June 1, 2025
Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) ran a big kung fu school in Beijing. One of his best students was his grand-nephew Li (Ben Wang), a young man troubled by memories of his elder brother's death. One day, Li's physician mother Dr. Fong (Ming-Na Wen) brought a reluctant Li to New York City where she had been accepted to work. One of Li's first friends was Mia (Sadie Stanley), daughter of Victor Lipani (Joshua Jackson), a former boxer who now owned a pizza parlor.
This film continues the story of the "Karate Kid" franchise -- a spin-off sequel. It started with a story which Mr. Miyagi told Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) back in 1986. Apparently, Miyagi's ancestor was a fisherman whose boat got washed away by a storm all the way to China. There, the Han family rescued him, and later taught him the Chinese martial art of kung-fu. When Miyagi went back to his home in Okinawa, Japan, he developed the fighting techniques further and called it Karate.
Ralph Macchio was Daniel in the first three films (1984, 1986 and 1989), but not in the 1994 "The Next Karate Kid" (with Hilary Swank) nor the 2010 reboot "The Karate Kid" (with Jaden Smith). In the last film, Jackie Chan played the kung-fu master of bullied boy Dre (played by an 11 year old Jaden Smith) in Beijing. Macchio would return to play Daniel vis-a-vis his old rival Johnny (William Zabka) in the series "Cobra Kai" streaming on Netflix from 2021 to 2025.
Macchio is now a young-looking 63 year old, and playing Daniel LaRusso remains to be what he is best known for. Chan is still youthfully energetic now at 71 years old, and it had always been a pleasure watching him kung-fu fighting on the big screen. Mr. Han flew to L.A. to request LaRusso to teach his ward Li the Miyagi-style of karate, in order make Li ready to face the upcoming underground fight competition -- Five Borough's Tournament.
The original story about a boy taught by his mentors to get ready for a big fight was still very much there. Ben Wang's Li was a capable kung-fu fighter who already had a spectacular dragon kick move from the start, but he had to learn new techniques from Han and LaRusso ("two branches, one tree") before he can face his big bully Conor Day (Aramis Knight). Even if the final outcome was obvious, the fight scenes were still very much worth the watch. 6/10.
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