Film Review: Karate Kid: Legends

Welcome back to the blog readers. I cannot say I have seen a single piece of media in the Karate Kid (1984-) franchise but I am nonetheless aware of what it is. I also know it has a special place in a lot of hearts. Even the 2010 reboot with Jaden Smith that not a lot of people reportedly liked. And Cobra Kai (2018-25) was almost universally loved. With that being said, would my debut with Karate Kid be as memorable to me as the original was to a lot of people? Stick around to find out.

Karate Kid: Legends was directed by Jonathan Entwistle from a screenplay by Rob Lieber, based on The Karate Kid (1984) by Robert Mark Kamen. The film stars Jackie Chan, Ben Wang, Joshua Jackson, Sadie Stanley, Ming-Na Wen, Wyatt Oleff, Aramis Knight, and Ralph Macchio. In the film, a young man who has a past with kung fu finds himself in a martial arts tournament and seeks out training from legends Mr. Han (his great uncle) and Daniel LaRusso.

Personally, I could give two squirts of urine about this film in the year leading up to release. But something interesting happened around the time of CinemaCon: the trailer that released that week actually won me over and got me interested in seeing the film. Now don't get me wrong, I was never expecting an Oppenheimer (2023), but I found myself pretty entertained with this film. Lead Ben Wang is going to be a star and I enjoyed the action.

I want to talk about lead actor Ben Wang, who plays Li Fong in the film. Wang has been in a few projects over the years, notably the Disney+ series American Born Chinese (2023). But this is going to be the launchpad for the kid I literally just found out is 25!!!! Not knowing who this kid is, and seeing he is already going to be in The Long Walk (2025) and The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (2026), I have to say that this kid is going to be a star. He has charisma for days, and the level that he was on compared to everybody else in terms of the action was astonishing to me, especially considering he performed his own stunts. I love the chemistry he had with Sadie Stanley and he comes off as the right level of cocky. I am really looking forward to seeing his performance in The Long Walk to really see if he has it like I think he does.

And I know this is going to be a shorter review since there is not much to talk about with a film like this, but I wanted to end the review by talking about the action in the film. Like I said in my review of Ben Wang's performance in the last paragraph, he did all of his own stunts and I can greatly appreciate someone who can do that. Why do you think I love Tom Cruise so much? All of the action was fast, furious, and done with purpose. It is very possible that the action stays in my top 10, even top 5, of the year for its flawless execution.

I did lie about ending the review because I want to touch on one thing that brought the film down a notch for me. That had everything to do with the pacing of the film. Do you know when some films feel like their runtime and when they don't? This film definitely felt like a breakneck pace where something was happening all the time. Sometimes those kinds of films are good with their pacing, but this film felt way too fast for my liking. Some scenes did not get the breathing room they deserved, and 94 minutes definitely did not feel like enough time to adequately tell this story. I think we needed another 10-15 minutes to allow some scenes to breathe.

In conclusion, Karate Kid: Legends makes a star out of its lead with exceptional action but suffers with its too-quick pacing. Thank you all for reading, and I will see you for the next post.