Karate Kid: Legends (2025)

What do you get when you throw the previously divergent continuities of “The Karate Kid” 1984 and “The Karate Kid” 2010 into a blender and serve the finished product right on the heels of the electrifying series finale that is “Cobra Kai” season 6? The action-packed blast of karate, kung fu, and even boxing fun that is “Karate Kid: Legends”. While slightly more fast-paced than it needs to be due to its brief runtime, “Karate Kid: Legends” is a compelling hybrid of spin-off and franchise revival that gives ample room for Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio to flex their mentor muscles while introducing Ben Wang as a martial arts movie up-and-comer with tremendous potential.

Trailer

Cast

Ben Wang leads “Karate Kid: Legends” as the movie’s young martial arts prodigy Li Fong, with Jackie Chan returning as Mr. Han and Ralph Macchio back as Daniel LaRusso. Ming Na-Wen portrays Li’s mother Dr. Fong, while Sadie Stanley portrays Li’s love interest Mia Lipani, with Joshua Jackson appearing as her gruff but jovial father Victor. Aramis Knight portrays Li’s martial arts rival Conor Day, with Wyatt Olaff playing Li’s math tutor Alan, and Tim Rozon playing Conor’s sensei and vicious local loan shark O’Shea.

Plot

Li Fong finds himself a fish out of water when he and his mother move from Beijing to New York City. Li is particularly jolted after being pulled out of his kung fu studies under the wise Mr. Han and his mother barring him from taking up further martial arts training in New York (Dr. Fong still reeling from the death of Li’s brother in a street brawl after a martial arts tournament). Nonetheless, when Li intervenes to save local pizza shop owner Victor Lipani from loan sharks, Victor convinces Li to train him in kung fu for an upcoming boxing match that would allow him to pay off his debts. Despite Victor progressing strongly, he is badly beaten and hospitalized in the fight, leaving Victor and his daughter Mia in danger of losing the shop. After Mr. Han pays Li a visit in New York, the duo elect to prep Li for an upcoming martial arts tournament known as the 5 Burroughs to win enough cash to help Victor and Mia. To help get Li prepped, Mr. Han recruits Daniel LaRusso to train Li in kung fu and karate, Daniel’s late mentor Mr. Miyagi having been an old friend of Han’s. 

Action

“Karate Kid: Legends” Continues From 2010’s “The Karate Kid”, But Has The Feel Of “Cobra Kai”

The relationship “Legends” maintains with “The Karate Kid” franchise in its totality is relatively compartmentalized, but also not an afterthought. The opening flashback to “The Karate Kid: Part II” gives modern audiences context to the genesis of Miyagi-Do karate, with the setting then quickly shifting to Han’s kung fu school in Beijing with students practicing his “jacket on, jacket off” technique alongside more traditional training methods like Li’s drills on a mook jong dummy. While this combo fleshes out the continuity of the reworked “Karate Kid” franchise timeline with the 2010 former remake being retconned into it, what stands out even more is how much “Legends” feels like “Cobra Kai” on the big-screen.

The combo of teenage coming-of-age drama and dry comedy were essential in propelling “Cobra Kai” to the streaming phenomenon that it became (and continues to be even after the show’s official end). With its somewhat compact 93-minute runtime, “Legends” also moves at a pace more in the vein of “Cobra Kai” then the more expansive structure of “The Karate Kid” movies. Not unlike the swift plot structure of a Hong Kong action movie, “Cobra Kai” seems to be a far greater foundational influence on “Karate Kid: Legends” than the franchise’s actual big-screen chapters have been.

Jackie Chan Really Shines As A Martial Arts Mentor

When it comes to Jackie Chan, let’s call a spade a spade – on the other side of 70 and with the sheer amount of injuries he’s come back from (you could probably make an entire Jackie Chan movie from nothing but outtakes of his many painful stunts gone wrong), the stunts of his “Rumble in the Bronx” days are a thing of the past by pure medical necessity. However, Jackie’s still plenty nimble to get in some good fight scenes with the usual Jackie Chan choreographic creativity, including in Han’s stealthy entry into Li’s New York apartment. As with 2010’s “The Karate Kid”, what really stands out is how perfectly Jackie embodies a wise kung fu mentor passing his knowledge onto a devoted disciple.

Decades after his torturous training montages in “Drunken Master” and the blistering, Charlie Chaplin-inspired fight choreography of his heyday, it’s a meta experience for Jackie and fans who grew up with his filmography (yours truly included) to see him so flawlessly slide into the very comedic but sagely mentor role that he once trained under. There are training montages a-plenty in “Legends”, which gives Han plenty of ways to put Li through the ringer with some comedic banter opposite his fellow instructor on how to best prep Li for the tournament. Enter Daniel LaRusso, fresh off the “Cobra Kai” series finale!

