Film Review - Karate Kid: Legends
Images courtesy of Sony Pictures.
Wax on! Wax off! Jacket on! Jacket off! Karate Kid: Legends invites audiences of all ages to watch a 94-minute TikTok of a Karate Kid movie.
Li Fong (Ben Wang), a young kung-fu student from China, is forced to leave his skills behind and start a new life in New York City with his mother (Ming Na-Wen) to help move on after a family tragedy. But it doesn’t take too long for trouble to find him, being forced to enter a martial arts tournament to help a friend in need. His old shifu from Beijing, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), arrives to help him and brings Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) along to teach and train Li in the ways of both karate and kung-fu.
The film heavily relies on Ben Wang’s performance as Li. His charisma, drama, and martial arts skills shine throughout the whole movie. A particular strength in director Jonathan Entwhistle’s career (Netflix’s The End Of The F***ing World and I Am Not Okay With This) is his ability to bring out standout performances in his young leads, and he continues that trend here. Entwhistle and his writer, Rob Leiber, try to differentiate their film from the rest of the franchise by delivering a new twist on the Karate Kid formula in the form of a more interesting subplot between Li and his amateur neighbour boxer, played by Joshua Jackson. It’s a refreshing take on the student-teacher dynamic that the series has heavily relied on, but is sadly dropped halfway through the film in favour of hitting the classic Karate Kid plot beats.
This is also a movie primarily targeted at a young audience, with occasional nods to the older demographic to keep them engaged. Karate Kid: Legends has expectations that its audience has a limited attention span, resulting in a film with a rushed and exhausting pace. The short runtime ensures that there’s little time to delve into character development, especially for the villains, and more focus on establishing the New York setting and impressive action sequences. It ultimately makes the film feel like a series of flashy montages strung together.
Despite that, there is a heart to the film, and it’s fun to see the different incarnations of this franchise interact. The chemistry is strong between Jackie Chan, Ralph Macchio and Ben Wang. Macchio appeals to the older audiences of the original 80s classic and fans of Cobra Kai, while Chan is for those Gen Z’ers who grew up with the 2010 Jaden Smith remake. There’s an attempt in the film’s prologue to tie those two films together, but it comes off as a sloppy afterthought, ultimately bearing little relevance. At least Chan’s appearance in the film is justified, written as a proper supporting character. Meanwhile, Macchio is only there to simply… be there.
Karate Kid: Legends is a mixed bag, but it’s enjoyable enough that it will still have audiences cheering by the time the credits roll, and kids begging their parents for karate lessons on the ride home.
Karate Kid: Legends is screening in cinemas now. For tickets and more info, click here.