Karate Kid: Legends Review – The Wax Has Come Off

Once in a while you come across a film where it is nearly impossible to spoil this movie. Karate Kid: Legends is exactly what you’d expect it to be. We know this story: a fish out of water kid meets a girl and a bully, learns martial arts with some odd training gimmick, and finds redemption by defeating his bully at a tournament. It’s always the same. It hits all those cliché beats with conventional Hollywood pacing, repeating the plot of The Karate Kid (1984) and The Karate Kid 2010 remake without any significant surprises. We even know exactly how this story is going to end. And from its first appearance, we know exactly what the “killing” blow in the final fight will be.

The original film introduced Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) as the sensei of fish-out-of-water Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio). The redux reimagined Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) as the shifu of fish-out-of-water Dre Parker (Jaden Smith). Now Karate Kid: Legends situates Shifu Han and Sensei LaRusso as teachers of another fish-out-of-water newcomer, Li Fong (Ben Wang). 

However, there’s a third storyline in the Miyagi-verse—the critically acclaimed Cobra Kai series. Sadly, Karate Kid: Legends is completely disconnected from Cobra Kai, which is a dreadful oversight for the overall franchise. Cobra Kai was the brainchild of Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg that began in 2018, ran for 65 episodes, and stuck the landing with a beautiful heartfelt finale earlier this year. Heald, Hurwitz, and Schlossberg were not involved in the production of this new movie at all. Karate Kid: Legends meanwhile is directed by Jonathan Entwistle and written by Rob Lieber, who apparently have not watched Cobra Kai at all. 

Perhaps that’s why throughout the film, Macchio looks a bit bewildered as to why he’s there. In the 2025 film, Daniel first appears in Mr. Miyagi’s old dojo with his bright yellow 1947 Ford super deluxe convertible still in the yard. The place looks a bit dilapidated, and there’s no reference to his family or his success as a car dealer from Cobra Kai. He only has a few days to train Legends’ Karate Kid, but even with the overt lesson-to-application storytelling device so prevalent in the Miyagi-verse, it’s not that clear what Karate Daniel teaches him. But he does on a Miyagi headband to Li. So there’s that.

Conversely, Jackie Chan phones in Mr. Han. At 71 Chan still delivers several films a year, and some of them just don’t get his best. His portrayal of Mr. Han in the 2010 film was poignant, astonishing some audiences who weren’t familiar with Chan’s dramatic acting chops. But Han’s tragic backstory doesn’t make a difference here. He appears first running a large beautiful wuguan (martial hall) in Beijing. The only solid reference to the previous film is the continuation of the jacket on, jacket off training technique Han used on Dre, their version of wax on, wax off. 

Li, the new ‘Legends’ Karate Kid (not to be confused with Hilary Swank’s Julie Pierce, who was the first new Karate Kid under Miyagi, back in 1994’s The Next Karate Kid) is different from LaRusso or Parker in that he already has excellent Kung Fu training. For the first time, the fish-out-of-water Karate Kid has a genuine martial background. Prior to getting the part, Wang studied Karate and Kung Fu, along with the Korean styles of Taekwondo and Kumdo. He moves well and delivers some convincing fight scenes.  

What’s more, Wang has a fascinating acting style. His character Li suffers PTSD from witnessing the murder of his brother, Mr. Han’s other star pupil. The trauma has his mother, Dr. Fong (Ming-Na Wen), wanting to keep her second son away from the martial arts altogether. Wang sinks his teeth into the role, toggling from grappling with the ghosts of his past and acknowledging the absurdity of his present. 

And at five feet and five inches, and with a baby face, the now 25-year-old Wang pulls off the role of a teenager well. Two years ago, he portrayed the 10th grader Jin Wang convincingly enough for the lead role in the Disney+ miniseries American Born Chinese. LaRusso was supposed to be 17 in the original film when Macchio was 22 and Dre was 12, which was Smith’s exact age at that time. Wang’s performance in Karate Kid: Legends is spot on, firmly establishing him as a rising star to keep watching. It’s only the dull story that detracts from his performance here.

Sadie Stanley is also one to watch. She shines as Mia Lipani, Legends’ version of Ali Mills and Meiying. Stanley broke out starring as the titular hero in the 2019 live-action Kim Possible. She’s pitch perfect as the girl Li desires, with a charming effervescent smile faintly reminiscent of Elizabeth Shue’s Ali. There’s delightful chemistry between Mia and Li as they navigate a potential romance, but notably, there’s no kiss. Does this perpetuate the asexual Asian male stereotype? The kiss between Dre and Meiying in The Karate Kid 2010 was controversial, so much so that it was edited out of the version of the film that was distributed in China. Undoubtedly Karate Kid: Legends is bound for Chinese distribution, so perhaps the kiss omission was in preparation. 

Mia’s story is the biggest variation from the previous films. There’s a side story about her father, Victor (Joshua Jackson) being a retired boxer that owns an NYC pizza parlor that of course owes money to some baddies. In an effort to save himself, Victor gets back into the ring and ends up learning a thing or two from young Li. While the side story is somewhat fresh for the Miyagi-verse, it’s such a tired platitude in the martial arts genre that it offers little redemption for the film. 

The other stand out performance comes from Aramis Knight, who plays Conor, Legends’ prerequisite bad guy. Knight learned martial arts for Into the Badlands, and it appears he’s kept up with his training. His moves are sharper and more powerful now—good for a villain, which Knight plays a villain well. He’s got some fine sneers. Unfortunately Conor is written two-dimensionally; there’s only so much Knight can do with that. He can clearly deliver the action. Hopefully this role doesn’t get him pigeonholed into playing villains. 

Still, the fight choreography in Karate Kid: Legends is some of the best of the franchise. Not only do Wang and Knight have a solid foundation in the martial arts long before ing the cast, but the Jackie Chan stunt team is also credited on this. There are a lot of wire-assisted acrobatic scenes, but the camerawork is jiggly; done to accentuate the action, but also to hide a multitude of sins and stunt people. 

When servicing the fanbase of a major franchise, easter eggs are expected. Cobra Kai was masterful when it came to servicing the fans. Every episode was loaded with them. Not so for Karate Kid: Legends. There’s so little reference to the previous body of work that this film almost feels completely independent of the Miyagi-verse. It would have been so easy to imply that Li Fong was the son of Master Li (Yu Rongguang), the villainous sensei from the 2010 film. That might have added a delicious level of complexity, but it stands as a glaringly missed opportunity.

It’s all ultimately a shame because Cobra Kai went out like champions with the promise of many potential spin-offs, but Karate Kid: Legends may be a dealbreaker for the franchise. Despite excellent performances and decent action, it fails with a hackneyed and painfully predictable story. 

Karate Kid: Legends premieres on May 30, 2025.