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Movie Review: Karate Kid: Legends

Mike Tyrkus

The “Karate Kid” series is one that has spawned a total of six films, including two television series, and the newest addition to the canon – Karate Kid: Legends. Sadly, it has long been a series of diminishing returns as well. That however, has been averted by the latest entry as this installment instead rides a wave of nostalgia that shores up the narrative slack inherent in telling the same story again and again and instead allows itself to simply be something fun and nothing to be taken too seriously.

Karate Kid: Legends follows Li Fong (Ben Wang) as he and his mother (Ming-Na Wen) are relocated to New York City due to her job. There, as in previous iterations of the story, the protagonist – Li Fong – tries to fit in and make new friends and instead finds himself at odds with the local karate champion. This leads him to enter the city-wide karate competition in an effort to help the owner of the local pizza shop stay in business while defending his own honor in the process. As he embarks on this path, Li is trained by his former kung fu teacher, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) and the original Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio).

Making his feature debut, director Jonathan Entwistle manages to deliver much of the successful formula from previous films here. Probably the cleverest route that the story takes though is screenwriter Rob Lieber’s decision to initially have Li train a boxer in the ways of karate instead of simply shoe-horning a karate story into the story. The way the two worlds, or story arcs, are combined is more organic than one might expect and allows for the film to flow a bit better than it would otherwise.

Ben Wang (from left), Jackie Chan, and Ralph Macchio in “Karate Kid: Legends.”

As the focal point of the film, Ben Wang does a fine job as protagonist Li Fong. He is likeable enough that his suffering is tough on the audience as well. But his character is also one that is afforded a bit of growth that others are not and that makes him perhaps the most engaging Karate Kid since Daniel LaRusso. Subsequently, he is surrounded by players that compliment his character as well. Once, previous series regulars Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) appear, the nostalgia aspect of the film takes control and the whole thing sort of plays itself out exactly as one would expect, without taking anything away from the satisfying denouement of it all though.

While Karate Kid: Legends may, in itself, not exactly be the stuff of legend, it does succeed in reinvigorating the legend of this story in such a way that allows it to endure for at least one more successful bout in the ring.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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