REVIEW: ‘Karate Kid: Legends’ meets, and occasionally exceeds, expectations

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“Karate Kid: Legends” steps, with a light and sprightly gait, into the timeline of the 41-year-old movie and TV franchise, opening with a brief and un-belaboured prologue, courtesy of artificial intelligence. That intro calls on Mr. Miyagi, the beloved character played by the late Pat Morita, to kick a small chronological incongruity out of the way by resuscitating the actor a la the final season of the spin-off series “Cobra Kai.”

This brings the 2010 remake of “The Karate Kid” – originally conceived as a stand-alone kung-fu-themed reboot, set in China and starring action star Jackie Chan as a Miyagi-like mentor to a bullied youth played by Jaden Smith – into the same universe as the first film. Miyagi’s somewhat unorthodox karate-teaching methods are explained as being partly inspired by a trip to China, where he presumably became friends with Chan’s Mr. Han. Miyagi’s famous mantra of “wax on, wax off” was, we are led to believe, a permutation of Han’s “jacket on, jacket off.”

Set in New York City, the new film is cut from much the same cloth as the old: Li, a teenage transplant from Beijing, here played by the charismatic Ben Wang, learns to stand up to a thuggish high school bully, Connor (Aramis Knight), by entering a karate tournament in which Connor is the returning champion.

A former student of Han’s, Li knows only kung fu, though unlike Ralph Macchio’s original protege of Miyagi’s dojo – a scrawny nebbish – Li is pretty darn adept at martial arts. In an early, nicely choreographed fight scene, Li handily dispatches a gang of adult toughs who have come to shake down Victor (Joshua Jackson), the father of Li’s love interest, Mia (Sadie Stanley). This feat of derring-do, taking place atop a dumpster and while swinging from a fire escape, earns Mia’s gently teasing appraisal of Li as the “Chinese Peter Parker.”

But he still needs mentoring in karate. It will come – as anyone who has seen the trailer, or who can intuit what the word “legends” refers to – from the past.

Li’s Spider-Man moniker suits the comic-book stylings of the new film, directed by Jonathan Entwistle, whose short-lived Netflix series, “I Am Not Okay With This,” centred on a character with superpowers. That show’s Wyatt Oleff returns here in a funny supporting role as Li’s SAT tutor.

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To be sure, “Karate Kid: Legends” has some heavy backstory: Li’s older brother Bo (Yankei Ge) was killed in Beijing, leading their mother (Ming-Na Wen) to ban Li from fighting. Li remains haunted by guilt for failing to act as his brother was being stabbed. But overall, “Legends” avoids taking itself too seriously, carrying the sometimes overblown mantle of the earlier films with an appropriately lighter touch.

It acknowledges the weight of the past – a burden made heavier by the combined load of cinematic nostalgia and baloney – while freshening the story for an audience that is sure to include both adult fans of the franchise and younger newbies.

In the most interesting twist, it’s Li who volunteers first to play sensei to Victor, a talented former boxer who’s in debt to the neighborhood loan shark, O’Shea (Tim Rozon), who just happens to be the proprietor of Connor’s dojo. O’Shea’s mantra? “We don’t fight for points. We fight to kill.” Connor isn’t just a bully; as Mia puts it, he’s a psycho. But Li initially serving as mentor, not student, is a clever and satisfying subversion of cliché.

The stakes are as familiar as they are over-the-top: a $50,000 purse in a martial arts contest that takes place on the roof of a Manhattan skyscraper. Li can use that money to help Victor pay off his debt, while at the same time winning over Mia, teaching Connor a lesson about honour and fairness, and reconciling his own guilt over Bo’s death. Oh, yeah, and engage in a little butt-kicking to boot.

The Karate Kid franchise had grown ponderous and strange, with three previous sequels that were histrionic and overly plotty, and that strayed from what made the original fun summer fluff. “Karate Kid: Legends” combines the best of all those sequels plus a 2010 remake – a simple underdog tale, appealing casts and crisply filmed action – to contribute a new and worthy chapter to the canon. It’s one whose ambitions meet, and occasionally exceed, our expectations.

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Three stars. Rated PG-13. At theatres. Contains martial arts violence and some coarse language. In English and some Mandarin, with subtitles. 94 minutes.

Rating guide: Four stars masterpiece, three stars very good, two stars OK, one star poor, no stars waste of time.