood has not met with huge success. Jackie Chan found little traction with mainstream Western audiences, apart from the box office hit Rush Hour series-a franchise he says he is unsatisfied with. Jet Li's transplantation seemed to show promise, but returns have been modest for the most part.

Rob Minkoff's Forbidden Kingdom tries reversing the formula. Instead of bringing the Hong Kong action genre to Hollywood, why not bring Hollywood to the Hong Kong action genre (by way of an accommodating Chinese film studio)?

Shot extensively in China, Minkoff brings the two action giants Chan and Li together in their first joint film-a creation which is part homage, part mimicry of the Wuxia Hong Kong action movies of yesteryear, with a dash of the fantasy epic of more recent times. And thankfully, despite some very questionable choices, it largely works.

Undoubtedly, the main draw of the film is its two superstars and their dizzying martial acrobatics, assisted by chorographer Yuen Woo-Ping (who became famous in the West for his stint on The Matrix, but is an accomplished Hong Kong action director in his own right). There is a plot, of course, that takes us our attention away from the fight scenes. It mainly hinges on a kid named Jason (Micheal Angarano) from 21st century Boston who has an obsession for Kung Fu movies.

He gets magically transported to a mythical China of an unspecified ancient era, where an evil warlord terrorises the populace. Jason learns that if he is ever to return home he must return a magic staff he has brought with him from the mundane world to its owner, the mystical Monkey King who is imprisoned in stone by the warlord. After setting off on his quest, Jason is accompanied by Lu Yan (Chan), an immortal vagabond drunk, and a monk (Li) who is also on a mission to return the staff to the Monkey King.

Along the way, the pair train Jason in Kung Fu. The fact that magic is normal and commonplace in this ancient world can perhaps explain how Jason manages to completely master the art in the short timespan of the movie. So unlikely is this development that one gets the sense that somebody decided the American audience the movie hopes to attract would need a character to identify with other than the two Asian superstars.

But Angarano makes for an agreeable hero, and Minkoff wisely assigns him as a comic prop for Chan: here an involuntary weapon hurled at attacking soldiers, there the poor victim to his Kung Fu training. Despite being saddled with a dialogue of tiresome expositions and mystical gobbledygook, Chan once again proves to be a tremendous entertainer. Jet Li as the monk lightens up from his usually severe cast, but really lets loose in his second role as the Monkey King, where he even surpasses Chan in clownishness.

All in all, Forbidden Kingdom is an entertaining piece of cinema, but ultimately feels strangely middling. Its garb of Hong Kong action film meets children's fantasy epic is designed to be inoffensive and eludes any serious critical analysis. Even its evil warlord seems relatively tame. But one can't help wonder-perhaps between fight scenes-if the absorption of what was once a distinctly Hong Kong aesthetic into the Mainland cinematic production system could be sign of China's intent to bind its recently reunited possessions back into its culture for good.

Forbidden Kingdom
Director: Rob Minkoff
Cast: Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Michael Angarano, Liu Yifei, Li Bing Bing.
2008. 113 min.PG-13