My parents once rented a movie for me when I was younger, a live-action fantasy about a boy who went to this strange world. I remember he lived with his mom, and they would get Chinese food all the time from this one restaurant in town because the mom couldn't cook. I think the owner, I believe his name was Ming, was in on the secret of the world. So, the boy goes there and gets to the world, and there are these strange creatures-- I think they looked like anthropomorphic llamas of some type, I don't know. They all had an elemental power... the ones I remember were wood, earth, and maybe fire. They talked a lot about virtues? Also, I remember the boy had something wrong with his leg, but overcomes it or something like that.

I hope that's enough to go on. My parent's don't remember the movie, and my sister was too little to remember at all, so I'm kind of on my own here =(

Warriors of Virtue (1997) (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120479/)