Karate Kid: Legends plays like your TikTok feed. Every few seconds, a needle drop, a new scene, a record scratch, a second scene spliced into the middle of the current scene, an animation to make your eyes pop, a sweeping shot of New York, and onto the next scene. There's no letting up, no stopping; Legends races forward like you're about to swipe up. Yet, somehow, it works.
Ben Wang, best known for American Born Chinese, plays no small part in holding the whole thing together. His new karate kid, Li Fong, moves to New York with his mother (Ming-Na Wen) following a tragic incident and quickly goes about charming a local pizza joint worker, Mia, played by live-action Kim Possible's Sadie Stanley. She has a jocky ex-boyfriend, Connor (Ms. Marvel's Aramis Knight), who happens to know karate, while her father, Victor (Fringe's Joshua Jackson), owes Connor's sensei some money. Cue a succession of beat 'em up scenes as Li brawls with Connor, fights some thugs, and agrees to train Victor in the ways of kung fu, a reverse of the older mentor to young student trope.
