Moving to bustling New York from a tranquil Beijing and finding young love, Li Fong must face new demons, as the unjust murder of his brother continues to haunt him.
Directed by Jonathan Entwistle known for ‘The End of the F***ing World’ and written by Rob Lieber who is most well-known for ‘Peter Rabbit’, comes the sixth film in the successful Karate Kid franchise. Using the familiar track of zero to hero, ‘Karate Kid: Legends’ takes a welcome deviation from the well-trodden pathway of the untrained ‘fish out of water’ and instead sees our titular character already a young prodigy of Kung Fu in his own birth city of Beijing.
Starring a plethora of well-known character actors from the Karate Kid world spanning four decades, we are in for a treat as the love of this empty-handed fight style comes once again to the big screen. Pleasing both the young audience to this world who may only know the highly successful and well regarded ‘Cobra Kai’ Netflix series, to the slightly older generation who grew up with Ralph Macchio as a youthful Danny LaRusso – who was unbelievably 22 when the original ‘Karate Kid’ was filmed – we are dropped back into the familiar world of the bullied protagonist and the bully who is the makings of bad teachings in zen like black and white world.
Set three years after the timeline of ‘Cobra Kai’ this new mostly well-structured imagining is a tale of two halves. Diving straight into beautiful Beijing, a tranquil school of martial arts set amongst a dojo in a lake; the surroundings are busy yet serene, almost calming. Here we are introduced to Li Fong who is already a young prodigy of Kung Fu and well versed in his style and technique. With the student of course comes the master and here we meet Mr. Han played by the ever flexible and joyous Jackie Chan, a father figure in Li’s life. A quick yet steady hand in the tribulations of the Fong family with Dr Fong as the singular parent played by Ming-Na Wen who previously won an Academy Award for her voice role in Disney’s ‘Mulan’ animation.
Moving reluctantly to New York, Li must face a new ultimate opponent in the form of Conor Day, played by Aramis Knight (Into the Badlands). A well-played positively antagonistic foe who we instantly love to hate, despite the fact his screen time is intense yet frustratingly short. With U.S. love interest Mia, played by Sadie Stanley and Father Victor (Joshua Jackson) we have a refreshing new direction where Fong, the student briefly becomes the master as he seeks to help Mia’s father’s plight of bad money and crippling debt of his NY local pizza business. Li ultimately of course finds himself training in New York for the “5 Boroughs Tournament” set on top in a beautiful oasis in amongst the New York grime to ultimately find himself on top of a further even higher skyscraper for the showdown. The views it provides us with are breathtaking to a point where future Karate films should all end this superbly spectacular way.
As mentioned before, ‘Karate Kid: Legends’ is a tale of two halves. The setup of the title character actually this time not being new to the world of martial arts is a well thought out script. The lack of a need to backtrack and see the actor perform at ground zero is steered away from and so takes us on another trajectory bringing freshness to this much-loved genre. Entering the two dragons of Mr Han and LaRusso brings about a fond memory of the past films. It was actually ‘The Karate Kid’ 2010, which was the most successful in the genre and for me the most even structured script of the recent films.
With this new addition of just over 90 minutes, the overall feel has plenty of pace and lots of well-placed laughs, the second half for me is where the problems begin. Here we have LaRusso teaming up with a supple Mr Han but the training to take Li to the next level is overly edited and shortened to a point of wondering how much the original karate kid is actually capable of physically achieving in a more modern movie world of realistic close-up work. The ultimate training montage almost places LaRusso strangely into the shadows. Ralph Macchio only recently receiving his black belt after the last season of ‘Cobra Kai’ frustratingly for me leaves the question. On the other hand, Ben Wang has for most of his comparatively young life has already become a true master of his work studying many arts including Wing Chun kung fu – made famous by Bruce Lee incorporating many fluid martial art forms into one – and is superbly shown off with his awe-inspiring Dragon kick which is quite literally on another level. He accidentally saw off 10,000 other applicants to land this wonderfully energetic starring role.
We will most likely see further Karate Kid films after the success of this and the six Netflix series which Macchio has not ruled out, although it may be three years off with the required script and of course filming. Tracking back to see Li and Bo Fong in their native world would potentially be an awe inspiring, roundhouse flying, dragon kicking spectacle.
Jacket on, jacket off, sit down and marvel at Ben Wang’s work.
Author: Piers, Maidstone Store
