A still from ‘Karate Kid: Legends’.
| Photo Credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment/YouTube
As Rod Stewart’s raspy voice croons, “If you want my body, and you think I’m sexy,” with that disco drumbeat, you know you are in for a good time in Karate Kid: Legends, the sixth movie in the franchise.
Karate Kid: Legends (English)
Director: Jonathan Entwistle
Starring: Jackie Chan, Ben Wang, Joshua Jackson, Sadie Stanley, Ming-Na Wen, Wyatt Oleff, Aramis Knight, Ralph Macchio
Runtime: 94 minutes
Storyline: A teenager moves from Beijing to New York, finds a friend, crosses paths with a bully and makes it all right in a karate tournament
It has been a long wait from 2010’s The Karate Kid starring Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. Karate Kid: Legends is in the same universe as the series, Cobra Kai, which concluded this (2025) February.
Li Fong (Ben Wang) is a quiet and sensitive teenager hiding out in his great uncle, Mr. Han’s (Chan) Kung Fu’s school, in Beijing. His mother, Dr. Fong (Ming-Na Wen), is against her son learning Kung Fu after her son, Li’s elder brother, was killed by a rival. She takes up a job in New York for a new start.
Li finds it difficult to make friends in his new school, in the new city and country. He is helped by Mia (Sadie Stanley), who runs a traditional Italian pizzeria with her father, Victor (Joshua Jackson). Li learns that Victor owes money to a wicked loan shark, O’Shea (Tim Rozon).
O’Shea is twice as horrid as he runs the Demolition dojo and is Conor’s (Aramis Knight) Karate sensei. Conor is Mia’s nasty boyfriend and all round bad guy. Victor was a boxer who hung up his gloves after Mia was born. In a bid to make money to pay back O’Shea, Victor plans a comeback and after seeing Li’s fighting skills, asks him to teach some of his cool “flowing water not stone” moves.
There is a comforting predictability about Karate Kid: Legends. You know the first fight when the hero will be knocked down, the antagonist will use illegal means to win, the training montage and the wisdom of the ages delivered by old timers, this time Mr Han and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio from the earlier movies and Kobra Kai).
There is the big fight, the Five Boroughs Tournament, the run up to the final fight as well as the beats of the last fight where the lead character is beaten to the ground only to rise up from the ashes of defeat to the golden glow of victory.
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The fights are well choreographed without being too bloody and it is lovely seeing Jackie Chan do his stuff with his impish smile. The Big Apple looks charming with all those wide shots showing the soaring skyscrapers. Li’s training at his tutor’s Alan (Wyatt Oleff) rooftop garden is dreamy. The Five Boroughs Tournament final fought atop a skyscraper is cool too.
William Zabka, who played the antagonist, Johnny, from the earlier movies and series, makes an appearance at the end for some more retro fun. Entirely predictable and eminently watchable, Karate Kid: Legends delivers on its promises without overstaying a minute of its welcome. Now, if only there would be theatrical re-runs of Jackie Chan’s Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, Drunken Master or Project A, that would be bliss indeed.
Karate Kid: Legends is currently running in theatres
Published – May 30, 2025 04:50 pm IST