May 28, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Jonathan Entwistle
Some language in Mandarin with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City (and briefly in China and California), the action film “Karate Kid: Legends” features an Asian and white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A teenage boy who has recently moved from Beijing to New York City gets involved in various fight trainings (karate, kung fu and boxing) and he enters a local karate contest, where he faces off against his love interest’s ex-boyfriend.
Culture Audience: “Karate Kid: Legends” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the “Karate Kid” franchise and action movies that are throwbacks to 1980s teen-oriented films.
“Karate Kid: Legends” crams in stories about kung fu, boxing and karate, to mixed results. It’s sometimes unfocused but gets by on the cast’s appealing performances. It’s not like “Cobra Kai.” It’s a tribute to 1980s-styled filmmaking.
Directed by Jonathan Entwistle and written by Ron Lieber, “Karate Kid: Legends” isn’t really a sequel as much as it’s a continuation of the “Karate Kid” franchise. Viewers don’t have to see any of the previous “Karate Kids” movies (which began with 1984’s “The Karate Kid”) or the TV series “Cobra Kai” (a “Karate Kid” spinoff show) to understand what’s going on in “Karate Kid: Legends.”
“Karate Kid: Legends” follows a familiar formula of teenage “underdog” sports movies, where the protagonist is usually an “outsider” who has to overcome self-doubt, pessimistic skeptics and/or physical challenges, all leading to an inevitable showdown with an opponent, who is usually a bully. What might surprise a lot of viewers of “Karate Kid: Legends” is how karate doesn’t get the majority of the fight screen time in the movie. Karate gets about 40% of the fight screen time, and it’s mostly toward the end of the film.
“Karate Kid: Legends” begins in Beijing, China, where Li Fong (played by Ben Wang) lives with his single mother, who is a medical doctor. Her first name is not mentioned in the movie. Li’s father is not seen or mentioned in the film. Li (who is about 16 or 17 years old) is a good guy who is struggling with remorse and guilt over something tragic that happened in his past. This tragedy is eventually revealed in flashbacks.
Dr. Fong (played by Ming Na Wen) is very much against Li’s passion for kung fu and has forbidden him to participate in any form of fighting. Li has gone against those wishes and has been secretly training with Han Shifu (played by Jackie Chan), also known as Mr. Han, at Han Academy. Li’s mother inevitably finds out but she doesn’t punish Li because she breaks some news to him that he finds even more upsetting: She has accepted a hospital job in New York City, so she and Li have to move there.
In New York City, Li doesn’t have too many problems adjusting to the different culture because when he was younger, he went to an American school in Hong Kong. However, at school, he’s somewhat of a quiet loner. Li’s first friend in his new school is nerdy Alan Fetterman (played by Wyatt Oleff), who becomes his calculus tutor.
One the first evening that Li and his mother have settled into their new apartment, Li goes to a local pizza place called Victory Pizza and asks if they have stuffed-crust pizza. Victor Lipani (played by Joshua Jackson), the owner and manager of Victory Pizza, scoffs at this request. He tells Li that they don’t have stuffed-crust pizza and says Li should go across the river to New Jersey to find that type of pizza.
Victor’s teenage daughter Mia Lipani (played by Sadie Stanley), who’s about the same age as Li, works at Victory Pizza and tries to make up for her father’s rudeness by politely taking Li’s request for another type of pizza. Within seconds, you know that Mia will become Li’s love interest by the way that he looks at her. Mia seems immediately attracted to Li too, but she plays hard to get. Mia lives with Victor, who is raising her as a single father. It’s implied but never stated out loud that Mia’s mother is deceased.
Mia and Li develop a friendly and flirtatious rapport. Li offers to teach Mia some Mandarin so she can converse better with the local Chinese merchants who sell her things that she needs for the pizza place. In exchange, Mia agrees to show Li around New York City. Li and Mia start hanging out together as platonic friends.
However, Li is bothered that Mia doesn’t seem to be completely over her relationship with her ex-boyfriend Conor (played by Aramis Knight), who is a local karate champion. Conor is an arrogant bully who’s a fairly two-dimensional villain in the story. It’s implied that Conor was abusive to Mia, but she doesn’t come right out and admit it. She will only tell Li that Conor is a mistake that she knows is bad for her, but she keeps making the mistake because there’s comfort in familarity.
Nothing else is revealed about Conor and his life except that he’s a violent jerk, he hangs out with other hoodlums, and Conor wants to get back together with Mia. Conor has a limited number of facial expressions in this movie: stoic, smirking and snarling. Predictably, when Conor sees that Mia is spending time with Li, Conor gets very jealous. You can almost do a countdown to the inevitable scene where Conor picks a fight with Li and sucker punches him.
Conor hangs out at a gym run by a shady business owner named O’Shea (played by Tim Rozon), who is also Conor’s karate trainer. Mia tells Li to stay away from the gym because O’Shea is a bad guy. Mia also says that her father owes a lot of money to O’Shea, who has a group of thugs that you know will be doing some of his dirty work.
When some of these thugs beat up Victor one night on a street, Li happens to be there, and he defeats the thugs because of his kung fu skills. This altercation motivates Victor, who is a former boxer, to brush up on his fighting skills. Victor is impressed with Li’s kung fu skills and asks Li to help him with agility and speed training for boxing. Victor then decides to enter a local boxing match to possibly win money to pay off his debt to O’Shea.
Even though Li is forbidden by his mother to be involved in any fighting, Li reluctantly agrees to help Victor. Li is also intrigued when he hears about a New York City karate contest called the 5 Boroughs Tournament, where the grand prize is $50,000. You know where all of this is going, of course. At some point in the movie, Mr. Han shows up in New York City, and he gets Daniel LaRusso (from “The Karate Kid,” “The Karate Kid 2” and “Cobra Kai”) to come from California to New York City to train Li in karate.
“Karate Kid: Legends” is utterly predictable. However, Wang gives a winning performance as Li, who treats people with respect and struggles with his imperfections and insecurities. Li is obedient up until a point when he decides what he wants to do with his life, regardless of what a parent or other authority figure expects him to do. In that regard, “Karate Kid: Legends” successfully taps into the teenage spirit of the “Karate Kid” movies. “Karate Kid: Legends” uses a lot of 1980s-styled captions and graphics throughout the film.
The “Karate Kid: Legends” cast members, who are convincing but not outstanding in their roles, have very good chemistry together. Macchio and Chan don’t do anything new with their respective characters, who have been in other “Karate Kid” movies. The scenes of Daniel and Mr. Han are amusing because these two training masters sometimes clash over how to train Li. (At the end of “Karate Kid: Legends,” there’s also a quick comedic cameo from another well-known “Karate Kid”/”Cobra Kai” cast member.)
The character of Dr. Fong is very underdeveloped. It’s implied that she’s very busy with her job, which is why she’s barely around to supervise what Li does in his free time. The most divisive part of “Karate Kids: Legends” will probably have to do with the boxing storyline, which didn’t really need to be in the movie, although Jackson gives a perfectly adequate performance as Victor, who is a devoted and caring father to Mia.
There’s also a small tribute to original “Karate Kid” trainer Mr. Miyagi (played by Pat Morita, who died in 2005), when it’s mentioned that Mr. Han and Mr. Miyagi knew each other. The action sequences in “Karate Kids: Legends” are thrilling, but not very suspenseful because this is the type of movie where you know how the movie will end before it even starts. “Karate Kid: Legends” won’t be considered a classic, but it serves its purpose to be likable and satisfactory entertainment.
Columbia Pictures will release “Karate Kid: Legends” in U.S. cinemas on May 30, 2025.
