Karate Kid: Legends Gets to the Tournament but Sweeps its Own Leg

Karate Kid: Legends

★ ★

Karate Kid: Legends feels like the producers took a rough draft screenplay and decided that’s the version to lock in for production. There are some wonderful, heartwarming elements that are overshadowed by sloppy storytelling and paper thin character development. There are moments when this film hints at greatness – but manages to walk into its own crane kick to the face.

At its core, the film follows the same basic plot points as the original. A teenage boy is forced to move far away from his childhood town, leave his friends behind and start over in a new place where not everyone is friendly and the town bully wants to beat him up for moving in on his girl.

Ben Wang as Li Fong
© 2025 Columbia Pictures

Li Fong (Ben Wang) and his mom, Dr. Fong (Ming-Na Wen) pack up and leave Bangkok for New York City when she gets a top surgeon position at a hospital there. Li says goodbye to Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), his uncle and kung fu teacher. Dr. Fong wants Li to stop training in martial arts because of a tragedy that happened within their family. Li’s brother Bo (Yankei Ge) was knifed to death in front of Li by the 2nd place winner in a tournament he just won.

Understandably, Li has some unchecked PTSD from this incident.

Li befriends Mia (Sadie Stanley), the daughter of a pizza shop owner. Her dad is Victor (Joshua Jackson) and he used to be an up-and-coming boxer. Li and Mia spend a lot of time together. This draws the ire of Conor Day (Aramis Knight), New York’s reigning teen martial arts champ and Mia’s ex-boyfriend.

Joshua Jackson and Ben Wang
© 2025 Columbia Pictures

Victor gave up his career to raise Mia, and while he doesn’t regret doing so, he is about to step into the ring again hoping to pay off a loan shark. Victor borrowed the money for the pizza shop, and he’s been slow on payback. As it goes, the loan shark happens to be O’Shea (Tim Rozon), the owner of a mixed martial arts dojo. O’Shea is also the Sensei Kreese of New York City – Conor’s trainer.

Li gets into a fight at school with Conor and takes a beat-down. We expect this as Karate Kid fans. But here’s the thing – that same evening, Li expertly takes down three of O’Shea’s heavies who physically shake Victor down. While we’re scratching our heads at this contradiction, Victor sees enough of Li’s skills to ask him for training help.

The storyline with Li, Mia and Victor is the strongest of them all in this film. I would have been happy to see this thread play out as a movie on its own. This is where the most character development happened and there was a genuine, heartwarming relationship forming between them. When Mia learns Li’s been training Victor to fight, she’s understandably concerned. But as the training progresses, she warms up to it and a strong bond begins to form between them. This is the most human part of this movie, and I was saddened when the film abandoned it.

Jackie Chan and Ben Wang
© 2025 Columbia Pictures

I guess it wouldn’t be a Karate Kid movie if we didn’t figure out how to involve Danny LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) in some capacity. Mr. Han enlists his help to train Li for the upcoming, all-important Five Boroughs Tournament. This happens in the last thirty minutes of the film — and by then, we’re already wondering when the LaRusso-Han team-up was finally going to kick in. We saw it in the preview, after all.

The coming-of-age story that the Karate Kid movies have really been about is lost in this ultra-compact, 90-minute story. The writers and filmmakers tried to cram so much into the film, in so little run time, developing sympathetic characters or a compelling plot is all but impossible. Even Karate Kid: Legends can’t rise to that challenge.

There’s a wonderful moment in this film, where Li and Mia are in Victor’s corner. He easily lost the first round, and Li’s advice helps Victor in the fight. Right there, Mia sees her dad in prime fighting form – and sees Li as someone who genuinely cares about them both. That right there, was the only real heartbeat in the film.

Other elements bog this movie down, such as the choice in high-speed-dubstep-hiphop for the soundtrack. It’s upbeat and annoying. More annoying is when something goes wrong, they slow the music to a stop, as if a vinyl record turntable had been turned off. Tournament fight scenes feel more like fights from the Streetfighter video game – complete with onscreen point scoring and annoying chimes. Yes, before characters square off, there’s even animated graffiti-type graphics that display “fight.”

I still enjoyed some of the better aspects of the film, and there’s plenty of nostalgia for fans of the original. I think it would have been a better movie if they kept it about an ex-boxer turned pizza owner, his daughter and the new martial arts boyfriend who’s just trying to find his way in New York.

Karate Kid: Legends could have been a contender, but didn’t strike first, didn’t strike hard and was way too merciful.