Latest news with #MrMiyagi
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The Best Scenes in ‘Karate Kid: Legends' Are Its First and Last
I have been looking forward to Karate Kid: Legends before we even knew what Karate Kid: Legends was. The film was announced in 2022 but it took more than a year after that for the news to break that both Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan would star, combining the past, present, and future of the franchise. Macchio's inclusion also assured that the story would have to link in some way to the hit Netflix show Cobra Kai, which was great because the movie seemingly existed in large part due to the show's popularity. Well now, almost three years since its announcement, the film is finally here, and I was supremely disappointed. There were good ideas in there, and a strong chance of sending The Karate Kid off in a fun new direction. But for the most part, the film fumbles all of that. In the end, I was left only excited about two things in the movie—the beginning and the end. The beginning of Karate Kid: Legends is maddening because it sets such high expectations for what's to come, but never delivers on them. 'Okinawa, Japan, 1986,' the screen reads as we watch a scene from The Karate Kid Part II (which was released in 1986 but actually set before that, not that this movie cares). In the scene, taken from footage shot at the time, Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) explains how his ancestor learned Chinese Kung Fu from the Han clan and brought that back to Japan. It was the beginning of a centuries-long bond between the families, one that, we know, will manifest later in the movie with Mr. Han (Chan) and Daniel (Macchio) as the respective representatives. That retconning of footage we've already seen, coupled with an added animation to give it context, really makes you feel like what you are about to see is going to be epic. Two legendary martial arts families united as one for some big, important cause. Of course, what you then see is Mr. Han's great nephew, Li (Ben Wang), training Pacey from Dawson's Creek to box for an hour—but hey, the beginning is great. Of course, eventually, Li's uncle Mr. Han comes to New York to help him train for a tournament, and he, for some reason, decides Li needs Daniel to help too. So Daniel comes, trains Li, and—this is the spoiler zone—Li wins. That's not the great scene at the end, though. The great scene at the end is when Daniel goes back to California, and Li sends him a New York pizza in the mail with a note teasing about future collaborations. Daniel accepts the package and turns around to reveal none other than Johnny Lawrence played by William Zabka. Lawrence, of course, was Daniel's nemesis in the original Karate Kid movie but then spent six seasons of Cobra Kai changing his entire life, eventually becoming the sensei at the most famous dojo in the world. None of that comes to play here, but just seeing Johnny post-Cobra Kai, cracking a few jokes about Miyagi-inspired pizza places, is inspired. In my screening of the film, it's the only moment that elicited any kind of audience reaction. It's funny, nostalgic for the originals as well as the show, and it reminds you that this is a larger world. So is the existence of Karate Kid: Legends worth it for those two moments? Not really. But, Ben Wang as Li is a very cool character and maybe, if the film finds an audience, we can see him on the mat again in the future.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Ralph Macchio Insisted That ‘Karate Kid: Legends' Delay Its Release Until After ‘Cobra Kai'
Forty-eight hours after wrapping Cobra Kai in Atlanta, Ralph Macchio was right back where he started on the Montreal-based set of Karate Kid: Legends. Macchio stepped foot onto Legends' version of the Mr. Miyagi house that he and Pat Morita made famous four decades earlier in John G. Avildsen's The Karate Kid (1984). The original house in Canoga Park was demolished after production concluded on 1986's The Karate Kid Part II, before being rebuilt at Warner Bros. Ranch for 1989's Part III. Cobra Kai then constructed an iteration of it that evolved across six seasons on its Atlanta-based set. More from The Hollywood Reporter Ralph Macchio on Decision to Return to 'Karate Kid' Films and Future of the Franchise 40 Years In 'Karate Kid: Legends' Review: Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio Return for a Messy and Uninspired Addition to the Franchise Cannes: Jackie Chan's 'The Shadow's Edge' Sells Wide 'It was the weirdest feeling. I literally was at somebody else's house, but I kind of helped build the house,' Macchio tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Karate Kid: Legends' May 30 theatrical release. In Jonathan Entwistle's legacy sequel, Macchio's Daniel LaRusso is paid a visit by Jackie Chan's Mr. Han from 2010's The Karate Kid, folding the former stand-alone reboot into the mothership franchise. The Legends creative team realized that Part II's Miyagi family dojo scene could be expanded upon to link the Okinawa, Japan-based Miyagi family with the Han family