Karate Kid: Legends looks as if it will follow the original movie’s formula, but there’s one way that it should be entirely different from Daniel’s story. At this point, the Karate Kid formula has been used and reused several times. The 1984 movie follows a bullied, underdog teenager as he learns martial arts from a wise teacher with a tragic past to defeat his nemesis at a tournament. This same template was applied to Jackie Chan’s The Karate Kid (2010), as well as the start of the spinoff series Cobra Kai. Now, Karate Kid: Legends will continue the trend.
The upcoming movie will bring together Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso and Chan’s Mr. Han to teach Ben Wang’s Karate Kid: Legends character, Li Fong. In this way, the original Karate Kid formula has been slightly altered since there are two wise teachers this time around. Still, things look pretty similar in every other way. Li is obviously the new underdog karate kid, and his training should prepare him to take on a bullying villain in a tournament. As exciting as it will be to see this familiar story brought to the screen with new characters in Karate Kid: Legends, the new movie needs an additional twist.
Li Should Lose The Tournament At The End Of Karate Kid: Legends
The Typical Formula Would End With A Win
The newest trailer for Karate Kid: Legends reveals that Li will be forced to move to a new city (New York this time), meet a girl, and make an enemy out of one of her acquaintances. To handle this enemy, Li must compete in the 5 Boroughs, the biggest martial arts tournament in New York. This all falls right in line with the original Karate Kid movie’s formula, so it seems like we could expect Li to pull out some obscure final move that will knock his bully out of the tournament—a heartwarming underdog victory. However, the fact that we expect this is precisely why it shouldn’t happen.
This time around, Li should lose the final round of the 5 Boroughs in Karate Kid: Legends. This would go against the formula we have come to know and love, but it’s the only way to keep the story fresh compared to all the other Karate Kid movies that have used the same ending. Sure, Li having two teachers is a great shift, but Karate Kid: Legends needs more if it’s going to stand out against its franchise predecessors.
3 Different Karate Kid Movies Have Had The Same Tournament Ending Already
The Karate Kid (1984), The Karate Kid Part 3 (1989), & The Karate Kid (2010)
The big tournament ending we expect for Karate Kid: Legends has already been used several times in the franchise. There is, of course, the 1984 Karate Kid movie, in which Daniel famously beat Johnny Lawrence with his crane kick. Daniel got another miraculous tournament win in The Karate Kid Part 3 when Terry Silver told Mike Barnes to keep the score tied. Then there is The Karate Kid 2010. This movie duplicated the original movie’s formula to a tee, and Jaden Smith’s Dre used a crane-style move similar to Daniel’s to defeat his own bully.
After so many movies in the same franchise have ended the same way, Karate Kid: Legends really has no choice but to switch things up. Li losing could give this new movie a Rocky-like feel, granting Li a meaningful message about how some fights don’t turn out as expected. Karate Kid: Legends would have to make this ending just as impactful as the original formulaic version, but this shouldn’t be too hard given the various examples set by Netflix’s Cobra Kai.
Cobra Kai Has Many Examples Of How To Subvert The Tournament Formula
A Big Twist Is A Must
As previously mentioned, the villain-focused spinoff Cobra Kai also used the original formula from The Karate Kid. The twist was that bad-boy Johnny Lawrence stepped in as the wise sensei and subverted Mr. Miyagi’s sage character archetype in just about every way. Still, Cobra Kai took things further with several big twists surrounding the Karate Kid‘s standard tournament structure. For example, in season 1, the underdog hero (Miguel) won the All-Valley tournament, but he did so by playing dirty. Then there is Robby, who was a solid fighter but lost every tournament he competed in.
Formulaic predictability is good to an extent, but audiences must be surprised with a fresh new ending after all these years of sameness.
Cobra Kai was established on the idea of subverting tropes and formulas, so Karate Kid: Legends is disadvantaged in this way. This movie feels much more like 2010’s Karate Kid, but this movie failed to perform in the same way as Cobra Kai. The newest installment in the franchise must, therefore, take an example from the more successful installment. Formulaic predictability is good to an extent, but audiences must be surprised with a fresh new ending after all these years of sameness.
