12-year-old Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) and his mother, Sherry (Taraji P. Henson) move to Beijing from West Detroit after she gets a transfer in her car factory job. Dre develops a crush on a young violinist, Mei Ying (Wenwen Han), who reciprocates his attention, but Cheng (Zhenwei Wang), a kung fu prodigy whose family is close to Mei Ying's, attempts to keep them apart by beating Dre, and later proceeds to bully him in and around school. After a field trip to the Forbidden City, Dre encounters Cheng and his friends hanging out close to his apartment.