in China. In 1625, Mr. Miyagi's fisherman ancestor, Shimpo Miyagi, fell asleep at sea and woke up off the coast of China. That's where the Han family took him in and taught him kung fu. Upon his return home, he established Miyagi-Do Karate, combining the two families' unique martial arts and creating a lasting friendship that endured through Mr. Miyagi and Mr. Han. (The 2010 film's brain trust used the same Part II scene inside the Miyagi family dojo as a jumping-off point for their China-set story.) Macchio previously met Chan at the 2010 premiere of The Karate Kid, and while he was always a good sport in public, he admits that he was privately conflicted about Chan's remake at first. But through the unlikely creative merger, Macchio couldn't be happier with how it all unfolded, especially now that he's shared action scenes with Chan in the name of training Mr. Han's great-nephew, Li Fong (Ben Wang). 'I was territorial upon first hearing of [2010's The Karate Kid]. I didn't understand what they were going for, and I had walked in the shoes for so long. I just felt, 'How are you going to do a retread of [1984's The Karate Kid]?'' Macchio says, 'But they made a movie that was well-crafted and highly successful. I always describe that movie as a lesson in how you can tell virtually the same story, but still make it a completely different movie.' Karate Kid: Legends was originally announced in September 2022, and it immediately raised a number of questions as to how it would navigate the then-upcoming final season of Cobra Kai. It's now known that Legends was always going to be set three years after the series finale of Cobra Kai, but two of its previous release dates — June 2024 and December 2024 — fell before the series' February 2025 conclusion. (Both projects were delayed by the 2023 strikes.) As a result, Macchio became adamant that the film delay itself until after Cobra Kai's completion — in order to not confuse the Cobra Kai audience and hopefully attract them to the movie off the strength of the satisfying series finale and successful overall run. 'When [Karate Kid: Legends] was initially slated for a December 13, 2024 release, I was screaming constantly every day: 'This movie has to come out after [Cobra Kai] finishes,'' Macchio shares. 'And once marketing got together and realized that [the December '24 release] would not benefit either, they did the right thing [by delaying until May 2025]. Karate Kid: Legends is now coming at a time where I like to believe that Cobra Kai fans are thirsty for another chapter.' As for the future of Daniel LaRusso, Macchio confirms that several Cobra Kai spinoffs are in development, and it's just a matter of time before Netflix and creators Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald and Hayden Schlossberg decide which direction(s) to go next. 'There are a few balls up in the air. I don't know which one is going to land. I hope all of them do, or some of them do, or one of them does,' Macchio says. 'The success of Karate Kid: Legends could propel all that stuff. It's different, but the same. There's a Miyagi-ism for you.' Below, during a recent conversation with THR, Macchio also discusses the responsibility he feels to protect the Karate Kid franchise now that he's one of the last remaining principals from 1983's foundational film. *** When first came along, you were still shooting . So how was the movie's timeline explained in relation to the show? The first I heard about it, I said, 'Okay, where does this land?' because the Cobra Kai guys — [showrunners] Jon Hurwitz, Josh Heald and Hayden Schlossberg — were not involved with the creation of Karate Kid: Legends. So I got the concept, and to me, it was just about figuring out the genuine, honest connective tissue going forward. For me, it's always been about carrying the Miyagi-verse or the legacy forward. Chronologically, [Karate Kid: Legends] was always set about three years after the events of Cobra Kai. Cobra Kai started in 2018, and so the kids on that show would be in their third year of college [during Karate Kid: Legends]. That was determined early on, and then it was about landing Daniel LaRusso in a way that feels like a natural evolution and progression when we see him three years later. That's where my real focus was and how I would layer him into this fresh separate storyline. It's like its own ecosystem in the grand universe. At the end of Cobra Kai, he lands in a very positive way. He and Johnny Lawrence are the best versions of themselves going forward. In Karate Kid: Legends, we find him being far more Miyagi in his sensibilities and his grounded wisdom. In Cobra Kai, it was designed that the more knee-jerk and up-in-Johnny's-face he was, the better it was to service Johnny Lawrence's redemption. So I'd be like, 'Okay, but when do we land in Miyagi-land?' That is where I thought LaRusso would end up with all his wisdom from his mentor, a very grounded mother, a good life, a good business and a good wife. And then we landed Daniel at that place. So when we pick him up three years later, he's in Miyagi''s yard, and to him, that house is