Movie Review - Sony's Karate Kid: Legends

When masters unite, a new legacy begins.

Karate Kid: Legends is a 2025 martial arts action drama film directed by Jonathan Entwistle, written by Rob Lieber, produced by Columbia Pictures and Sunswept Entertainment, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It stars Ben Wang and Jackie Chan. This is the sixth film in the Karate Kid franchise. It acts as a sequel to The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai.

"Is it worth fighting for it or not?" - Mr. Han

Plot

When Li Fong and his mother move to New York City, Li promises to give up fighting...that is, until he meets some new friends that need help. With the assistance of Mr. Han and Daniel LaRusso, Li merges kung fu and karate to face the ultimate enemy.

The Sweet

I went into Karate Kid: Legends with very, very low expectations. I love The Karate Kid and I love Cobra Kai, but I was very confused when we were getting a new movie three months after Cobra Kai ended. I think the idea of merging Daniel and Mr. Han is cool, but it was really strange timing and I was not a fan of the trailers. Early buzz was pretty lukewarm as well, so I just had built up no excitement for this film despite being a Karate Kid fan.

And I actually was pleasantly surprised by the final product.

Karate Kid: Legends is by no means a great movie, but it is way more fun and heartfelt than I expected it to be. The first third of the movie plays like a pretty standard Karate Kid film. The story feels cut and pasted from the original, the remake, and the first season of Cobra Kai. There's something that happens around the 30-minute mark, however, that changes the direction of the story and puts a new spin on the classic formula, and I found that to be a really interesting and different way to approach The Karate Kid.

This is also probably the darkest film in the franchise, and I think that made for a nice change. Now, The Karate Kid isn't a particularly dark franchise, but this movie deals with some heavier stuff than I was expecting, and I think it added a layer of seriousness that was necessary. It's the only film in the franchise that is rated PG-13, and you can tell. Cobra Kai is intentionally comedic and over-the-top, so Legends re-grounds the franchise and gives us a more straight, less cartoonish story that deals with some real issues regarding family and violence. The movie isn't trying to tell the story of a karate war between dojos: it gets back to the basics and takes itself seriously.

And, despite all of the seriousness, this movie is really, really funny. It's not the same sense of humor as Cobra Kai at all, but it's honestly almost as funny. There are multiple moments that just had me laughing out loud. The writers just had a sharp comedic angle in the dialogue that adds a lot of levity to the film. As I just said, it took itself seriously, and the comedy doesn't undercut the drama. It just adds some light into a more intense story than we are used to in The Karate Kid.

Jackie Chan is the absolute standout in this film. I have not seen The Karate Kid remake, so this was my first time watching Chan as Mr. Han, and he was fantastic. He did feel like this Jackie Chan-ized version of Mr. Miyagi, but with a bit more of an outrageous personality, and I felt like that was a good way to separate him from Morita's iconic character. A lot of the comedic moments come from him, and a lot of the most heartfelt moments come from him also.

I also really dug our new karate kid here. Ben Wang is about to take off, because he is really good in this movie and he just got cast in both The Long Walk (a Stephen King adaptation coming in September) and The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. He feels like the perfect middle ground between Daniel and Mr. Han. He has a lot of Daniel's charm and charisma while also having this wisdom that he gained from Mr. Han. He's a different type of karate kid, because he doesn't need a ton of training: he's already a really good martial artist. That was an interesting change that made him a really compelling protagonist, because they had to find different ways to make him an underdog and have us as the audience root for him. I almost wish Cobra Kai wasn't over, because it would've been fun to see Li make an appearance there.

This movie also has probably the best action in The Karate Kid franchise. I'm not a huge fan of the way it was shot, but the choreography is very exciting and fast-paced. Again, Li Fong is a trained martial artist by the time this movie starts, so we don't have to suspend disbelief when he is kicking ass - all of these moves feel like things he could've learned under Mr. Han. To me, the action almost felt like the lightsaber duels in the prequel trilogy with how fast-moving and agile all of the people fighting were. Part of that is because the prequels used a martial arts action style, but it just felt really smooth in this movie.

The Sour

I hate to say it, but my least favorite part of this movie is probably the inclusion of Daniel.

The fact of the matter is that Daniel LaRusso does not need to be in this movie...at all. Nothing about his inclusion is bad: his character doesn't do anything weird or wrong, Ralph Macchio is good, but there was absolutely zero need for him to be in this story at all. It was so clear that they just wanted to merge the "Miyagi-verse", so they threw Daniel in last minute. He's not in much of it, and the parts that he is in, he doesn't really do a ton. Even the way he gets involved in the story is never really explained. Mr. Han just tells him "You will come to New York" and he says no...and then just ends up coming to New York for no particular reason. Like, guys. We could've thought this out a little bit more.

And the villains in the film are about as generic as you get. If you took all of the good, fun things about Johnny Lawrence from the first film and threw them out the window, that's your main villain in this movie. If you took all of the good, fun things about John Kreese and made him an even bigger jerk, that's your villainous sensei in this movie. They receive zero development. They are just mean and evil for the sake of being mean and evil. You barely even see the student and sensei interact, and their one interaction feels like it was teasing something more that never gets expanded on. Not a fan of either of these characters. At all.

This movie is also structured in a very strange way. As I said, the first third of the movie is your standard Karate Kid story. Then there's something that happens that changes the story. And then the next 20ish minutes are spent on this cool new direction that the story goes...and then that plot line concludes and we go back to the more standard stuff. It feels like two different movies. Joshua Jackson plays Victor, the dad of Li Fong's love interest, and he is a major character in the first half of the film, but then after the new direction plot concludes, he basically disappears from the movie. It's just such a weird way to structure a movie. It feels like we are going back and forth from plot line to character to other plot line...it's just all over the place.

I also felt that Li's backstory and relationship with his mother were severely underdeveloped. Li and his mom have a slightly strained relationship because of a tragedy that occurred in their family, but that plot sits on the back burner for most of the movie except for the occasional 30-second scene that we get with the mom to remind you that she exists. I felt like there was something really profound that they could've explored with Li and his mother and their shared trauma, but they decided to focus more on the standard, crowd-pleasing Karate Kid stuff.

And this brings me to my final point: this movie should've been 20-30 minutes longer. Usually, I'm a proponent of short movies, but this movie is, like, 90 minutes long. It could've added a lot to the new direction and a lot to Li's backstory instead of just squishing them into this tight, fast-paced runtime. I feel like there was a lot of missed potential to make this a truly great movie, and I think they missed those marks because they were set on this short, efficient runtime.

Final Thoughts and Score

Karate Kid: Legends was a surprisingly good time. I wish they could've made it longer and done something more interesting with Daniel, but this movie had me smiling way more and had me way more invested than I thought I'd be.

I am going Savory here. Age range is 7+.

SWEET N' SOUR SCALE

Sweet (Great) Savory (Good) Sour (Bad) Moldy (Terrible)

"Karate Kid: Legends"

Fun Factor: 8.5/10

Acting: 7.5/10

Story: 6/10

Characters: 7.5/10

Quality: 6/10

Directed by Jonathan Entwistle

Rated PG-13 for moderate violence and action, disturbing themes and images, language, thematic elements

Released on May 30, 2025

1 hour and 34 minutes

Ben Wang as Li Fong

Jackie Chan as Mr. Han

Sadie Stanley as Mia Lipani

Ralph Macchio as Daniel LaRusso

Joshua Jackson as Victor Lipani

Ming-Na Wen as Dr. Fong

Aramis Knight as Conor Day

Wyatt Oleff as Alan

Tim Rozon as O'Shea