Latest news with #Legends'
Time of India
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Exclusive: Veteran writer calls Rusev's latest WWE run 'horrible', reveals what has gone wrong
Rusev returned to the WWE on the Raw after WrestleMania 41 and destroyed the Alpha Academy (Otis and Akira Tozawa) in the cruelest way possible. Many expected this to be the beginning of a dominant run for the star who was previously with the Stamford-based promotion from 2010 to 2020. However, over a month later, he is yet to make a major impact. In an exclusive interaction with Indiatimes, veteran writer Vince Russo called its second stint with the company 'horrible' and revealed why it is not working. Vince Russo is not a fan of Rusev's latest run with the WWE Rusev has had merely two matches since returning to the WWE on the Raw after WrestleMania 41. In the first one, he beat Otis. The other one saw him squash Akira Tozawa in a matter of minutes. There was also a significant time gap in his matches against the lower midcard talents as the WWE relied on packaged promos to build an aura around the powerhouse. In them, the former Miro spoke about wanting to 'redeem' himself. According to Vince Russo– a writer who worked with the WWE in the 90s– the promos are 'meaningless' and Rusev does not have a storyline to work with. '(The run is) horrible. Nothing special. There is no story upon his return. Those vignettes are meaningless,' he told Indiatimes. Rusev was paired with Lana, who later married him in real life in 2016, during his first run with the company. Lana acted as his manager and helped him generate heat through her caustic promos. This established him as a bankable heel and paved the way for him to win the US title on three occasions. Russo feels that Lana's absence too has detailed the second run even before it started. 'They needed him to come back with Lana. He's going to be just another name on the roster,' said the writer. Interestingly, Lana too is currently with the WWE under a 'Legends' deal. As such, there is a possibility of her being paired with Rusev again. What's next for Rusev? As seen on the latest episode of Raw, Rusev is likely to feud with Sheamus now that his rivalry with Otis and Akira is the rearview. The Irish brawler confronted 'The Bulgarian Brute' on the red brand this week and stopped him for doing some permanent damage to Akira. This may pave the way fore meatier feuds down the line
USA Today
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
How Ralph Macchio's 'feel-good' first 'Karate Kid' informs 'Legends'
How Ralph Macchio's 'feel-good' first 'Karate Kid' informs 'Legends' Show Caption Hide Caption 'Karate Kid: Legends' trailer: Ralph Macchio teams with Jackie Chan Ralph Macchio's karate sensei and Jackie Chan's kung fu shifu work together to train a martial arts prodigy in "Karate Kid: Legends." Ben Wang, star of 'Karate Kid: Legends,' was turned on to the original 'Karate Kid' as a youngster because it was his aunt's favorite movie. Wang's on-screen rival, Aramis Knight (both 25), had never experienced it until he was cast in the new film. And 'Legends' director Jonathan Entwistle – born in 1984, the year the first "Kid" came out – got into the mythology thanks only to the Netflix spinoff series 'Cobra Kai.' Then there's Ralph Macchio, the OG karate kid. He has been a part of the franchise before there was a franchise, before "wax on, wax off" became a touchstone. It's no secret to Macchio why folks still follow the journey of his Daniel LaRusso – and why he thinks people will love Wang's teen character, Li Fong. 'He's dealing with an internal struggle a little bit different than what my struggle was back in the day, but at the end of it, you're rooting for people you care about. That's the storytelling,' Macchio says. 'And we're hoping that this fresh new take for the 2025 families is going to be what it needs to be: entertainment for everyone.' Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox 'Legends' (in theaters May 30) expands the Miyagi-verse – named for Daniel-san's beloved sensei Mr. Miyagi (the late Pat Morita) – by bringing in kung fu shifu Mr. Han, Jackie Chan's wise old master from 2010's 'Karate Kid' reboot. But there are echoes of the original 'Karate Kid': After moving from Beijing to Brooklyn, Li runs afoul of karate-champ bully Conor (Knight). And when Li enters a martial arts competition to win prize money for his struggling friend Victor (Joshua Jackson), Han reaches out to LaRusso for karate help because of his own friendship with Miyagi. Unlike young Daniel, Li is way past the basics. 'This is grad school,' says Wang, the first Asian-American lead of a "Karate Kid" film. Jackie Chan's 'Karate Kid' love goes back to the '80s Wang recalls meeting Chan and the hubbub about the 71-year-old Hong Kong action icon starting before he got to the set. Filming in Montreal, Wang watched a crew full of laid-back French Canadians freak out hearing that Chan was driving himself from the airport. 'Thirty minutes later, Jackie pulls up in a van and he's like, 'What's up?' ' Wang says with a laugh. 'And then we shot a fight scene together.' Chan was aware of the 1984 film and enjoyed it, and it was 'part of the reason why I did my first 'Karate Kid' movie,' he says. 'It gives people a chance to know karate and the culture.' He had wanted to work with Macchio ever since meeting him at the premiere of the 2010 'Karate Kid,' and for him, the best part about 'Legends' is 'we get to train Ben and torture him together!' Filming those sequences, Macchio and Chan 'were always trying to one up each other,' Entwistle adds. 'It's baked into this idea of kung fu versus karate, which one is better?' And it's a 'quite meta' way to nod to the audience division between the 2010 movie and the beloved original. Knight believes the 1984 film still holds up: 'It's a feel-good movie that anybody can relate to, whether you're 13 or 30 or 100 years old.' And there are moments in "Legends" with Macchio in the old Miyagi house where 'he looks on-screen to me like he could be 17,' Entwistle says. Original 'Karate Kid' Ralph Macchio embraces his most Mr. Miyagi self Macchio has a good sense of humor when it comes to his apparent eternal life. 'Don't let the youthfulness fake you out,' quips the actor, still looking great at 63. That vigor helped when he wrapped the 'Cobra Kai' series finale, got on a plane and immediately went to work on 'Legends.' 'You buy the goldfish, you keep it in the bag until it gets used to the climate. I was just, they cut the bag, threw me in.' "Cobra Kai" ended with LaRusso and former rival Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) finally at peace, and 'there's really a grounded sort of almost Miyagi-esque element' about Daniel now, Macchio says. 'He's less the uptight car salesman who's pissed off that Johnny's getting up in his kitchen." The teachings of Miyagi continue to flow through the franchise. For Chan, there's Mr. Han's continued passion for training his student but also the core of 'Karate Kid,' where 'we protect, not attack, and we take care of each other,' he says. And Li becomes a martial arts master of sorts for ex-boxer/pizza-place owner Victor, showing him that 'everything is kung fu' as he trains for a comeback fight. 'He's still doing the boxing that he's always done. But it's almost like he believes in himself,' Entwistle says. Macchio sees it in the "heartfelt way" Daniel and Han connect, "that sharing a piece of the wisdom and the legacy of Miyagi is never the wrong choice when it's for the greater good," he says. And Macchio takes all that to heart in his real life as well, be it with young co-stars like Wang or his own children: 'Sharing those stories and a piece of that going forward, be it from the actor side or the sensei side, is something I take a great deal of pride in.'