like a museum of his childhood. He takes off his gardening gloves after Jackie Chan's Mr. Han comes into the dojo, and then he's reminded of the [Miyagi-Han family] connection. The [flashback] piece of Karate Kid Part II talks about how [Miyagi-Do] karate came from China, and so we were off to the races. It made sense. It was then all about protecting LaRusso and that relationship that was born in 1984, which has now given birth to this whole franchise. For many of us, you will always be 'The Karate Kid,' but for a younger generation, you are now what Pat Morita's Mr. Miyagi was to my generation. Did it take a while to get used to seeing yourself as the sensei character after being the kid all these years? Yeah, and that's a great question. It evolved early on in Cobra Kai. I'll never forget a moment in the first episode of season two where Tanner Buchanan's Robbie was now the one waxing the car and painting the fence and sanding the deck. We camera-blocked the rehearsal of that little montage, and I went back to my trailer to get changed because we hadn't changed into wardrobe yet. I then had this rush of emotion by myself. I won't say I was bawling, but I started getting misty. There was a little lump in my throat as I was getting ready to do the scene because I had just remembered all the magic that happened in Miyagi's backyard in 1983. Pat Morita showed me how to paint the fence and all the stuff that has become a piece of pop culture. So I was now on the other side of the mat, and all those years were gone. John Avildsen was no longer here. Pat Morita and producer Jerry Weintraub had both passed. And I just felt the emotional responsibility of carrying this legacy forward in that poignant moment. So that was the time that I felt that. As far as feeling the sensei versus the student, I've had that experience as a parent. I would also tell stories of yesterday to the young cast of Cobra Kai, and just like any dad telling a story of his childhood, they would lean in and listen. I did the same thing with Ben Wang on Karate Kid: Legends. I take pride in sharing a piece of yesterday because, in essence, we don't have any of this right now without what was created back in the early 1980s. I don't like to get lost in that nostalgia, but you do need to pay it forward and make it relevant. Cobra Kai did that very well, and I'd like to believe that this film has a fresh or different kind of feeling with the same underlying themes. Repurposing that Daniel-Miyagi flashback scene from was a clever way to build a canonical bridge to Jackie Chan's . To be honest, when Jackie's movie came out in 2010, I refused to see it for the longest time. I thought it was blasphemous to remake . Did you get territorial about it at the time? Yeah, I absolutely did. First of all, when they start remaking your stuff, you never think you're old enough that they'd remake your stuff. I now have The Outsiders on Broadway, which won best musical [at 2024's Tony Awards]. So you don't want to believe how much time has gone by that they're going to do it for the next generation, but I'm like the third time around in generations. So I was territorial upon first hearing of [2010's The Karate Kid]. I didn't understand what they were going for, and I had walked in the shoes for so long. I just felt, 'How are you going to do a retread of that?' But they made a movie that was well-crafted and highly successful. I always describe that movie as an exercise and a lesson in how you can tell virtually the same story, but still make it a completely different movie. When they brought the concept into the room of how they would connect these two [unconnected stories], I was like, 'You have the footage.' It was all connected in a way. Miyagi tells the story that the secret to Okinawa karate came from China, and we laced that through Cobra Kai. So it's consistent, and it's in the scriptures, if you will. Then Hollywood steps in to figure out how to make a movie, and here we are. And it allowed you to trade moves with Jackie Chan, so it all worked out quite nicely. Yes, I went from one legend to the other. What can you say? It's really the gift that keeps on giving, and now that's working with someone like Jackie. I didn't know him personally, but I obviously knew his work. He paved the way for so many, and he's like a kid in a candy store. He just loves being on set. He loves making movies, and he cares. We both come from that place, and even though we have two different perspectives, we have the same end result in mind. So it was a joy to work with him. Ben Wang also does a wonderful job, physically, mentally and emotionally. He will be who new 8- to 19-year-olds will cheer for and root for, but they also get a piece of the legacy throughout the movie. That's been very evident with Cobra Kai, and I'm hoping that's the case here. It's family viewing and a very positive story of good over evil. And you get to share a communal experience in the theater where you're hopefully high-fiving the stranger next to you because you had a wonderful time. And when you get home, perhaps your uncle pulls out a DVD of the