Journey to the west

The most obvious selling point of “The Forbidden Kingdom” is the first-ever onscreen teaming of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, the world’s two best-known martial arts stars — and for that matter, the world’s two best-known Chinese actors and two best-known Asian actors. But it also represents another first: It’s the first big Hollywood production in two decades (i.e., since “Big Trouble in Little China”) to really absorb the kinds of Chinese stories that have formed the basis for much of Hong Kong action cinema.

It’s still unmistakably an American movie, with an Anglo hero and a Boston-based framing story. Michael Angarano (“Snow Angels”) plays Jason, a teenager completely absorbed in martial arts movies. He would have done better to have spent his time studying actual martial arts, given the abusive treatment he gets from local bully Lupo (Morgan Benoit).

Lupo and his gang force Jason to get them into a local pawn shop after hours, through his friendship with the doddering old owner (Chan, buried in makeup). In the course of their attempted robbery, Lupo shoots the old guy and comes after Jason, who grabs a huge metal staff and soon finds himself transported into the ancient China of myth, where he’s supposed to return the staff to the imprisoned Monkey King (Li) and thus defeat the evil Jade Warlord (Collin Chou).

He is aided by Lu Yan (Chan again), a drunken bum who turns out to be a powerful Taoist immortal; the Silent Monk (Li), a sterner companion of more curious origin; and Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei), a sweet young thing who plans to use her own lethal fighting skills to avenge the slaughter of her family.

If this sounds like a knockoff of a million supernatural kung fu costumers — with dollops of “The Wizard of Oz” and “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” — well, it is. But the important thing is that it’s a very good knockoff. Not only do director Rob Minkoff and screenwriter John Fusco clearly love the movies they’re plundering, but they’ve done their homework. And, at least as importantly, the filmmakers have been smart enough to hire cinematographer Peter Pau (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and “The Bride with White Hair,” both of which are name-checked in the dialogue) and, even more crucially, action choreographer Yuen Woo-Ping (“Crouching Tiger ...” , “Kill Bill,” “The Matrix” trilogy).

Yuen has worked on several Li films, but this represents a kind of reunion for him and Chan: Yuen’s first two outings as director were “Snake in Eagle’s Shadow” and “Drunken Master” (both 1978), the movies that made Chan a star and are often credited as inventing kung fu comedy. The fights are as great as one would expect, if you’re into the unreal “flying-people-and-visible-bolts-of-spiritual-power” variety. (I am.) Martial arts devotees who are interested in realistic displays of the various styles of kung fu may be less thrilled. (But they already knew that.)

The Monkey King is one of the central figures in mythological Chinese history, and “The Forbidden Kingdom” retains elements from stories that are probably over a millennium old ... and from their far more recent cinema incarnations. There are the requisite training sequences, the group of strangers forming an alliance on a magical quest, the disruption of the quest for a necessary side adventure that will turn out to be more relevant than thought.

In sheer name-dropping terms, “The Forbidden Kingdom” is full of chuckles for buffs. I was pleased at the many references — both trivial and more deeply in terms of character and action — to King Hu’s “Come Drink with Me,” one of my all-time favorites (which will finally be out on American DVD in a few months).

But you don’t have to know any of this stuff to enjoy “The Forbidden Kingdom.” Minkoff and his collaborators have distilled much of the essence of kung fu movies and packaged it in American terms without ruining the fun.