The Karate Kid Six-Movie Ultimate Collection 4K Review

More than 40 years after Daniel LaRusso won the All-Valley Tournament, The Karate Kid has been given its biggest and most extravagant release to-date. Alongside the 4K and Blu-ray release of Karate Kid: Legends this week, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has delivered a massive collection for the biggest Karate Kid fans out there, putting together all six feature films into a 4K set celebrating the entire franchise.

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The Karate Kid Ultimate Collection brings the original Karate Kid trilogy back to 4K with some new special features, while simultaneously marking the 4K debuts of The Next Karate Kid, The Karate Kid (2010), and Karate Kid: Legends. The set has each of the films in its own 4K case with an exclusive slipcover, all of them tucked into a sprawling box set that brings to life the most iconic scene of the franchise.

Opening the box set causes a pop-up image of Daniel and Johnny’s final showdown at the All-Valley, complete with a sound box that delivers the audio from Daniel’s big moment when he won the final point. It takes up quite a bit of shelf space when it’s all opened up, but it’s a good-looking diorama that celebrates the characters that made Karate Kid so special over the years. That said, the set may need a little help staying fully opened, as the presented scene droops a bit if you’re not actively pulling the two sides all the way out. Not a huge problem, as you still see the unfolded scene, but it may not stand quite as straight on display as you might hope.

In addition to the special pop-up packaging, the Karate Kid Ultimate Collection also comes with a two-sided headband, three patches from the various franchise dojos, and a set of trading cards for its biggest heroes and villains. There are also a ton of new and legacy special features included with the films.

Perhaps the “special feature” highlight of the entire package is the inclusion of every episode of The Karate Kid animated TV series. The show isn’t always easy to find, and the quality online is often very low. The 13 episodes haven’t undergone any massive restoration or anything for this release, but they have been collected together and put on The Karate Kid Part III‘s 4K disc, delivering what is without a doubt the highest quality edition of the show that fans have ever seen.

As far as the discs themselves go, the work on the 4Ks is wonderful, totally on par with everything we’ve seen from the Karate Kid 4K releases to this point. The first three films in the series have all been available on 4K prior to this collection, though the original Karate Kid is the only one that has been sold as a standalone disc. Part II and Part III were released alongside the original as a trilogy set back in 2021. As many pointed out when that trilogy was released, the transfers and Dolby Vision are gorgeous. The work in Part II is especially impressive once the film journeys to Okinawa. Those landscapes are out of this world.

While it remains one of the most controversial entries in the franchise, The Next Karate Kid is honestly the disc I was most interested in exploring, just because it’s the only older film in the series that hadn’t already received a 4K treatment. There’s of course a concern that it may not stand up to the work done on its three predecessors, given that it isn’t as highly regarded as the others and that the restoration came later. Thankfully, though, that isn’t the case. Whatever your personal feelings about The Next Karate Kid, the 4K edition is stunning. A couple of the wider shots in the monastery sequence really pop, with a perfectly natural grain structure bringing that beloved ’90s feel to the screen.

Adding in the 2010 remake and Karate Kid: Legends really brings things full circle, getting the story of both Miyagi and Han in the same set. That said, it does feel like the one thing this collection is missing is a Cobra Kai presence. Adding in all six seasons of the TV series would feel like overkill, but putting the first episode or season on 4K would’ve been a great touch. So much of this generation of Karate Kid is defined by the TV journey and the return of Johnny Lawrence (still the second-best character in the entire franchise after Miyagi). The show should’ve have some kind of representation in the collection, even if were just an episode.

Sony’s Karate Kid Ultimate Collection is definitely the best physical home release the franchise has ever received, and it’s the kind of collection that die hard fans will be proud to put on the shelf. That said, it’s a little pricey, coming in at $219.99. If you want to be sure to have the whole set on 4K, this is currently the only way to do that, so the price tag might be worth it. It’s hard to imagine, however, that the movies won’t be released on 4K individually in the future. That’s what Sony has been doing with the films in the Columbia Classics collections, it won’t be surprising to see the same move here.

A copy of the Karate Kid Ultimate Collection was provided for the purpose of this review.