Karate Kid: Legends (to watch on Canal Plus) will not knock anyone out (review)

Riding on the success of Cobra Kai, Sony is trying to relaunch the Miyagi Universe at the cinema, with this exceptionally redundant 2025 opus, and saved by its exciting casting.

Both a sequel to The Karate Kid (2010) and the TV series Cobra Kai, Karate Kid: Legends is broadcast this Friday evening on Canal Plus (and visible in streaming on MyCanal). Is the sixth film in the saga worth it? Response with Première’s review:

Please note, this film is not the conclusion of the Cobra Kai series, which ended last February on Netflix.

If Karate Kid: Legends rides on the success of the serial version of Miyagi Universe, this new cinematic opus which is released on Wednesday in France is in no way the sequel. This is a new story that introduces us to Li Fong, a kung fu student who leaves China with his mother for New York. Lost in the Big Apple, he befriends a classmate and her father, who manages the pizzeria down the street. But when a local karate champion decides to make him bite the dust, Li must return to martial arts and will be able to count on two Sensei of choice…

The great discovery of the scenario (some would say its only discovery) is to bring together the iconic Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), original hero of the Karate Kid saga – who became a mentor in Cobra Kai – with Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), the wise old man from the 2010 remake carried by Jaden Smith (Will Smith’s son). The opportunity to merge the two fighting styles, for an epic clash.

On this level, the film is quite successful. Visually, Karate Kid: Legends is dynamic entertainment that doesn’t take too much effort. On screen, the choreography that mixes kung-fu and karate works and the fights easily rival those of Cobra Kai. Modern and super spectacular fighting, filmed with a lot of style and which gives a real old-fashioned look to the original. Moreover, the comparison of the final scene with that of the old Karate Kid is frankly painful for the 1984 film…

But that’s also the big problem with Karate Kid: Legends: he spends his time fighting with the past! The 2025 version never manages to distance itself from what was done before (5 films and a series in 6 seasons is already a lot) and worse still, it doesn’t even try. It’s the old “Rocky” recipe applied mechanically, with an extremely lazy structure that copy-pastes up to the brutal Dojo run by a heartless bastard.

All the clichés of the genre are covered and the most unfortunate thing is that the characters are well written. Newcomer Ben Wang (crossed in the Disney series American from China) stands out in the kimono and Joshua Jackson brings his natural relaxation as a second knife, while the two Sensei do perfectly what is expected of them.

Karate Kid: Legends could have been a great summer film, fun and full of beautiful Miyagi values. But as if the production didn’t really believe it, it messes up everything in 1 hour 20 minutes, without the slightest ambition, desperately allergic to any innovation, resulting in a big remix of the saga, which only seeks to function through nostalgic thrills. So few people can find what they want there. And besides, the film comes to us 3 months after its US release, where it got badly caught in the tatami (barely 100 million dollars in worldwide revenue).

Stuck in a story that offers nothing new to a franchise lacking inspiration, this new Karate Kid will not become a legend. But who knows? Maybe one day Aramis Knight (who plays the awful smack-headed kid that Li has to fight) will be entitled to his own series telling the story of the redemption of the defeated loser, like William Zabka in Cobra Kai. Johnny Lawrence still had to wait 30 years (and the little help from How I Met Your Mother along the way) to become the hero of the story. The Karate Kid franchise will then be 70 years old and Hollywood will have definitively given up on inventing new stories.