In the 15 years (!) since the KARATE KID remake I’ve occasionally found myself telling people, “No, seriously, it’s pretty good!” Which is not really what I said in my review at the time, now that I’m re-reading it. So who knows, but I don’t think I’ll be saying that about the new movie KARATE KID: LEGENDS. I won’t try to convince anyone it’s a particularly good movie. But I kinda liked it. Let me say this: it’s definitely way better than THE NEXT KARATE KID, which actually I have to admit I kind of enjoy too.

The cleverest thing about LEGENDS is what we already knew from the trailers: it finds a way to say that the 1984 original and its 2010 remake are not mutually exclusive. In this one the remake’s shifu Han (Jackie Chan, DRAGON BLADE) recruits o.g. karate kid Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio, HITCHCOCK) to help him teach a student, and this in turn is a way to make sense out of the weird title discrepancy that they wanted to make a movie called THE KARATE KID but they cast Jackie Chan so it was about kung fu. Now screenwriter Rob Lieber (PETER RABBIT) invents a relationship between the Han and Miyagi families, and therefore between their kung fu and karate styles. So when one of Mr. Han’s students wants to enter a karate tournament, the shifu wants him to learn specifically Miyagi-do karate from its last known teacher.

Li Fong (Ben Wang, American Born Chinese) is a student of Mr. Han in Beijing until his strict mother Dr. Fong (Ming-Na Wen, Chun-Li from STREET FIGHTER), also Han’s niece, moves them to New York City. A year ago Li’s older brother Bo (Yankei Ge) was stabbed to death by an opponent he beat in a match, so Li is very traumatized and his mother forbids him from continuing in the martial arts.

But he’s not some moody brooder or whiner (like, I’m sorry to say, Next Karate Kid Julie after the death of her parents). In the tradition of Daniel moving to California, Dre moving to Beijing and Sean moving to Japan in TOKYO DRIFT, Li tries to adapt to his new surroundings and meets a nice girl named Mia (Sadie Stanley, LET US IN) when he goes around the corner to order a pizza. They’re both very charming and the way they make each other laugh fuels the movie for a while.

Though this is apparently filmed in Ontario I admit that my ignorant ass bought into their fake New York for a bit. Definitely more believable than the one in RUMBLE IN THE BRONX (though if they’d made this take place in that world I would be telling you it’s the movie of the year). Simulated as it may be, there’s a sense of place and regional personality here to parallel o.g. KARATE KID’s depiction of the Valley, and that’s the element I found embarrassingly lacking last time I watched NEXT KARATE KID. Yeah, it’s a bunch of cliches, but this is a city full of people and things to do and they also do a bit of the MUTANT MAYHEM/RISE OF THE BEASTS trick of playing golden age New York rappers on the soundtrack (Eric B. and Rakim, Nas [but the one with Damien Marley]).

I love that the equivalent to the All Valley Karate Tournament is called “The 5 Boroughs,” and that it follows what I call the LIONHEART rule by having each round take place in a different scenic location (as silly as it is to get a crowd onto the top of a skyscraper just for one match that’s gonna take maybe ten minutes if they’re lucky). I also love that the macho karate ex-boyfriend villain Conor Day (Aramis Knight, Into the Badlands) looks like such a douchebag with his manbun/ponytail hybrid, and his poor role model sensei O’Shea (Tim Rozon, SCREAMERS: THE HUNTING) is an even more instantly hate-able meathead. O’Shea not only owns a bro-tastic MMA gym called Demolition, but is an evil loan shark sending thugs after Mia’s dad Victor (Joshua Jackson, URBAN LEGEND) over an overdue loan.

Here’s a fun thing where it diverges from the established KARATE KID template. There’s a whole storyline about how Li happens upon some goons attacking Victor in an alley and does some high flying, wall-climbing, dumpster-diving kung fu on them. Victor is so impressed he convinces Li to train him how to move fast for an upcoming boxing match he’s doing to pay off some of the debt. So Li becomes the shifu for a while and there’s a weird conundrum where anyone who ever saw Dawson’s Creek in the 1990s will have trouble accepting Jackson as a grizzled boxer coming out of retirement, but also will get a kick out of seeing Pacey Whitter in training montages. And/or will spend part of the movie contemplating this latest disturbing landmark in our aging.

Oh, by the way, Ralph Macchio in this movie is about a year older than Clint Eastwood was in UNFORGIVEN.

I support the training methods, which utilize the bars on a subway (see also FIGHTING) and a turnstile in the station, and since Han teaches that “everything kung fu” and uses “jacket on, jacket off” as his “wax on, wax off,” Li finds ways to use pizza dough and sauce brushes in his practice. Without crediting Bruce Lee (or Pai Mei) he teaches the one inch punch as a way to slide cans of tomato sauce down the counter.

For the most part I’m on this movie’s tonal wavelength, but there are a couple humor issues. Number one, they weirdly keep going back to the “he seems to be doing something awesome but then he fucks up so the music comically slows down” well. There’s even a wacky record scratch! #2, the movie and I have a disagreement about whether or not Li’s dorky tutor Alan (Wyatt Oleff, IT) is absolutely hilarious. (I do not support the proposition.)