original Karate Kid, and the whole family gets to watch Mr. Miyagi for the first time. It's cool when I have kids run up to me who know who Mr. Miyagi is and think he's the coolest. One of the biggest surprises about adulthood is that I don't feel as far removed from my 17- or 18-year-old self as I thought I would. Do you feel all that different from the young guy in the aforementioned flashback? That's a great question. (Macchio asks for a few moments to ponder.) When I did one of my first Cobra Kai scenes with Billy Zabka, we'd been in the skins of our characters for 34 years at that time. But when we stepped onto that mat inside the Cobra Kai dojo in the second episode, there was wisdom on both sides of us from different perspectives. When we spoke to each other through our characters, there was a heightened element of awareness. It felt like yesterday, yet it felt new at the same time. When I look at young LaRusso in that opening scene, I think of Hawaii and Pat Morita. I can smell the day. I remember the humidity level and what it felt walking in the Miyagi family dojo. So it takes me back to a moment in time. Now there's life lived and wisdom gained, but the person is the same. Ironically, when I think of Daniel LaRusso in that specific scene, he was a very earnest Daniel LaRusso. He wasn't the knee-jerk guy with the temper that got up in Johnny Lawrence's face every time he got pissed off. He was the earnest student wanting to learn, and then when you look at Daniel LaRusso in Karate Kid: Legends, he is very much on the opposite side [à la Mr. Miyagi]. He's open and earnest in sharing that wisdom with the next generation. So it's an interesting perspective to look at him in that opening scene as a youngster and later as the wiser, more grounded, experienced teacher. Based on your first scene with Jackie and the coda, I assumed that you killed two birds with one stone by shooting ' Miyagi house scenes on 's Miyagi house set in Atlanta. But actually rebuilt the house in Montreal? Yeah, when I finished Cobra Kai, we had the wrap party the next day, and the following morning, I was on a plane to Montreal. I stepped onto a running train, and it was the weirdest feeling. I literally was at somebody else's house, but I kind of helped build the house. So it was interesting to do this full shift by leaving this family of seven years' time and 65 episodes, which is kind of unheard of today, certainly in the streaming world. And then I was stepping onto a big screen movie that I was a part of but wasn't settled into yet. So that transition was a bit of a challenge, not that anyone made it difficult. I was just in my own head now that I was shifting gears in a story three years later. Just so you know, when this movie was initially slated for a December 13, 2024 release, I was screaming constantly every day: 'This movie has to come out after the show finishes.' And once marketing got together and realized that [the December '24 release] would not benefit either, they did the right thing. Karate Kid: Legends is now coming at a time where I like to believe that Cobra Kai fans are thirsty for another chapter. There's also brand-new fans, who may or may not have even seen Cobra Kai or the original film, that would have a great time at the cinema. The showrunners of have alluded to more story. Do you know what that is yet? There are a few balls up in the air. You have to be diplomatically safe, and I don't know which one is going to land. I hope all of them do, or some of them do, or one of them does. The success of Karate Kid: Legends could propel all that stuff. It's different, but same. There's a Miyagi-ism for you. ***Karate Kid: Legends opens May 30 in movie theaters nationwide. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT 'The Goonies' Cast, Then and Now
Wall Street Journal
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
‘Karate Kid: Legends' Review: A Franchise With No Fighting Spirit
The Karate Kid franchise was born in 1984 with a shamelessly formulaic underdog movie, was refreshed with a 2018-25 TV series, 'Cobra Kai,' which gave the story an amusing tweak (the reformation of a bad guy) and moves back to basics with a sixth feature, 'Karate Kid: Legends,' a reunion of new and old. It's the kind of movie in which one scene features a flashback to the previous scene, from a few minutes earlier, in case you'd already forgotten it. Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), the depressed mentor of the 2010 remake 'The Karate Kid,' which was shot in China and released at a point when Hollywood seemed eager to transform itself into a subsidiary of Beijing, turns out to have ancestry tracing back to Japan and tying him to the late Mr. Miyagi, the teacher in the original film. A prologue knits together the two masters, one expert in kung fu, the other in karate: two branches, one tree.
Washington Post
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
‘Karate Kid: Legends' meets, and occasionally exceeds, expectations
'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-belabored 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.'
