The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is a 2008 American martial arts-adventure film that follows The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. It was released on August 1, 2008 in the United States. The film was directed by Rob Cohen, written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, and produced by Stephen Sommers (director of the previous two installments), Bob Ducsay, Sean Daniel, and James Jacks. This film's plot was much lighter than the previous films and ignored the series' original formula (being a tribute to the original 1932 Universal horror film which involved mummies in Egypt).

The story has Rick O'Connell's (Brendan Fraser) son Alex (Luke Ford) discovering the tomb of The First Emperor of China, Emperor Han (Jet Li). This leads Rick and his wife Evelyn (Maria Bello) to travel to China, where an evil Chinese general causes the resurrection of the Emperor. The Emperor then tries to break an ancient curse set on him by the witch Zi Yuan (Michelle Yeoh) so he can use his magical powers to bring his army back to life to conquer the world.