Ralph Macchio Joins The Party Late, But Brings Plenty of Miyagi-Do Energy

Daniel-san enters the story relatively late in the movie, but his belated arrival is a decidedly fashionable one with Ralph Macchio’s command of his own karate mentor role from six seasons of “Cobra Kai”. There’s a touch of mentorship head-butting between Han and Daniel in their tutelage of Li that calls back to Jackie Chan’s initial on-screen rivalry with Jet Li in “The Forbidden Kingdom”, and “Legends” has just as much fun with it with Han and Daniel’s martial arts philosophies being even more culturally divergent. It’s all in good fun, though, and the movie’s plentiful training montages give Han and Daniel ample time to impart wisdom derived from both kung fu and karate to Li. Daniel’s strategy to “set a trap” for the tiger that is Conor is the flashiest highlight of Li’s training, which also illustrates Ben Wang as the real heart of the movie.

“Karate Kid: Legends” Is Full Of Great Action, & Ben Wang Is Poised To Become A Martial Arts Star

Still a new face to many, Ben Wang is an absolute dynamo as Li Fong, a kid at once supremely confidant and self-doubting in his martial arts abilities, and who even gets the opportunity to become a mentor himself in his relationship of prepping Victor for his fight. Easily the biggest surprise in “Legends” is how much of a role boxing plays in the movie’s fight choreography, but like Bruce Lee before him, Li understands the connective tissue it holds with all other martial arts forms and gives Victor a kung fu edge in his training. At the same time, in his own fight and training scenes, Ben Wang is a true kung fu and karate tornado.

Wang’s diverse martial arts background enables him to really enliven Li’s fighting style in the movie’s action scenes, Li combining close quarters Wing Chun chain-punching with flashier Wushu aerial kicks to phenomenal effect. “Legends” brings some great Hong Kong-style flair to Li’s alley brawl to protect Victor from a gang sent by O’Shea, and while many of the tournament fight scenes are a bit brief in their duration, Wang’s talents and the film’s excellent fight choreography keep the action gripping and powerful. Of course, every “Karate Kid” has to end with a memorable tournament showdown, and Li’s final match with Conor lives up to those exalted “Karate Kid” and “Cobra Kai” standards with ease and a great symbiosis of the movie’s kung fu-karate blend of combat.

Summary

While it wouldn’t have been detrimental to give it an added ten minutes or so of runtime, “Karate Kid: Legends” is nonetheless terrific martial arts entertainment organically integrates the Jackie Chan-led former remake into the main series with a terrific star turn by Ben Wang. With multiple “Cobra Kai” spin-offs reportedly in the works, “Karate Kid: Legends” is a thoroughly enjoyable middle chapter as those get off the ground, and one that entertains well on its own terms even if you’ve never seen an episode of the show. “Karate Kid: Legends” truly brings legends of the franchise together (including one not featured on the poster) – fingers and toes crossed that it sets up Ben Wang joining the “Cobra Kai” team for the next Sekai Takai!

Favourite Quotes

• “You’re old. And you’re slow. And your footwork is sloppy. And you take more punches than you throw, which I feel like you think that’s a talent, but it’s not. I can make you better.” – Li Fong, taking up Victor on his request to train him.
• “When do we start?” – Victor, grinning in reply.
• “You know the best way to defeat a tiger? Set a trap.” – Daniel, explaining to Li Fong the best way to counter Conor’s tiger-like aggression.
• “One branch stronger than the other!” – Mr. Han, when Li Fong mentions his harmonious analogy of kung fu and karate being “two branches, one tree”.

Trivia:

• A sequel to 2010’s “The Karate Kid” had been in development hell for years. Eventually, “Karate Kid: Legends” was announced as a revival of the original series, while also retconning the 2010 film into the mainline “Karate Kid” franchise.
• The movie takes place about three years after the end of “Cobra Kai”.
• Ralph Macchio was insistent that “Karate Kid: Legends” not be released until after the finale of “Cobra Kai”, with the movie originally scheduled to release in December of 2024, but later being pushed back to May 2025 to accommodate the show’s end.
• This movie marks the directorial debut of director Jonathan Entwistle. 
• Renown fight choreographer Peng Zhang served as the movie’s second unit director. Some of his other credits include “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”, “Kingsman: The Secret Service”, “Wonder Woman”, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”, the Disney+ series “American Born Chinese” (on which Ben Wang also appeared), and “The Wrath of Vajra”. Peng Zhang will also serve as second unit director on the upcoming “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”. 
• Fabien Gorchon of 2014’s “Die Fighting” also served as assistant fight choreographer. Check out Fabien and Lohan Buson’s action demo for KFK here!

Film rating: 8/10

“Karate Kid: Legends” is now available to rent and buy on PVOD platforms! Have you seen “Karate Kid: Legends”? Where do you rank it in “The Karate Kid” franchise? What other “Karate Kid” or “Cobra Kai” spin-offs would you like to see! Let us know in the comments below; Like, share and join in the conversation on Facebook and follow us on Twitter & Instagram. (And be sure to jump over KFK’s FU-niversity of movie reviews and exclusive, in-depth interviews, including our interview with Jackie Chan himself, grab your official KFK gear and subscribe for more action on YouTube, as well!)