One summer, this seventeen-year-old boy rode his bike to a pawn shop in Boston's Chinatown in search of collectible Chinese kung fu films. However, he always ran into trouble when passing through the alleys near his home because Jason was often targeted and bullied by a group of hoodlums. Jason was an expert at video games and could list the kung fu movies like the back of his hand. He always hoped that he could become a kung fu master too. However, the pawnshop owner, Old Ho, believed that Jason wasn't cut out for it; he didn't even know what kung fu was.
On this day, Jason accidentally discovered a mysterious golden staff in the pawn shop, which led him through the "gate without a door" to ancient China! He found himself right in the middle of a stunning prophecy: a messenger must return the legendary weapon to its rightful owner to free the Monkey King who has been trapped in stone for five hundred years.
In ancient and mysterious China, Jason began a perilous journey. Along the way, he encountered many characters from the world of martial arts or ancient legends: the traveling poet Lu Yan (played by Jackie Chan), who is one of the Eight Immortals and a master of drunken boxing, the vengeful female swordsman Jin Yanzi (played by Liu Yifei), and the silent yet enigmatic and powerful monk Mosheng (played by Jet Li). The four of them traveled together to Mount Wuzhi, where the legendary Monkey King was imprisoned by the evil Jade War God (played by Collin Chou). The Emperor's supervisor dispatched his top killer—the infamous White Hair Witch Nishang (played by Fan Bingbing)—who led a group of assassins in multiple attempts to kill Jason and his companions, forcing Jason to not only master Chinese kung fu but also face his inner fears. Is Jason's journey just a hallucination caused by being too obsessed with kung fu, or has he truly traveled through time to fulfill an ancient prophecy?