Karate Kid: Legends, 2025 - ★★★
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Karate Kids Legends is one of the most disappointing and frustrating movies I've watched recently. Not because it's unwatchable, but because of the huge untapped potential that got wasted on this project. How could they fumble this so hard?!!
The film has a fantastic cast, impressive choreography, and solid premises, but it suffers from a weak script and some of the worst filmmaking I’ve seen in a martial arts movie. Despite having actors capable of incredible stunts, they are so underutilized it’s criminal.
The crew seems to lack any real understanding of what makes a martial arts film work, and there’s an absence of passion for the genre. At times, it even felt like someone secretly dislike martial arts but stayed for the paycheck. They may be great in other genres, who knows, but they lack the necessary skills and intuition for this type of film. What a waste, truly. I couldn’t help but imagine how much better the movie could have been in more capable hands.
The cinematography fails to capture the fluid motion the action sequences deserve. The editing lacks emotional weight and struggles with pacing. The score and soundtrack is equally underwhelming, unable to deliver the necessary tension and energy. Direction is sorely lacking in vision. They just couldn't integrate any technical aspects that make a martial arts movie captivating.
Relentless close-ups and frantic, sloppy editing utterly ruin the action sequences. Martial arts are impressive because of their fluid movements, but this film does everything possible to avoid showing us those moments. Instead, it devolves into a poor montage of Kung Fu and Karate moves rather than telling a compelling story of overcoming challenges—a central theme in any martial arts film. Frankly, it feels almost insulting to the genre to handle the action this way.
The premise is promising. The first act lays the groundwork for compelling storylines, but instead of developing them properly, the movie rushes from beat to beat, cramming in too many plot points with no emotional depth or substance. There’s so little reasons for the audience to invest in any of these arcs.
Consider the potential plots:
– A traumatized kid teaching a former boxer kung fu; intriguing.
– A kung fu and karate master blending their teachings to guide the same kid; fascinating.
– A boy coping with guilt and regret over his brother’s death and his own inaction to help; devastating.
These ideas could easily have supported an entire trilogy if only the filmmakers knew how to flesh out and develop them masterfully. Instead, they jumbled everything together, hoping something would resonate with the audience.
I'm curious about what happened in the writing room and how they decided to cram all these storylines when they only had 90 minutes to tell a story. And despite so much setup, it still forces the story back to the repetitive tournament formula that doesn't even show us the full fights! The final fight, which should have been the climax of the story, falls completely flat, with no tension whatsoever.
However, the choreography for most fight scenes is great. I especially loved the well-executed street fight sequence in the first act. I wish the whole movie was shot, choreographed, and edited in that manner.
The cast is fantastic; each actor brings their own charm to the table. The characters are likeable and had the potential to be memorable. The actors do well with what they’re given, though I can only imagine their disappointment with the final product. So many intriguing characters, yet none are properly developed. And honestly, I just love seeing Jackie Chan on screen again. He's such a legend.
Despite all the disappointments, I still enjoyed the movie thanks to its cast and choreography. After all, the main draw is the martial arts, and they did deliver well enough on that front. There are some great moments scattered throughout, martial arts fans may find enough to appreciate, just don’t expect it to be a great movie overall.