Even in our modern-day IP glut, three months has to be a new record. That’s how much time has passed in between the series finale of Netflix’s long-running Karate Kid sequel series Cobra Kai and the arrival of Karate Kid: Legends, the franchise’s latest film release, which hits theaters May 30. (Strike-related delays, yada yada…)
Scheduling issues aside, it makes for a ghoulishly short onscreen gap between original “karate kid” Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) closing up the dojo in one iteration and getting yanked right back into the fold in another. Yet for all its nostalgic blockbuster baggage, Karate Kid: Legends is miraculously light on its feet, thanks in huge part to its breakout star, Ben Wang.
If you’ve seen the first Karate Kid or any of the reboots that have come after, you already know the broad strokes of this one: Underdog kid moves to a new city with his single mom, kid crushes on a girl but gets picked on by her cartoonishly evil ex, kid trains at karate—or kung fu, in the confusing case of the 2010 remake—with an incisive, eccentric mentor and wins a match against the evil ex, kid gets girl, roll credits.
That’s essentially what happens in the latest installment, with some key tweaks. This time around, Li Fong (Wang) has to abandon kung fu training with his mentor, Mr. Han (one Jackie Chan, returning from the 2010 film) after his mom (an underused Ming-Na Wen) moves them to New York City following the death of his brother. Li has assured his mother that he’s given up “fighting,” but that all goes out the window when he quickly befriends ex-boxer-turned-pizza shop owner Victor (Joshua Jackson) and catches the eye of his daughter Mia (Sadie Stanley, doing her best with Whedon-lite quips).
Victor owes a whole lot to some loan sharks, whom Ben saves him from in an alleyway one night in a clear reversal of Mr. Miyagi fending off Daniel’s school bullies. In fact, the whole first act is a twist on the mentor-mentee dynamic of the original Karate Kid, as Li agrees to help train Victor for a boxing match in hopes of paying off his debt. Simple as this switch is, it makes for the strongest section of the movie by virtue of the characters simply being allowed to breathe on their own.
Wang and Jackson share a winningly easy chemistry, and, as obvious as it is that the Manhattan of Karate Kid: Legends is actually Montreal interspersed with a few days of choice on-location filming in Times Square and Chinatown, our underdog and his new pals are so watchable that it’s easy to settle in. Director Jonathan Entwistle—who boasts teen drama chops following his work on I Am Not Okay With This and The End of the F***ing World—has cited Spider-Man as a reference point for his take on New York (Mia even calls Li “Chinese Peter Parker” at one point). Intermittent establishing split screens and colorful, animated interstitials add a familiar yet fresh comics-inspired wrinkle to this Karate Kid installment.
All too soon, the latter half of the movie’s title comes into play when Li must sign up for a city-wide “five boroughs” tournament after Victor’s plans hit a roadblock. Of course, no ordinary teacher can prepare him to take on Mia’s menacing ex-boyfriend Connor (Aramis Knight) and his brutal dojo’s training. For all the first act’s charmingly lived-in table-setting, we’re soon fed a convoluted backstory about Mr. Han’s connection to Miyagi that conveniently ties the whole Karate Kid cinematic universe together. Of course he wants Miyagi’s protégé, Daniel, to train Li! We even get a requisite Nick Fury “putting together a team” sequence set at Daniel’s Los Angeles home.
Wang has an irresistibly scrappy sweetness about him throughout the movie, but it’s once he’s standing shoulder-to-shoulder with two franchise legends that his leading man chops grow truly impressive. Any underdog tale without a convincing lead would collapse in on itself, but that’s particularly true when it comes six movies and 65 episodes of TV into a franchise.
And sure, a version of the movie that cast aside fan service and had the time to luxuriate in the day-to-day lessons that Li and his buddies impart to each other over pizza dough karate chop exercises or a family friend’s pigeon coop probably would’ve been much stronger as a whole. Yet Wang makes shouldering Karate Kid: Legend’s tonal and narrative swerves look downright breezy, even if most of his scenes with his iconic mentors unfold in a series of montages that swap ’80s pop rock for a smattering of top-50 hits (I regret to inform you that even Chan’s charms can’t sell a Benson Boone single).
The latest “karate kid” does an impressive amount of his own stunts, too, adding a layer of believability to the film’s choreographed, tightly-edited sequence. The scene in which Li saves Vincent from his attackers is a particular stand-out, utilizing foam set decorations to make the action feel heightened yet tactile. While he’s used sparingly, this is where Chan’s famed slapstick acrobatics manage to shine through in Wang’s performance.
Putting aside the more obvious reality that Sony wanted a reliable summer moneymaker, Karate Kid: Legends justifies its existence by espousing the value of passing on your knowledge to others as a means of not only connection, but self-actualization.
Chan’s involvement in the franchise has always felt meta given his role in bridging Hong Kong and American action cinema. When Li puts the lessons he’s learned from Mr. Han, Victor, and Daniel to use in a crowd-pleasing (if predictable) final stand-off against Connor, the movie manages to be far more convincing than it needs to be about the potential for a Frankensteinian mash-up of IP to grow into something that still brings people together.
That applies to cross-cultural martial arts, yes, but also parents who grew up on the original and kids who have no idea what “wax on, wax off” means. And really, what more could you ask for?
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