KARATE KID: LEGENDS

'Karate Kid: Legends' follows Li Fong (Ben Wang, 2024's 'Mean Girls', Disney+'s 'American Born Chinese'), who is being trained by his uncle, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan, 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem', 'The LEGO Ninjago Movie') in Beijing in the art of kung fu. After the death of his brother, his mother (Ming-Ha Wen, 1998's 'Mulan', Disney+'s 'The Book of Boba Fett') is looking for a new lease on life and takes a job in New York City. Li now has to leave the world he loves behind and start a new life. In New York, he meets Mia (Sadie Stanley, TV's 'The Goldbergs' and 'Kim Possible') and her father Victor (Joshua Jackson, TV's 'Dawson's Creek', 'Cruel Intentions'), who reignites his love for kung fu, something his mother is trying to supress. Mr. Han hears of this and travels to New York to train Li and enlists the help of Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio, 'Hitchcock', TV's 'Ugly Betty'), who was trained by Mr Miyagi. The two blend kung fu and karate so Li can compete in the Five Boroughs Tournament, where Li comes face-to-face with his school bully, Conor (Aramis Knight, Disney+'s 'Ms. Marvel', 'Ender's Game').

'Karate Kid: Legends', iconically, feels like a Disney Channel TV show. It lacks focus and preferences being cool and hip for modern kids, as opposed to having a compelling story. The first 40 minutes of this film are Li training with his crush's father so he can compete in a boxing match because he owes a gang money. What? Why? This is 90-minute film and the core plot, Mr. Han and Daniel teaming up to train Li, is not even a focus point; it feels like an afterthought. I fail to understand why 'The Karate Kid' aspect of this legacy sequel is such a non-focus for this film. The training is all done in montages to terrible modern pop songs, and so are the tournaments. This seems like such an easy film to make: Li is training for the tournament, his uncle enlists Daniel, they work together, we see him struggle through the stages of the tournament, only to win the final fight against his school bully. Why is there so much time wasted on a dad trying to save his pizza restaurant with underground boxing because he owes money to a gang? How is this engaging for either the family audience or fans of this franchise?!

I also find it confusing why, outside of Daniel, this film has no real connection to the massively successful 'Cobra Kai' series. There is more focus on making the remake canon with Mr. Han - and even then, a bulk of the run time is the baffling underground boxing with a 40-year-old man subplot. Li Fong, the main character, is given no room to have an identity, nor does the film want to invest anything into him. It really doesn't care about Daniel or Mr. Han, who are both just glorified cameos. 'The Karate Kid' franchise perfectly modernised the series with 'Cobra Kai', and it felt like a really natural progression to a new film. I'm just baffled how they fumbled this.

'Karate Kid: Legends' is perfectly serviceable as a film, but it fails when you add the 'Karate Kid' brand. If you're a die-hard fan, you might get a kick out of getting to see Daniel on the big screen again and seeing him team up with Jackie Chan, but you can just look at the poster and get the same level of engagement.