For a franchise which has survived for thirty years, the latest Karate Kid film is severely under-written and excessively eager to please. It has the right ingredients to seem like a picture-perfect homage to the sensei-pupil tradition that first erupted on the screen in 1994 when Pat Marito mentored the 23-year old Ralph Macchio.
It was an instant hit. As a student, I remember how inspiring it was to witness the guru-shishya parampara in the Chinese milieu. It felt like an event.
Macchio is back in this Jonathan Entwistle-directed poor descendent with a lot of pizza prattle and martial arts, but no swaad or punch. The new discovery Ben Wang is amiable enough. And he has been dubbed well by Ajay Devgan’s son in the Hindi version.
Ironically Wang is at his best when not in a martial arts mode. The best part of this namby-pamby action exhibition is when Li Fong (who would be played by Vedang Raina if the film is made in Hindi) arrives with his doctor-mom (Ming-Na Wen) to New York and meets the charming Mia (Sadie Stanley) and her father Victor(Joshua Jackson).
There is an air of communicability about Li Fong’s early adventures as a Chinese immigrant in the US, with Li Fong declaring he isn’t going anywhere (not quite the ‘Trump’ card we expect in a film about the American Dream).
Thereafter the plot, in a hurry to get Li Fong into the ring, employs too many underdog-triumphs tropes to make an impact.
The fights seem staged and lack that spontaneity in the early Karate Kid films where every blow was felt by us in the audience. Ralph Macchio so bright and bouncy in the early Karate Kid films is listless and limp, a pale shadow of his younger self. His arguments over karate technique with Jackie Chan seem a plotting device that never quite conveys the gravity of two schools of martial arts in conflict.
Conflict is seriously lacking in this segment of the Franchise. If Karate kid wants to return it had better pull up its socks and if it wants to return with Jackie Chan, it had better write a more vital part for him.
The most likeable character and performance in the sixth segment of the fading franchise is Victor, the spirited father of Li Fong’s girlfriend, played by Joshua Jackson who makes pizzas as expertly as he negotiates through his relationship with his daughter and her boyfriend.
There are some potentially interesting flashbacks as to how Li Fong lost his brother in a street fight. But the film can’t explain why Li Fong was numbed into non-action when his brother was attacked.
Too preoccupied with its own intermittent bouts of atrophy, Karate Kid Legends has a sweet breezy air to it. But the charm runs thin both in and out of the ring.
I watched the Hindi dubbed version to hear Ajay Devgan and Son dub for Jackie Chan and Li Fong. While the junior is interesting, hearing Chan speak in Devgan’s voice takes away drastically from the performance. Throwing in a Singham joke during the Hindi dub: what a bad idea, Sirjee.