New York Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Karate Kid: Legends' Review: The Student Becomes the Teacher
'Karate Kid: Legends,' the latest installment to the franchise that spawned from the 1984 team of Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita, a.k.a Mr. Miyagi, certainly shouldn't come as a surprise. And yet, among the modern crop of revamped movie franchises, it is, in fact, a somewhat bizarre outlier. In many ways, the original film should by all means have become a fond and nostalgic relic of the 1980s, a sleeper hit that almost wholly symbolizes the retrospective cheesiness we project onto that decade. Instead, its remarkably simple story, of a master fighter teaching a kid how to defeat bullies, has retained tremendous staying power, spawning, across decades, several sequels and reboots, a Netflix spinoff show and now a revamp merging its past iterations. As if fully aware of the humble and ultimately thin material for another franchise restart, 'Legends' tries to make practically three movies in one, tossing all of its legacies into a blender that's powered more by Macchio and Jackie Chan's names than anything else. Adhering to its blueprint, 'Legends,' directed by Jonathan Entwistle, starts with a kid traveling to a new city, falling in love with a girl and facing a violent bully. Li (Ben Wang) is a martial arts student in Beijing, studying under his Uncle Han (Chan), until his mom (Ming-Na Wen) moves them to New York City. While there, Li quickly takes a liking to Mia (Sadie Stanley), much to the chagrin of Conor (Aramis Knight), a vicious karate student who begins harassing Li. But rather than learning how to fight off Conor, Li instead trains Mia's father, Victor (Joshua Jackson), who enters a boxing tournament to pay off his debts to a local thug (who is also Conor's karate teacher). That's all in the first two-thirds of the film. In the latter third, Jackson disappears entirely, Li must prepare for his own fight tournament, and Chan and Macchio are clumsily looped in, as if the film suddenly remembered who was on its poster. What we end up with is a 'Karate Kid' movie with three teachers, two students in two tournaments and many training montages. Strangely, the final stretches, when Chan and Macchio's team-up occurs — the entire selling point of this venture — is when the movie decides to forgo all sense of pacing or storytelling impact. The film doesn't seem to have any interest in dramatizing Macchio and Chan's appearances onscreen, nor in narratively or emotionally bridging their histories and legacies. There is at once a roughshod, zippy energy coupled with a sedateness here that results from the simple fact that the film never quite knows how to square the pure awkwardness of two teachers — two stars from different eras of a franchise — instructing a karate kid at once. Their fan service pairing, then, leaves us with the distinct feeling of two wink-wink cameos shoehorned into a commercial. What is most striking only comes in glimpses: a genuine melancholy that Macchio carries in the brief moments he remembers Mr. Miyagi. There's a shadow meaning you might read into that sadness that's really fatigue, for yet another fight he never picked.
New York Post
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
‘Karate Kid: Legends' review: Awful Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan sequel KO'd my will to live
movie review KARATE KID: LEGENDS Running time: 94 minutes. PG-13 (martial arts violence and some language). In theaters May 30. 'Karate Kid: Legends' continues a grand old tradition. And I don't mean that of one generation handing down ancient martial arts skills to the next. No, 'Legends' is the latest in a long line of terrible 'Karate Kid' movies. A passing of the torch, such as it is, to the next inferior ripoff. None of the past five films can touch the 1984 original starring Ralph Macchio as Daniel and Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi — the perfect high-school summer flick set to the soothing sounds of Bananarama. All of them since, save for the feel-good TV show 'Cobra Kai,' have been: Wax on, turn off. That's especially true of the embarrassing 'Legends,' which tries and fails to futz with the established formula. 6 Ben Wang stars as Li Fong in 'Karate Kid: Legends.' ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection The first of many, many questionable choices: This time, the title teen begins as a formidable fighter. Guess we can all go home then! Li Fong (Ben Wang) has trained in Kung Fu for years with Mr. Han (Jackie Chan, back from the Jaden Smith one) in Beijing. But because of a past trauma, his mom demands that Li give up his passion. So she moves the family to New York City, a calm place that's completely free of violence. 6 Li trains Victor (Joshua Jackson), a local pizza shop owner. ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection When they arrive in a neighborhood along the L train that looks conspicuously like Montreal, director Jonathan Entwistle and screenwriter Rob Lieber treat a metropolis of 8 million like it's Main Street, USA. Actors speak dialogue that was written in Crayola, and the events that unfold are unbearably hokey and fake. All the school kids, including throwaway villain Connor (a poor man's Johnny), absurdly still hang out at the local dojo. Within days of getting his passport stamped, Li is accosted by his new bullies on the subway, a transit system ridden by 3.6 million people a day. 6 The film's New York antics are hokey and fake. ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection He wanders into a retro pizzeria, straight outta Peoria, that's owned by former boxer Victor (Joshua Jackson) and his daughter Mia (Sadie Stanley) — flat, silly characters broadly performed by the actors like they're mugging for the opening credits of 'Full House.' This restaurant, surely to save on prop costs, seemingly just serves pepperoni. Smitten with Li, Mia whisks him to cool New York youth's hottest spots: Times Square and the San Genaro Festival. Victor needs to pay back his debt to one of New York's many MMA street fighter gangs, so Li offers to teach him Kung Fu. That's another flip of the script that flops. The montage of swatting at pizza paddles and punching olive oil cans is dumb and free of 'Rocky'-type chills. Against strict mom's wishes, Li eventually enters a karate tournament called the 5 Boroughs to help earn Victor his cash. Since Li is already brilliant at Kung Fu, it only takes a week for Mr. Han and Daniel (Macchio, suffering from fatigue) to get him ready. Easy peasy. 'Legends' is tense as plain Jello. 6 Jackie Chan's Mr. Han trained Li in Kung Fu. ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection 6 Ralph Macchio was better used in the TV series 'Cobra Kai.' ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Wang, for what it's worth, is a charismatic and likable lead, who doesn't go overboard like all the ham sandwiches around him. He's not hilarious like Macchio was back in the day, but his smile is as powerful as his kicks. The 25-year-old newcomer is also actually proficient in martial arts, which lends reality to the fights. But the quick-cut way Entwistle depicts them doesn't take full advantage of Wang's abilities. They're not human enough; too 'Mortal Kombat.' Who, exactly, is this lazy, trotted-out exercise for? Macchio's dazed return would suggest it's nostalgia bait for older 'Karate Kid' fans, but 'Cobra Kai' already did that far better for six seasons. And it's hard to imagine the 'Euphoria' generation going gaga for a hackneyed teen movie that's, in fact, not nearly as edgy as the 1984 film was. Here there are less nunchucks, and more 'aww shucks.' 6 Wang is the best part of the film. ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection The 'Legends' are let downs. All the film's got going for it is Wang. To almost quote Mr. Miyagi, there's no such thing as a bad student, only a bad movie.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Review: With Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan, ‘Karate Kid: Legends' brings formulaic kicks
'Karate Kid: Legends' is steeped in nostalgia, which helps paper over a formulaic script and the strange reality that its domestic scenes are more effective than its fight action. It opens with a scene between a young Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita, who got his start as a stand-up comic in San Francisco) from ' Karate Kid Part II ' (1986). By the film's second half, a much older Daniel and Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) team up to train a teenager, Li Fong (Ben Wang of ' American Born Chinese '), ahead of a big tournament. Macchio and Chan are two people you might have thought would never be in the same room together. In the 1980s, while Macchio was making 'Karate Kid' movies, Chan was half a world away, causing mayhem as Hong Kong's top martial arts star. Chan first introduced the Han character in ' The Karate Kid,' the 2010 remake starring Jaden Smith. In that first scene in 'Legends' from 1986, Mr. Miyagi explains to Daniel that generations ago, as the Miyagi clan developed karate in Japan, they came in contact with the Han family of China and they shared their martial arts wisdom. 'Two branches, one tree,' Miyagi says. Thus when Mr. Han's prized pupil, Li, moves to New York with his mother, Dr. Fong (Ming-Na Wen), and promptly finds himself in trouble with the local tough guys, Mr. Han summons Daniel to help. But it's the first part of 'Karate Kid: Legends' that is most pleasing. Li instantly befriends a pretty high school girl, Mia (Sadie Stanley), and becomes a fixture at the pizza place run by her father, Victor (Joshua Jackson, star of the ABC series 'Doctor Odyssey'). The relationship that slowly develops between Li and Mia — and Li and her father — is cute and convincing, even if it occasionally relies on afterschool special tropes. But drama ensues because Victor is an ex-boxer who is in deep with a loan shark (Tim Rozon) whose son (Aramis Knight) used to date Mia and, oh yes, happens to be the defending '5 Boroughs' martial arts champion. Thus, Li decides to enter the '5 Boroughs' himself to settle a few scores. The fighting in the 'Karate Kid' movies and its Netflix series offshoot, ' Cobra Kai,' has always been quality, but in 'Legends' it's too quick-cutting and chaotic, hard to follow and over much too quickly. Curious what Chan, who not only helped choreograph his energetic and creative fight scenes over the years but directed many of his own films, thought when he saw the final cut of the at times incomprehensible action in 'Legends.' Fighting, though, is just part of why people go to 'Karate Kid' movies. Relationships, honor, and good ol' nostalgia also factors in. As such, 'Legends' is a serviceable entry in the venerable franchise.