The Guardian
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I should really be the world champion': Ralph Macchio on kicking it as The Karate Kid for 41 years
'Sorry to ask such a personal question,' I say to Ralph Macchio, who at 63 we can no longer call The Karate Kid. Let's go with karate man. He's in the basement of his house in Los Angeles. 'My daughter's working upstairs, my son's working, I've been relegated to the dungeon,' he says. I continue: 'So exactly how good are you at karate?' Forty-one years since he first became Daniel LaRusso, Macchio is back in the role for Karate Kid: Legends. In this fictive universe, it's three years since the end of Netflix series Cobra Kai and LaRusso has settled into his gardening gloves and embraced the spirit of his own mentor, Mr Miyagi, whose graceful, defensive karate style, Miyagi-Do, was all about never looking for a fight. Jackie Chan (reprising the role of Mr Han from the 2010 reboot The Karate Kid) comes to beg of him one more job. No spoilers, of course, but to have been winning at this for more than 41 years, the mask must surely have become the face: he must be really good? 'I should really be the world champion,' Macchio says. 'If I truly had trained for 41 years, every day, that's probably where I'd be, or I would have so many broken bones and pulled muscles that I'd have moved on. It was easier when I was in my early 20s, now it's much tougher. I'm not as limber. But I passed my black belt in Gōjū-ryū, that Miyagi-Do style we did in the Cobra Kai series. It's far more defensive and less flamboyant than some of the super flippy styles.' In Karate Kid: Legends, Mr Han is mentoring a teenager, Li Fong (Ben Wang). He's the key svengali, no doubt, but LaRusso arrives midway through, to introduce some karate to boost the kung fu. 'You make a Karate Kid movie,' Macchio says, 'you better have a great kid, right? He's wonderful.' He is wonderful – with a funny, slightly anxious face, like a trainee accountant who thinks he doesn't like parties, but is really stoked to have been invited to one. 'He's my favourite thing in the movie,' says Macchio. 'He does almost all his own stunts, he's really doing the work.' The whole film is a love letter to fighting with heart. I would not have predicted how enjoyable that would be. Macchio makes a stab at explaining the charm of the choreography. 'The camera's very inside the fights – the Karate Kid films that I made, certainly the first movie, was very cinematic, wide, you saw everything happen. This has a lot of cuts, it's a bit jarring but it's exciting. It's 2025, this is how they make movies now. The Marvelisation of fight scenes, along with the video gamification-isation, and the desensitisation of the younger viewers, it's nice to bring it back and feel that you're in it.' But you can't understand the longevity of the Karate Kid franchise without engaging with the sport itself. 'Hopefully the through-line, which has always been the theme of the Karate Kid universe, is that fighting is always the last answer to the problem,' Macchio says. 'It's all about training and how to build confidence and how to defend yourself, but always with the question: at what point do you use these skills? When everything else has failed. Those roots are the grounding of martial arts, which were never intended to build warriors to kill people.' After the first Karate Kid iteration, Macchio made other films, notably My Cousin Vinny, 'a late-for-dinner movie. You're just going to be late for dinner because you have to wait for every scene, the way it sets up and pays off.' But he didn't get a lot of work. 'I was doing smaller roles or writing more and directing shorts,' he says of these lean years, 'but I had a lot of time for my kids.' They weren't wild about the Karate Kid films. 'When you're four years old, you don't really want to watch your dad get beat up,' he says. And he didn't try to instil any martial arts. 'No, not only did I not teach them that, I didn't teach them how to use the chopsticks. They think I can catch flies with them, but that was a little bit of movie magic.' It was more than the school run that kept Macchio on the margins of Hollywood for basically 20 years. 'Being a celebrity is what I didn't take to. I've always kept one foot in and one foot out. And sometimes you need to have both feet in to survive the game.' He might have also been a little too pure. 'At the end of the game, it's show business,' he says, never sounding more Italian American than with that emphasis, 'so they're trying to say, OK, how can we milk this and create the next return on investment, while I'm trying to protect the truth of the character.' He appeared in HBO's series The Deuce, which is brilliant, but his role was small. He didn't mind that. 'Four scenes or an arc in a great indie film, that's attractive as well. Being the guy, being the franchise, it comes with a lot of responsibility and pressure.' In 2005, Pat Morita, who'd played Mr Miyagi, died of kidney failure, and Macchio and Billy Zabka, who played LaRusso's original arch-enemy Johnny Lawrence, were in the same room for the first time in years. 'If you would have told me then, Billy Zabka would be one of my best friends … There was about 20 years that I hadn't seen him. We were at the funeral, it was a really poignant moment. I was nervous because I was about to speak, there was a bunch of emotions. I looked across, and I saw Billy, and for the first time, it was like we were on the same side of the mat, because we were both there to honour our friend.' Zabka was much more open to revisiting the Karate Kid franchise; Macchio says he'd said no 'for thirtysomething years'. Then Cobra Kai came along. Its creators, Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg are 'some of the biggest Karate Kid fans I've ever met,' Macchio says. 'They know way more about that film than I do. Listen, it's 65 episodes. That's a heck of a run, during the pandemic and everything else. We were the comfort food when there was nothing else to watch.' Karate Kid: Legends is an incredibly warming, quite innocent, ensemble piece, in which you really root for the young cast in harmony, like watching Fame. Their personal triumphs and disasters are all routed through physical discipline, but it takes such a reassuring rhythm that you never have any doubt they'll get there. I remember my kid saying, 'What I take from this is that literally everybody can become the best person in the world at karate.' Which is kind of the point of the original film, that any kid can win, just by trying. It's an elegy to stickability that it seems nobody can get enough of, whatever their generation. 'I was just in Mexico City,' says Macchio. 'There must have been 10,000 people looking at the entrance to the film premiere, chanting my name, ages eight to 80, as if I was a matador. Come on! That's a wonderful thing to be a part of.' Karate Kid: Legends is released on 30 May