I enjoyed this in a similar way to how I enjoy movies like CENTER STAGE and STEP UP (part 1). It’s a cute teen movie with likable characters, I get kind of involved in the melodrama and smile at the cheesy parts. Unfortunately I think it’s most successful when it’s taking its time setting up its own identity. After Han and Daniel show up everything seems rushed and starts feeling much clunkier. In a movie like this there are big character moments that are cliched and expected but automatically satisfying – unless they don’t bother to connect the dots between them. Worst example: Li’s mother’s switch from not letting him fight to going to the match to support him. We knew it would happen but we needed to know why for it to be moving. It seems like Han just tells her Li is going to fight and she pouts and then later is just like “Fine” and suddenly she supports him (and doesn’t even object to him winning $50,000 just to give to a pizza restaurant!). It’s a missed opportunity and a waste of an always reliable actor.

I bet some of this stuff was in there but sacrificed to the runtime gods; the 2010 film is 46 minutes longer, and benefits from it in story and character development. Another part that might’ve gotten weird in the editing room is the ol’ “You promised to stop fighting but I caught you with a black eye” scene. Li defends himself by saying “I had no choice!,” but in the scene in question he didn’t fight at all, he just got sucker-kicked on the subway.

I like that a karate kid who’s a student of Jackie Chan is not just in a sports movie, he’s gonna get into standard action movie scenarios like an alley fight against mob enforcers. I would not say the Macchio movies were notable for their action scenes, but here we have more acrobatic moves and elaborate fights, as established in the remake. There is a special move but it involves a bunch of spinning through the air and seems approximately 25 times more difficult than a crane kick.

The credits list the Jackie Chan Stunt Team along with fight coordinator Xiangyang Xu (I AM WHAT I AM 2) and stunt coordinator/second unit director Peng Zhang (THE WRATH OF VAJRA). I like the fights – I think the choreography is quite good and Wang and his doubles move interestingly – I just wish the camera wasn’t so often disorientingly close. I will speculate this is by choice of director Jonathan Entwistle and his long time director of photography Justin Brown (their experience is in music videos and TV shows including The End of the F***ing World and I Am Not Okay with This).

I like that LEGENDS differentiates itself from the rest of the series with its obvious video game inspirations (including sound effects and on-screen graphics). I do wish I could’ve gotten a better look at The Queens Tornado (Anthony Baniaga), a fighter with long white hair like an anime character. (They barely bother to pretend the tournament is anything other than set up for a fight between Li and Conor.)

One small thing that’s unusually good is the ADR. After Li gets whooped in a schoolyard duel I heard a very believable muttering of “That was crazy as hell.”

I’m not sure how offended people will be by this, but I got a good laugh at the audaciousness of the opening, which cuts from a KARATE KID PART II clip of Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita, COLLISION COURSE) telling Daniel about the history of Miyagi-do to an animated history narrated by Respeecher Miyagi saying one of his ancestors was stranded in China and trained by the Han family so they’re two branches of the same tree. I guess we can pretend this is all canon and was a tangent Miyagi went on at the time but in part II it was edited for time and clarity. Or is this merely a Karate Kid… legend?

I suppose I should rehash my non-standard KARATE KID loyalties. I don’t remember when I first saw the original movie, and though it had an effect on me by kicking off karate mania in America I never used to think of it as one of my movies. My favorite in the series is actually the generally hated PART III, because of its ludicrous super villain Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith, VAMPIRES). But I straight up love the six seasons of Cobra Kai (2018-2025), a legacy sequel that starts from the perspective of Daniel’s rival Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka, HIGH VOLTAGE) as a washed up underdog, but ultimately also helped me appreciate Daniel. It’s a not-so-cinematic comedy/action/soap opera with corny teen melodrama, but full of heart, humor, respect for martial arts movie philosophy and the possibility of redemption (both for characters who made mistakes and for actors who never got their due). Also, every season has at least one huge brawl that’s way more exciting than any fight in any of the movies.

That show already beautifully pulled off all of the possible fan service things besides bringing back Hilary Swank (or Jackie Chan!), which is nice for LEGENDS because it’s free from any pressure to do that kind of stuff. It has obvious equivalents to things from the original, but no “You get it? Like before!” kinda moments. Actually this time the big fan question was how they would acknowledge Cobra Kai, and I will just say I was very happy with the small thing they did. But since this is also a sequel to the remake it would’ve been nice to reference Dre Parker in some way. I imagine Jaden Smith probly didn’t want to be in it but I noticed one of the songs sounded like it could’ve been him, and that would’ve been nice. (I’m not sure why Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment aren’t producers on this – did the rights expire?)

By the way, a Variety article says this is set three years after the events of Cobra Kai. I guess that explains why Daniel combs his hair different. Who knows what else could’ve happened in those three years? Time for another Saturday morning cartoon series.

I don’t think it was a bad idea to make a new KARATE KID movie that stands on its own rather than spinning off from Cobra Kai. But it is a bit of a problem that it can’t live up to a low budget comedy show originally made for Youtube. KARATE KID: LEGENDS is definitely nowhere near being CREED for the KARATE KID series, if that’s what they thought they were doing. It only succeeds at the more humble task of being a pleasingly diverting formula movie for young people. I found Ben Wang/Li Fong very likable, and my affection for the Daniel and Mr. Han characters is a bonus. (It didn’t occur to me that it would be fun to see them spar.)

That said, I hope right now somebody’s making pizzas like crazy, honing their skills to be able to write another one. Too late to do my idea of Dre entering the Kumite against adults (or other little kids?) but I’m sure they can come up with something crazy. Everything kung fu.