It’s been 15 years since the last Karate Kid movie (the Jackie Chan-starring The Karate Kid, which was more about kung fu than karate, if we’re being honest), and more than 40 years since the low-stakes franchise first kicked off with Pat Morita’s Mr. Miyagi training Ralph Macchio’s New Jersey transplant Daniel LaRusso after moving to LA.
The original film’s director, John G. Avildsen, essentially reworked his film Rocky for the teenage crowd, and it grew into a fairly successful franchise into the mid-1990s (not to mention the Cobra Kai series, which focused primarily on characters from the original films). But Karate Kid: Legends does something the other films never could: marry the two versions of these stories together in the feature directing debut of TV veteran Jonathan Entwistle.
This time around, LaRusso and Chan’s Mr. Han combine forces to train high school student and kung fu prodigy Li Fong (Ben Wang, Mean Girls), who has relocated to New York City with his overly protective mother (Ming-Na Wen) from Beijing, where Li trained under Mr. Han until a tragedy in Li’s family forced him to give up kung fu. Shortly after moving, Li meets classmate Mia (Sadie Stanley, Somewhere in Queens) who works the a pizza place run by her father, a former boxer named Victor (Joshua Jackson, Dawson’s Creek), himself in debt to loan sharks always looking to get paid or hurt the guy. After Li saves Victor from a severe beatdown, Victor asks him to teach him some of his kung fu skills. And because this is the smallest world imaginable, Mia's ex-boyfriend just happens to be local karate champion Conor (Aramis Knight, Ender’s Game) with anger issues.
When Mr. Han senses that something is wrong with his prize pupil, he flies to New York and somehow convinces Daniel LaRusso to fly in from LA to help train Li for the upcoming tournament, with prize money big enough to help pay Victor's debts. Both Han and LaRusso have ties to the late Mr. Miyagi, and they find ways to merge their martial arts fighting styles to train Li to be a unique competitor and actually have a shot at beating Conor.
Naturally, there’s also a blossoming love story between Li and Mia, and outside of a scant few character traits, there isn’t much of a story beyond the fighting and training. And with a running time of about 90 minutes, Legends doesn’t have the space or interest in spending any kind of real time with these people, even though the interactions between Chan and Macchio are actually quite charming and funny as they politely argue over whose fighting style is more appropriate for the upcoming battle.
Like most summers before, this one's release calendar is going to be one that dwells/exploits the past and the nostalgia that seems to be the driving force of all sequels these days. We’ve already seen examples of this in the new Mission: Impossible and Final Destination movies, and it’s certainly nothing new. But Karate Kid: Legends is hardly even trying.
The new elements and characters are thinly drawn excuses to bring back the familiar and see if there’s any fuel left in the tank. This movie even made me wonder if this franchise is as beloved as it thinks it is, though I suppose it must be in some circles. If your idea of dialogue is simply repeating classic lines from the older films, you have a problem.
Admittedly, Ben Wang has charisma and can perform martial arts with an energy that we really haven’t seen in these movies before. It’s a mixed bag as far as successful nostalgia mining goes, but the short running time makes even the flaws go down a lot easier.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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