An ongoing theory about why movie sequels are so similar to the original movie is that producers are afraid to try something new due to the financial risk involved, because taking a chance on a new idea might hurt the box office because fans of the original might resent a major change to an iconic story idea from fourty years ago. The plot of the new movie "Karate Kid: Legends" is almost a carbon copy of the original Karate Kid(1984), the second Karate Kid (1986), and even the third Karate Kid (1989).
A young teenage boy Li Fong, played by Ben Wang, learns Karate under the mentorship of a teacher, and runs into a horrible bully who also knows Karate. There is a love interest, Mia Lipani, played by Sadie Stanley where the young boy falls in love with the former girlfriend of the bully, creating a great conflict and later a fight and that leads to a huge Karate tournament climax. This is the exact story behind just about all of the Karate Kid movies. The only new idea in this movie is that this time around Li Fong tries to train his girlfriend's father Victor Lipani, played by Joshua Jackson, who owes money to the mob (more bullies), and Victor enters an MMA tournament to win money to pay off his debt. This storyline dies on the vine pretty quickly and seems more like an additional idea to make the runtime of the movie longer than any other reason.
This story starts in Hong Kong with Li Fong being forced to move to America because his mother is worried about losing another son to the violence that killed her oldest son. While living in Hong Kong, his Karate trainer is Mr. Han, played by Jackie Chan. Due to the tournament that Li Fong enters to help pay off Victor's bad debt to the mob, Mr. Han travels to New York City to help Li train. Mr. Han then visits Daniel LaRusso, played Ralph Macchio in California, to convince him to come to New York City to help with the training. All fans who see the movie trailers and posters hoping that Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio are in this film a long time will be disappointed as they mostly appear in the last 20% of the film.
Some of the training of Li Fong is very well done, along with the final fight with Connor Day, played by Aramis Knight.
The Rotten Tomatoes rating of a low 57% is understandable due carbon copy storyline, with my rating a passable 70%, mostly for fans of the Karate Kid movie franchise.
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