Zen master says: "Moviegoer do not go to Jackie Chan and Jet Li film to watch white boy kick like girl."

So what are Zen masters and grasshoppers alike to think of The Forbidden Kingdom, the much-lauded pairing of martial arts icons Chan and Li?

It's a valid question since, despite the marketing campaign that heralds this production as being their first-ever teaming, the story in fact centres on Jason (Michael Angarano) a generic Boston teen who worships kung-fu movies and culture.

We know this because his bedroom walls are papered with Enter the Dragon posters and he spends his days scoring bootleg DVDs at a Chinatown pawn shop owned by Old Hop (Chan, caked under old-age makeup). Late one fateful night, bullies force Jason back to the shop to rob it. The crime proves a botch -- bullets are fired, a chase ensues -- and he winds up transported away by a magical staff the old man has tucked away in a secretive back room.

Plunked down in what appears to be ancient China, it's here where he realizes his destiny, battles sorcerers, defeats sword-wielding armies, frees peasants, etc., etc., etc. You'd have to be from ancient China not to have seen all of this countless times before.

It turns out Jason is actually the prophesized "seeker" who can return the staff to its rightful owner, the mystical Monkey King (Li, buried under a shaggy blond hairdo and ever-present smile). Five hundred years earlier, give or take a decade, the Monkey King was imprisoned in stone after being deceived by the diabolical mascara-wearing Jade Warlord (Collin Chou). Apparently he forgot what Confucius said about never trusting a man in eye shadow.

The first ally to befriend Jason is Lu Yan (also Chan), a master of drunk-fu. This means his abilities are dependent on how much alcohol he consumes. In modern times, he'd be a writer.

Soon thereafter, they're joined by vengeful hottie Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei) and Silent Monk (also Li), who lives up to his name, at least until he and Lu Yan determine they're on the same side during the film's centrepiece rumble.

This is all the Chan vs. Li chop-socky we get, however, as screenwriter John Fusco reduces the duo to a tag-team Obi Wan Kenobi, mentoring their incessantly irritating protege with fortune-cookie pronouncements and training montages Mr. Miyagi would have disowned. Wax on, Jason, wax off.

What a waste. It's easy to see how Kingdom would have benefited from focusing on the interplay between its superstars. At times they're like kung-fu Ernie and Bert (minus the sexual tension): Chan the jovial jester and physical prankster, Li the sullen slender tactician.

But instead we're force-fed a CGI blow-out at the warlord's palace -- complete with a white-haired witch (Li Bing Bing) whipping around her Medusa-like locks -- and an eye-rolling epilogue back in present-day Boston.

Little of it is exciting, none of it spectacular.

Unless you count, of course, Chan and Li's pay-stubs.

(This film is rated PG)

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