Karate Kid: Legends review – charming throwback sequel

There’s a lot riding on Li Fong, warrior protagonist of the Karate Kid: Legends. The Beijing émigré (played by Disney mainstay Ben Wong) is barely settled into his new Manhattan surrounds when he finds himself schooling Victor, a West Side pizzaiolo (Joshua Jackson), in the ways of kung fu to help him win a boxing purse and clear his debt with an unfriendly neighborhood loan shark (Tim Rozon). But when Victor is cheated out of a certain win by an illegal knockout blow, Fong is reminded of the tragic death of his kung-fu idol older brother, and his frozen reaction in the moment puts him at odds with Victor’s daughter Mia, an emerging love interest (Sadie Stanley), and his own mother (Ming-Na Wen), who explicitly forbade him from fighting.

Besides acing the SAT and fitting into a new high school, Fong is further charged with reinvigorating a cultural institution attempting its first feature film reboot in 15 years. Inferior franchises have buckled under lesser pressure. All of it had the makings of a disaster recipe for director Jonathan Entwistle. But Rob Lieber’s script embroiders those plot points on to a classic underdog story that feels even more resonant at a time when young people appear to be more lonely and powerless than ever. Sure, longtime Karate Kid watchers will see many of Legends’ punches coming, but there’s vastly more enjoyment to be taken from watching the film with young viewers who are either coming into the Karate Kid world fresh or from Netflix’s Cobra Kai TV series spinoff. (Kids ruled my screening of the film in Atlanta, where many of the exterior and street scenes in Legends were shot.)

To set up the passing of the bandana, the film opens with a scene between Daniel-san and Mr Miyagi from The Karate Kid Part II. In it, Miyagi explains the connection between his brand of karate and a style of kung fu practiced in China – “two branches of the same tree”, as it were. That’s our reintroduction to Fong’s uncle, Mr Han (Jackie Chan) – the kung-fu master (and carryover from the 2010 Karate Kid sequel) who keeps Fong fighting over his mother’s objections. He’s the one who pushes Fong to enter a lucrative New York martial arts tournament after he gets in over his head, and the one who flies out to Los Angeles to recruit Master Daniel (played by a still-fresh-faced Ralph Macchio) to prepare Fong for the make-or-break event.

It all makes for a winsome 94 minutes that satisfies young audiences’ taste for constant action and plays to adult viewers’ sense of nostalgia and makes them both laugh at the same jokes. (Fong picks up the nickname “Stuffed Crust” after committing the worst New York pizzeria ordering faux pas imaginable.) Viewers of a certain generation will have a hard time not feeling old when they see Jackson (AKA Pacey of Dawson’s Creek) as a grizzled girl dad, or Wen (AKA Street Fighter’s Chun-Li) as a helicopter mom. (Maybe she’ll get some fight scenes in the sequel?) Wyatt Oleff – the Entwistle holdover who plays Fong’s tutor turned wingman, Alan – was delightful too in his moments of repartee with Fong, who initially recoils from this mother-enforced relationship. (In my screening, Alan got the night’s biggest laugh off the bat when he asks Fong, who sports a shiner when they first meet, if his mom “did that to your eye”.) But for Karate Kid fans of this generation, the biggest payoff is likely to come when the callback to Cobra Kai is finally revealed.

For my money, though, the far bigger surprise was the chemistry between Chan and Macchio. It really saves what could’ve been a too-many-cooks situation. (Surely there’s a Zen koan about the vanity of the student with two masters … ) Chan in particular remains the all-time best at getting laughs through martial artistry, and there’s an apartment break-in scene between him and Fong that wouldn’t look out of place in Rush Hour or another of Chan’s stuntwork ballets.

Still: that’s not to say Legends is a perfect reboot. The grownups in the room who were too young to appreciate character development in the 80s will probably scoff at Legends’ thinly sketched antagonists, Aramis Knight’s Conor not least. Critical fight sequences in the film unfold like scenes from Mortal Kombat-style fighter games, with only the energy meter missing from the framing. The film also could have done without one notably cringe product placement nod, for which Oleff does the honors. But other than those faint missteps, Legends sweeps the leg. It’s warm, it’s breezy – it’s a burst of summery family fun that is sure to inspire long looks back at the old movies and Cobra Kai episodes while sparking renewed interest in martial arts apprenticeship. Anyone would get a kick out of it.

• Karate Kid: Legends is out in US and UK cinemas on 30 May