You can practically hear the corporate chatter as Karate Kid: Legends spreadeagles across the original martial-arts drama, from 1984; the movie reboot, from 2010; Netflix’s TV spin-off, Cobra Kai; and The Karate Kid Part III. The blatant product placements for Pepsi or Cheez-Its amplify the sound of shill.
The plot of this addition to the franchise is that, following a hastily sketched family tragedy, a kung fu prodigy, Li Fong (Ben Wang), relocates from Beijing to New York City with his doctor mother (Ming-Na Wen).
“How come you speak English so well?” Li’s blossoming love interest, Mia (Kim Possible’s sparkly Sadie Stanley), asks. “Because my mom did her residency in Hong Kong and I went to an American school,” comes one of several ungainly explanations.
Mia serves multiple narrative functions. She is also Fong’s pizza vendor, his city guide, the daughter of the boxer he improbably coaches (Joshua Jackson) and the ex-girlfriend of the film’s bully (Into the Badland’s charismatic Aramis Knight). The latter is a violent, undisciplined MMA fighter named Conor – insert your own joke – hailing from the Biff Tannen school of thuggery.
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Inevitably, Fong must bypass his disapproving mother and overcome past traumas to face Conor in a Five Boroughs tournament.
In preparation, Karate Kid: Legends replicates the nostalgic ta-dah of Spider-Man: No Way Home, with that film’s web-slinging three-way of Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland.
In the movie’s best scenes, Jackie Chan’s Mr Han and Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso exchange banter, killer moves and platitudes. “You cannot control when life knocks you down,” the elder shifu says. “But you can control when you get back up.”
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(An animated segment, featuring a computer-generated Pat Morita, late star of the original quadrilogy, explains the presence of these mentors from rival martial-arts disciplines by presenting karate and kung fu as two branches of the same tree.)
Neither as fun as the early seasons of Cobra Kai nor as effective as the 2010 reboot, Karate Kid: Legends relies heavily on franchise favourites while bringing nothing new to the party.
