When Karate Kid: Legends debuted in theaters on May 30, 2025, it did something the franchise had never really tried before: it asked two completely different cinematic universes to coexist. After living in the original 1984 continuity for forty years, Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso finally gets screen time with Jackie Chan’s Mr. Han, who joined the Miyagi-Do universe in the 2010 reboot alongside Jaden Smith. The fact that this merger is successful at all is worth investigating, and the specifics of how it was put together are more fascinating than the film’s conflicting reviews might imply.
An origin story dating back to the 17th century describes the connective tissue that holds the two universes together. In a flashback set in the summer of 1985, a young Daniel LaRusso hears Mr. Miyagi describe the origins of Miyagi-Do Karate, including how his ancestor, Shimpo Miyagi, was saved by the Han family in coastal China after being swept out to sea while fishing off Okinawa. He received training in their kung fu, brought those skills home, and used them as the basis for Miyagi-Do. It’s a neat solution that retroactively transforms the two styles from opposing traditions into branches of the same tree.
Ben Wang, a 25-year-old performer with experience in musical theater who was chosen from a pool of about 10,000 applicants, plays Li Fong, the new lead. Li is a Beijing-born kung fu prodigy whose brother was killed in a tournament fight; this loss follows him throughout the movie and lends emotional weight to the entire narrative.
Li finds himself in unfamiliar territory when his mother takes a medical job in New York City: a new school, a new rival named Conor Day (ponytail included, as franchise tradition apparently requires), and a confrontation he makes a concerted effort to avoid. He eventually develops a hybrid technique that combines kung fu and Miyagi-Do, a dragon kick variation designed to surprise opponents, while training in a city rooftop garden under the guidance of both Mr. Han and Daniel LaRusso.
Here are some actual behind-the-scenes details you should be aware of. Through a subplot involving Joshua Jackson’s character Victor, a former boxer, the movie quietly honored Bruce Lee by having characters practice the well-known one-inch punch during training scenes. Even though he still performed his own fight scenes, 71-year-old Jackie Chan admitted in press interviews that he now needed a stunt double to jump off buildings.
Ben Wang described Chan’s arrival on the Montreal set as a weekly event in and of itself: French-Canadian crew members who had remained calm throughout reportedly began bumping into walls as soon as Jackie Chan entered. Additionally, Chan decided to reroute background extras when he thought they were moving improperly; apparently, no one had the courage to question this.
The Cobra Kai television characters were one intriguing complication. Fans noticed that Miguel, Hawk, and other Netflix-born characters were missing, and it turns out that this was due to a rights issue rather than a story decision. Netflix, not Sony, owns the characters made especially for the Cobra Kai series, which explains why the movie might revive Daniel LaRusso, a 1984 movie character, but not the pupils he instructed on the streaming series. In the movie’s last scene, William Zabka does make a brief appearance as Johnny Lawrence. The scene, which involves a pizza delivery and a proposal for a dojo-themed restaurant called Miyagi-Dough, is meant to be warm and humorous.
The movie made $117 million worldwide despite costing $45 million to produce. Although it’s not a huge box office success, it indicates that the franchise still has a fan base for a martial arts legacy sequel that opens in late May against summer competition. Watching Karate Kid: Legends gives you the impression that the creators actually like these characters, which is less common in franchise filmmaking than it probably should be.
