‘Karate Kid: Legends’ Review: An Excellent Cast With Good Action, but a Totally Worn-Out Plot

Karate Kid: Legends doesn’t reinvent the wheel—it just spins it again. The latest chapter in the long-running franchise brings together Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio for the first time, a crossover that sounds more exciting on paper than it plays out on screen. While the legacy actors loom large in marketing materials, the bulk of the story belongs to newcomer Ben Wang, who does a fine job as the earnest and acrobatic Li Fong. His journey may be predictable, but it’s delivered with enough sincerity to keep audiences from tapping out.

The plot follows a well-trodden path: teen protagonist uprooted to a new city, meets a girl called Mia, crosses paths with bullies, finds a mentor (or in this case, two), and enters a climactic martial arts tournament. If that blueprint sounds familiar, it’s because it’s virtually the same one used in both the 1984 original and the 2010 reboot. Legends adds a few tweaks—training montages in a pizza joint as Li finds himself training Mia’s dad, a down-on-his-luck ex-boxer, for a desperate underground match to repay debts to a loan shark, despite this the bones of the story haven’t changed in decades.

Ben Wang brings an endearing presence to the role of Li. He’s physically impressive, emotionally grounded, and sells both the quiet and kinetic moments with ease. His chemistry with Sadie Stanley’s Mia is sweet, if underdeveloped, and his scenes with Joshua Jackson as the down-on-his-luck ex-boxer Victor offer some light comic relief. At 71, with no true successor to Jackie Chan ever breaking through and Jet Li having faded from the spotlight since the 2010s, Ben Wang looks more than capable of stepping up to carry the mantle as the next great martial artist-actor.

The film starts strong by positioning Li as the mentor rather than the student, teaching Victor kung fu to help him out of financial trouble. This slight narrative swerve gives the movie a hint of originality. But before long, the familiar arc kicks in, and Li becomes the one who needs guidance. Enter Mr. Han, played by a subdued Jackie Chan, and later Daniel LaRusso, played with his usual affability by Ralph Macchio. The explanation for their collaboration is pure retcon—something about shared martial arts ancestry—but it’s delivered quickly enough that you won’t have time to question it too much.

Despite the big names, neither Chan nor Macchio has much to do. Their roles feel more like nostalgic cameos than fully developed characters. Chan gets one solid action scene, and Macchio shows up late in the game, mostly to lend gravitas and sprinkle in a few Miyagi-isms. Their combined presence is more symbolic than essential, and it’s a missed opportunity not to let these two icons do more together. But the film pays respectful homage to Mr. Miyagi’s legacy by weaving his quiet, disciplined approach to martial arts into Li’s training.

This is comfort food cinema, you’ve had it before, and it tastes the same.

The fighting sequences, choreographed by the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, are crisp and entertaining. While they don’t reach the dizzying highs of Cobra Kai’s most chaotic moments, the action here is cleanly shot, coherent and mercifully free from the hyper-editing plague that infects many modern martial arts films. That said, the final fight atop a Manhattan skyscraper feels more like a Marvel set piece than a Karate Kid climax, and some of the visual choices (like arcade-style tournament intros) border on cartoonish.

There are other cracks in the dojo walls. New York, supposedly central to the film’s identity, feels more like a patchy soundstage than a lived-in city. Plot logic gets swept aside: the villain pops up with cartoonish precision, and Li’s mother, played with quiet strength by Ming-Na Wen, is underused. Her stance against martial arts is introduced with promise, but resolved too quickly to give her any real depth.

In the end, Karate Kid: Legends is a movie that plays it safe. It’s charming and carried by a strong lead performance, but it never dares to throw a new punch. For fans of the franchise, there’s just enough nostalgia and heart to make it worth the watch. For everyone else, it’s another round of wax-on, wax-off—with fewer surprises. This is comfort food cinema, you’ve had it before, and it tastes the same.

Karate Kid: Legends is released in cinemas worldwide May 30.

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