A dreadlocked Jackie Chan strikes a pose in The Forbidden Kingdom, a sword-and-sorcery fantasy featuring another Asian action star, Jet Li.

LOS ANGELES -- Jackie Chan is baffled why anyone likes his Hollywood movies.

Guess he saw The Tuxedo too.

"Myself, I would never make this kind of film," he confesses during a press conference for The Forbidden Kingdom, an effects-driven fantasy chock full of sorcerers, spells, inter-dimensional portals, gravity-defying fight choreography and multiple roles for Chan and his co-star, fellow martial-arts movie titan Jet Li.

"Every time I make an American film I just trust the American director ... For me, these kinds of films are ridiculous. It doesn't make sense. American audiences are more interested in this kind of thing, this kind of movie ... After Rush Hour, I said, 'My career is finished.' (But it was a) big hit. It's ridiculous, why people like these things ... (But) it's for the American market."

You can almost hear Forbidden Kingdom's L.A.-based filmmakers, who just happen to be sitting beside Chan, gnashing their teeth.

Still, for all its Hollywood gloss, the movie is also very much a made-in-China production.

"We wanted to shoot all over China and managing to do that was very difficult," says director Rob Minkoff, who helmed the animated The Lion King and then migrated to live action with the CG-hybrid Stuart Little. "We wanted to show off these amazing, amazing locations."

In total, cast and crew shot in China for 101 days, at which time they also utilized remote, voluminous soundstages outside of Shanghai.

Local involvement, though, wasn't limited to geography. Minkoff estimates the crew was "primarily Chinese. Ninety per cent were either from mainland China or Hong Kong."

And the story itself is steeped in Chinese lore. Although book-ended by scenes in modern-day Boston that explain how a bullied teenager (Michael Angarano) winds up transported to the realm Chan and Li's warriors occupy, it is a showcase for Chinese culture. This is especially important to Chan, given how western myths and heroes typically dominate the global stage.

"Superman, everyone knows. Spider-Man, everyone knows. King Arthur, we know."

Then again, who needs the Monkey King to sell your movie when you have Chan and Li? The marketing behind Kingdom, which opens tomorrow, hasn't been shy in letting everyone know this marks the first time the two superstars have acted opposite each other -- even if it wasn't for a lack of trying. Fifteen years ago, they nearly teamed for an action-comedy Chan was attempting to get off the ground. He and Li would have played a cop and criminal who, hunted by common enemies, are forced to go on the run together across China -- think Kung Fu meets Midnight Run meets Planes, Trains and Automobiles. "It had a lot of comedy, a lot of travel and great action," Chan says.

Things fell apart, naturally, when Hollywood got involved.

"When I presented the script to the American writer, he didn't like it."

The screenplay was overhauled but the rewrite proved "too broad" for Chan's tastes.

So the arrival of Forbidden Kingdom is overdue -- and possibly just in time. Had they waited much longer, one wonders if the eye-popping action would have suffered for it.

Having just turned 54, Chan admits he has had to adjust his stunt work accordingly with his age. "I think in the last five or six years, I've been changing my style."

His next project, he says, will be "one per cent action" with an emphasis on drama.

"I want to change. I want to be an actor, not just an action star. How long can I keep fighting? (Chan's breakthrough film) Drunken Monkey was 30 years ago. My master has passed away. Now I'm the master. I feel funny. I feel really funny. But what can you do?"

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