Cast: Ben Wang, Sadie Stanley, Joshua Jackson, Jackie Chan, Ming-Na Wen, Wyatt Oleff, Aramis Knight, Ralph Macchio

Written By: Rob Lieberer, based on characters originated in The Karate Kid

Directed By: Jonathan Entwistle

Release Year: 2025

Studio/Streamer: Sony

94 minutes

Audio Description Produced By: Pixel Logic

Written By: (Need Credit)

Narrated By: Laura Post

What is It?: An attempt to have the best of all worlds. Karate Kid: legends is a brand new story featuring a teenage boy from Beijing who moves to New York City, where he not only has to leave his troubled past behind, but also Kung Fu, and his old teacher (Chan). in New York, the kids aren’t exactly welcoming,with the main bully being (of course) adept in karate. Luckily, there’s a girl, and a pizza place to make everything better. But, even her dad is in trouble with gangsters he owes money to, unless he can regain his boxing glory days, with the help of his new friend from Beijing. The 94 minute film doesn’t stop there, and still needs our Beijing badass to compete themselves so we have a reason to fly Jackie Chan over, and for Chan to go recruit Ralph Macchio.

What Works: Starting off with the positives, the young cast is as fresh as they are supposed to be. Had a writer who isn’t likely clinically insane written this, it either would be a full nostalgic branch coming out of Cobra Kai, or it would have just let sleeping dogs lie, and had our young karate kid train the former boxer (Jackson) in what would have been a FAR more compelling tale than the weird retread we get, and totally awkward ways of roping in returning cast.

I totally get the need for fan service, but committ to something. This is like wanting to have Pizza and Lobster, so you make a smoothie out of a pizza and a lobster. Both of those things are great on their own, but when you idiotically put them together, I’m pretty certain someone will die drinking a lobster/pizza/smoothie. Well, here, we have the Pizza. And the pizza is great. it is New York style pizza. then, we bring in the lobster, which we saw earlier, and we could maybe make these two things work, but then Brad from accounting goes and gets the blender in California, and everything goes to shit.

the new idea is inspired. A young kid with a passing knowledge of kung fu helps Joshua Jackson become a boxer and regain his glory days.Why not? Mixed martial Arts is such a huge thing. I suppose Chan could even show up at the end just for that last push to get Jackson over the hump and win his final battle. But that’s not what happens. Instead, Jackson fails, and Chan flies to New York, so he can then fly to california like it is nothing, just to talk to Daniel, so we can bring all Karate franchises together totally unnecessarily.

And the most frustrating thing is that while the film doesn’t necessarily get rid of Cobra Kai and all the story it built, it contains none of it. They even joke about Miyagi-Dough being a bad name for a pizza place.this film is so short, I don’t know why Daniel couldn’t have talked to his wife, or even seen his mother. Do the people who made this film not understand why they are allowed to? the only reason they breathe is because of Cobra Kai. So either leave it fully alone, and kick Ralph Macchio out of his useless cameo, or bring them all in, and write a different film.

Honestly, had they just written a brand new Karate Kid, set in New York, without Chan or Macchio, I would have liked this movie. But this? Even though there are aspects of the film I like, and performances from the new cast, I’m not sure I will be as viscerally angry at any film this year as I am with this inept and misguided attempt to have it all, and end up with nothing. I enjoyed the pizza. It was a solid New York style pizza. I could have lived with the lobster, in minimal quantity, even though I liked it more the last time I had it when it wasn’t paired with Pizza. but why on gods green earth we decided to take smoothie, and instead of keeping smoothie with the usual ingredients we find in smoothies, with a formula that worked at least three times in the 80’s, before being improved again in the 2010’s, and instead try and use pizza and lobster as ingredients is beyond me.

What Doesn’t Work: This film.

The Audio Description: It was fine. Most of the time I was angry at the movie, but the fighting is done well. The final tournament is like on speed anyway, so there’s very little fighting. Cobra Kai has far more elaborate stunt work.

Why You Might Like it: you’ve never seen anything Karate Kid related, so none of what I wrote about matters to you.

Why You Might Not Like it: It gives you a lot to ponder about leaning in on nostalgia, and fan service. When is it too much, or too far? When does fan service utterly destroy the work at hand?

Final Thoughts: I hated this. Pick a lane. Either make a new Karate Kid movie, or make a legacy sequel, but the attempt to do both struck out, finished last, and I’m showing no mercy.

Rotten: 4.9/10