Karate Kid Legends Review: The Kung Fu Is Strong, But the Dre Disrespect Is Real

Who doesn’t love the Karate Kid franchise? I remember watching the original as a young kid wanting to do that jumping front kick move as long as I can remember. When I started studying taekwondo around the age of 10 years old, you couldn’t tell me anything. Iconic, wonderful and a good time all around. 

Cut to years later and we have a remake with Jaden Smith, the newest Karate Kid and Jackie Chan as his teacher. Another great movie, but what sealed the deal is the television series Cobra Kai. It breathed new life into a beloved series. Now, its 2025 and the remake starring Jackie Chan and the original starring Ralph Macchio have come together for Karate Kid Legends. 

We love kung fu, fighting movies right? Bruce Lee is a hero, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, icons. I was so stoked when this movie was announced and released. Did the movie disappoint this kung fu fan? Let’s get into it. 

The movie opens with an AI scene featuring Pat Morita (Mr. Miyagi) and a young Daniel (that man never ages by the way, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him and he still looks the same) at the dojo where Mr. Miyagi explains the connection between the Han and Miyagi families (karate and kung fu). It was a beautiful tribute that honored the first film. 

When we jump ahead to present day, Mr. Han now runs a kung fu school teaching the next generation including his nephew Li the ways of kung fu. Li’s mother, played by the uber talented Ming-Na Wen doesn’t want him fighting because fighting in tournaments got her older son killed. She moves to NYC to take a job as a doctor in a hospital, uprooting Li’s life. 

Naturally, when Li gets to NYC he finds a girl and her father (surprised to see Joshua Jackson in this film) but the girl has a bully for an ex-boyfriend that tosses Li around so he has to fight him in the big kung fu tournament. But first he has to get over his guilt of what happened to his brother so Han comes from China to support him and gets Daniel to help teach him how to blend karate and kung fu. Li wins the big tournament and the girl.

I loved the story, it made sense enough as well as the fight scenes. They were really well done with not too much CGI. We already knew Ben Wang (Li) had the skills for this. He was great in the Disney series American Born Chinese. I was really interested in the story of Li training Joshua Jackson’s character to win a boxing match as if Joshua Jackson was also the karate kid. 

The humor was there with the side characters and the emotional beats flowed well. My main issue is not having any reference to Dre (Jaden Smith) at all. Even if Jaden didn’t want to do the film, they could’ve given an update on what he was doing. Hopefully, if there is another installment, we will get to see his character again. And of course in the final moments we see Johnny.

Overall, this fan enjoyed the heck out of this film and cannot wait to watch it again. 

Karate Kid Legends is now streaming on Netflix.

What did you think?

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