Karate and Kung Fu Team Up for the Best Karate Kid Since 1984
DIRECTOR: JONATHAN ENTWISTLE/2025
Like The Karate Kid Parts II and III, Karate Kid: Legends opens with a historical recap, this time to revisit a key scene from Part II. In Okinawa, teenage Daniel LaRusso’s mentor and best friend Mr. Miyagi is explaining how his family learned karate in China and brought it to Japan. But unlike we saw in 1986, Legends retcons the end of story, clarifying the Miyagis learned kung fu from the Han family then modified it to become the karate they practice today. Centuries later, the Hans and Miyagis are still connected, and now they must unite to pass their experience to the next generation.
When Li (Ben Wang) and his mom (Ming-Na Wen) move from China to New York, they aren’t just moving for her new job opportunity—she wants Li to leave behind his kung fu training with his uncle, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan). But Li can’t leave it behind when he discovers his martial arts skills are just what the local pizza joint owner (Joshua Jackson) needs to win a boxing match, and again when a school bully (Aramis Knight) won’t leave Li alone. He’ll need everything he has learned from Shifu Han and everything he will learn from Sensei LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) to defend himself—this time, the Karate Kid will need both karate and kung fu.
Though I can’t speak for the hit Netflix series Cobra Kai, I feel comfortable speaking for the film franchise: This is the best Karate Kid since the 1984 original. The solid Part II found new depth to Mr. Miyagi in his home country, but Part III went off the rails with a bonkers villain and the 2010 reboot bogged down Jackie Chan’s charm with a long runtime. This 94-minute revival is a fast-paced amalgam of the best from the past films with a few new twists to keep its structure fresh. Yes, we’ve got another single mom and son struggling to adjust to life in a new time zone, our main character falls for a friendly girl in the neighborhood (Sadie Stanley), and the finale features a face-off with a jerk at a martial arts tournament. But unlike Daniel when he first meets Mr. Miyagi, Li isn’t new to self-defense—this kid is way past “wax on, wax off.” In fact, the phrase “wax on, wax off,” is never used. In the best way, this movie isn’t beholden to the ones before it, which means it’s the rare sequel that doesn’t feel overstuffed with Easter eggs or too many characters.
While Wang holds the center quite well for someone new to big studio films, the true draw of this series has never been the students. Chan’s screwball energy is turned on high, reminding us why he’s a global superstar with 150 films to his name. With age, Macchio has grown into a generous scene parter who doesn’t need the rely on that twitchy talk-talk-talk energy he did when playing a teenager. (Like Wang, Macchio played his Karate Kid as a twentysomething.) And though he’s the least of the trio, Jackson’s boxing New Yorker doesn’t make three a crowd, letting Chan bring the laughs, Macchio the gravitas, and he the scrappy heart. All four of these men are convincing athletes as well, no matter how young or how old. Four decades after meeting Mr. Miyagi, The Karate Kid is still finding ways to make martial arts cinematic and to inspire the next generation.