A punch in the face from the 1980s. Review of the movie Karate Kid: Legends

The vast majority of so-called "returns to classic cinema" try to somehow reinvent familiar and already somewhat outdated formulas and methods so that modern viewers would be more interested in following what is happening on the screen. It doesn't always work out well, but such an approach makes sense, because what worked in the conventional 1980s may look strange in 2025. The authors of the film "Karate Kid: Legends" went the other way and seemed to deliberately try to do everything the way they did a few decades ago. It turned out primitive and predictable, but the film still has its own charm.

Teenager Li Fan (Ben Wang) is forced to move from Beijing to New York with his mother due to a family tragedy. He is fond of kung fu, but his mother is against fighting and even training. No amount of persuasion from Master Han (Jackie Chan) helps. However, even in New York, Li still sets out on the path of battles to protect everything important to him. And in the face of a dangerous enemy, his support will be the very first Karate Kid – Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio).

Karate Kid: Legends is not just another attempt by producers to make a few million dollars on nostalgia, although that is certainly the case. The new installment in the Karate Kid franchise has an additional important task: the film was supposed to combine the 2010 reboot of The Karate Kid with the Cobra Kai series, which was a direct sequel to the original 1984 Karate Kid. Filmmakers love such experiments, but this time the result is difficult to call successful.

Important elements of Cobra Kai appear in Karate Kid: Legends only towards the end of the film and do not touch on a whole layer of serious topics for which the series was loved. On the other hand, the connection to Karate Kid from 2010 also turned out to be very conditional. It seems that the authors of the film simply wanted to add more fan service and involve Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio in the filming process. I will not lie, it is pleasant to watch them, especially when they actively interact on the screen. But this should not make you forget about the numerous scandals surrounding Chan.

If the film doesn't work as a kind of crossover, then what can be learned from it? This is a tricky question, because it takes us straight to 1980s cinema with all its pros and cons, and the new "Karate Kid" feels like it came from that era. Sometimes it even seems like it could have been released right away on some streaming service or on television, because it doesn't impress with any special technological or directorial decisions.

The story is primitive, the characters are more like walking archetypes than living people, the New York locations are not bad and even entourage, but you've definitely seen them hundreds of times. Karate Kid: Legends does not surprise, does not even try to surprise. Perhaps its film crew does not know the meaning of the word "surprise". Only somewhere in the middle do the story authors try to experiment, but instead of new ideas, the script only inserts a new form, remaining basically unchanged. The editing and camera tricks also seem to have been taken from the 1980s, and certainly not from the best examples.

It seemed that under such conditions it was possible to get bored, but after half an hour of watching you catch yourself thinking that you are starting to care a little about the problems of the characters. Primitiveness, almost brazen openness become the main elements of the story. From the very beginning it is quite clear what and how will develop in this film. But the process of watching itself brings pleasure, probably precisely because everything develops according to our own guesses and desires. In addition, the movie is only an hour and a half long, so it does not have time to tire you.

Especially since there aren't many films about classic martial arts coming out now, so watching Lee's training and fights and more is interesting. However, the choppy editing and too many careless gluings spoil the impression. Perhaps the modern viewer is spoiled by Serbuan maut and Daredevil, but it's hard not to notice the flaws in Karate Kid: Legends.

However, is it worth expecting anything serious from a film in which one of the characters is named Buddha Stevenson? Karate Kid: Legends is an almost, in a good sense, absurd film that is able to conquer precisely with its own absurdity. But if it does not find its way to your heart, then you will only see a film that is 40 years too late for the audience.