Karate Kid: Legends: Many Improvements, but Still the Same Old Story (Blu-ray)

The Film:

It's hard to believe that it's already been 15 years since the attempted reboot of "The Karate Kid," which saw Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith take over the roles of teacher & student from Pat Morita and Ralph Macchio. The film may have received rather poor reviews, but that didn't stop it from being a massive box office success, accumulating $359 million worldwide against a production budget of $40 million. This is what made it particularly strange that it took 15 years for another film to finally come to fruition, but now, at long last, we have the next entry in the franchise with "Karate Kid: Legends," a film that retcons the flawed previous one and brings it into the same universe as the others. Will this new attempt be able to find both the critical & commercial success that the last film only received half of?

The film begins by introducing us to Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), a teacher of martial arts in Beijing, and one of his students, Li Fong (Ben Wang), who also happens to be his great-nephew. Li's mother (Ming-Na Wen) had made him promise to quit fighting after an incident at a tournament left his older brother dead, but he has found it difficult to keep that promise. After she accepts a new job in New York City, Li is forced to move and adjust to life in a new country. However, he quickly finds a friend in Mia Lipani (Sadie Stanley), who works at a pizza shop with her father, Victor (Joshua Jackson), a former boxer who's in debt.

After Li demonstrates some moves against his debt collectors, Victor asks Li to teach him to fight so he can get back in the ring and earn some money. Reluctantly he does so, but in Victor's first bout, his opponent cheats, leaving him hospitalized. The incident brings back past trauma for Li and forces Mr. Han to confront him in New York, eventually convincing him to take part in a local tournament that will have him going up against Mia's former boyfriend, Conor (Aramis Knight), a hotshot who's very full of himself. Under the tutelage of Mr. Han and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), he begins his intense training in hopes of helping his friends and facing his past.

When it came to the 2010 reboot of "The Karate Kid," there were a number of problems that held it back, including a lack of chemistry between its leads, a sub-par, padded-out screenplay that stretched the film out to an inexplicable 140 minutes, and the fact that they pretty much followed the original film beat for beat. However, as mentioned, despite the film's many shortcomings, it had been quite a box office success, and while "Karate Kid" fans did eventually get an actual continuation of the original saga with the YouTube/Netflix TV show "Cobra Kai" in 2018, it still remains odd that another film didn't materialize in the years immediately after the reboot grossed about nine times its budget.

Now we have "Karate Kid: Legends," in which the filmmakers seem to have realized many of the mistakes of the previous film, causing them to retcon it (i.e. pretend it never happened) and start over by linking it directly to the original films. Right from the start, there were some definite improvements made, including replacing Jaden Smith with Ben Wang, who feels much more natural in the lead and has fine chemistry with the legendary Jackie Chan. The filmmakers were also much more considerate of the pacing and runtime, bringing this entry in at just under 90 minutes without credits, making it over 45 minutes shorter than the 2010 film, which couldn't help but feel very padded out as it stretched its simple tale past its limits.

That said, there is one primary issue that this new film doesn't take care of, and that's the fact that it pretty much tells the same old tale once again. Like the last film, it changes little details of the story here and there, but we still get a tale of a kid who has to deal with another kid who's basically a bully, causing him to enter a tournament, undergo intense training, and eventually beat the other kid. Granted, it does try to shake things up a bit by having both Mr. Han and Daniel-san be his teachers, and it's great to see both Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio work together in their respective roles, but it mainly ends up making it feel like the filmmakers were more interested in diving into nostalgia instead of telling an original story that would be more engaging to the audience.

Overall, they did indeed fix many things, but the problem of coming up with an original narrative ends up holding it back a little too much. It's certainly not a bad effort. Again, it's rather brief, and you get the pleasure of watching the intriguing team-up of Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio, it's just that screenwriter Rob Lieber needed to work a little harder to give us a story that we aren't already rather familiar with. "Karate Kid: Legends" was a step in the right direction, but in the end, it simply didn't go quite far enough.

Video/Audio:

"Karate Kid: Legends" comes to Blu-ray in a 1.85:1, 1080p High Definition transfer of excellent quality. The picture is quite sharp and clear throughout the entirety of its brief 90-minute duration, perfectly highlighting its multitude of fights. Likewise, the 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track is marvelous, giving you all of the dialogue, sound effects, and music in outstanding quality. Overall, Sony Pictures has done a wonderful job in both areas for the film's physical release.

Special Features:

Becoming the Karate Kid (4 Minutes)

Two Masters, One Student (6 Minutes)

Honoring the Miyagi Legacy (4 Minutes)

Strength and Character: The Cast (5 Minutes)

The Art of Action (5 Minutes)

Deleted Scenes (7 Sequences, 12 Minutes)

Gag Reel (2 Minutes)

The Blu-ray comes with several extras, totaling about 40 minutes, that include five featurettes focusing on areas like the cast, the action, and the legacy of the franchise, as well as a hefty portion of deleted scenes. Definitely plenty of great material here for fans to dig into to learn more about the film.

Conclusion:

"Karate Kid: Legends" makes many improvements upon the previous film, including a better lead in Ben Wang, better pacing, and a much shorter runtime. You even get the pleasure of seeing the legendary Jackie Chan and original star Ralph Macchio team up to teach this young man some moves. However, the film falters a little too much when it comes to its story, which is basically the same exact set-up we've seen before, ultimately giving the feeling that the film was meant as a dive into nostalgia, and not much more.

Score: 3/5

Available on Blu-ray starting tomorrow.

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