Karate Kid: Legends official poster Sony Pictures
Originally released in theaters on May 30, “Karate Kid: Legends” began streaming on Netflix on Sept. 27. The film is a sequel to the original Karate Kid series, aiming its focus on Chinese Kung Fu prodigy—Li Fong (Ben Wang).
The movie follows traditional martial art movie structure with a modern New York twist. I can’t tell if this twist aids or hurts the film. It’s almost unbearably cheesy and full of overdone tropes, but there’s a bit of charm to it.
This movie is predictable at every step of the way, but Ben Wang makes up for it by playing Li Fong as a surprisingly endearing main lead. You can’t help but root for him as he navigates New York for the first time.
Li is the embodiment of the stereotypical martial art hero. He’s a prodigy yet still has so much to learn and is filled with a bitter wound from a family member’s passing. It’s a tale as old as time, really.
I thought I’d be bored of Li quickly, but found myself loving him the most out of all the characters. He has witty dialogue that feels like watching the makings of a little Jackie Chan—who actually plays Li’s mentor in this movie.
His only weakness is that his characterization ends up unclear, but this seems to be the fault of the short runtime. The original “Karate Kid” was around 2 hours, while “Karate Kid: Legends” is 1 hour and 34 minutes.
Given more time or even some restructure, this movie could’ve developed Li far more and made him feel less like a stereotypical archetype. His growth arc felt rather lackluster and more of an excuse to use Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio as fan service.
There are other issues across various elements in this movie, notably with the pacing. At times this movie moved too quickly and other times it was a little slow.
There were so many subplots going on at once that I couldn’t really tell what direction this movie wanted to go. It wanted to be everything all at once. It would’ve flowed far better if it zoned in on one.
The first half focused on Li arriving in New York and his budding relationship with Mia, the daughter of a pizza shop owner named Victor. Then it focused more on his connection with Victor and suddenly flipped into him preparing for a tournament.
On paper, this sounds like it all flows well and I’m sure it could, but I think this string of plots is better suited for a series. I felt like I was watching an eight episode Netflix series smashed into one hour.
Another casualty of this film is the martial arts itself. “Karate Kid: Legends” offers some cool action scenes, but completely misses out on the opportunity to focus more on the film’s unique element—the fusion between Kung Fu and Karate.
Mixing Kung-Fu and Karate is a captivating plot device with endless possibilities in a film like this, so I’m a bit at a loss as to why it was fumbled so badly.
The film tries to place emphasis on this cultural exchange through Mr. Miyagi and Mr. Han’s history, but it doesn’t really capture you in any way.
Ralph Macchio is brought in to reprise his role as Daniel Larusso in an attempt to recreate this Miyagi-Han connection, but I felt him out of place.
His presence was more like seeing a celebrity in a Super Bowl commercial rather than adding anything relevant to the story. He could’ve been weaved in far better than just being tossed in randomly to replace Miyagi.
In the end, what could’ve been an epic training arc between Larusso-Han turns into a fan service sequence between Chan and Macchio.
One of my greater gripes with this movie is the boring, unconvincing villain and the equally boring tournament that came with him.
The main antagonist of “Karate Kid: Legends” is the temperamental man-child ex-boyfriend of Mia—Conor Day (Aramis Knight). I did not care for Conor in the slightest, nor does the film give you any reason to.
At the very least, the original Karate Kid film makes Johnny Lawrence an interesting villain that actually makes you concerned that the lead might be defeated.
Conor Day felt like an awkward attempt to recreate the original Danny-Johnny rivalry, but in the end, only comes across as a lame copy of Johnny.
Don’t get me started on the tournament, either. I cannot recall a single fight from that entire tournament, nor was it all that interesting.
The fights were a little wacky and cheesy; I ended up skipping most of them. The final fight isn’t all that either. I didn’t particularly care for it.
As expected from a stereotypical martial art movie, our big bad guy is defeated, too easily in my opinion. The fight could’ve been far more drawn out to at least make it look like Li’s training was worth it.
This film is enjoyable if we’re just talking about entertainment value and definitely geared towards a family audience. If we’re talking about martial arts movies as a genre, it would be on one of the lower tiers.
In terms of Karate Kid films, I think it’s a cheesy sequel that’s a gift for the fans rather than a serious attempt to start a new series.
Overall, I’d give “Karate Kid: Legends” a 5/10. It’s a mid tier movie that’s carried by a fun main character. Though not completely awful, I wouldn’t care to rewatch.