The first Karate Kid Ralph Macchio is back as Daniel LaRusso in Karate Kid: Legends, and 15 years on, the Cobra Kai star has shared his thoughts on 2010’s The Karate Kid. The Jaden Smith-starring sort-of remake was designed to relaunch the franchise, but despite an impressive box office haul, no sequels followed. The baton was then handed back to the original cast for Cobra Kai, with Macchio returning as LaRusso.
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Speaking to THR for the release of Karate Kid: Legends, Macchio stated “I was territorial upon first hearing of [2010’s The Karate Kid]. I didn’t understand what they were going for”, but ultimately, Macchio felt that “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.”
The circumstances of both 2010’s The Karate Kid and the movie’s eventual merging with the mainline Karate Kid franchise is a trajectory few could have anticipated. Originally, the Jaden Smith-Jackie Chan led Karate Kid was marketed as a remake of the 1984 original, albeit with the setting changed to China and the martial arts focus shifted to kung fu. While overall a well-received box office success, 2010’s The Karate Kid struggled to get its own equivalent of The Karate Kid: Part II off the ground for over a decade, only for the streaming phenomenon of Cobra Kai to enter the picture.
Originally beginning on YouTube Red before shifting over to Netflix, Cobra Kai ran for six seasons, focusing Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso and William Zabka’s Johnny Lawrence trying to set aside their adolescent rivalry and train their respective groups of students. Cobra Kai became one of the most popular streaming shows in recent memory, with numerous spin-offs reportedly in development. Meanwhile, Karate Kid: Legends ended up acting as a franchise uniter of sorts, retconning the 2010 Karate Kid from a remake into a chapter of the main Karate Kid franchise.
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In Karate Kid: Legends, Jackie Chan reprises his role as Mr. Han from 2010’s The Karate Kid, Han a wise kung fu master who previously trained Jaden Smith’s Dre Parker, and who has gone on to establish his own thriving kung fu school in Beijing. Han comes to help his student Li Fong (Ben Wang) when he enters a high stakes martial arts tournament in New York City, in order to save the pizza parlor of Victor Lipani (Joshua Jackson) and his daughter Mia (Sadie Stanley). Knowing the kind of competition Li is up against, Han recruits Daniel LaRusso – Han having been a friend of Daniel’s late mentor, Mr. Miyagi – in order to train Li in kung fu and karate for the upcoming tournament.
1984’s The Karate Kid is a beloved relic of both the ’80s and of the martial arts genre generally, so going into a remake like 2010’s The Karate Kid would inevitably bring with it both high expectations and a degree of the territoriality Macchio refers to. By the same token, the electrifying revival of the proper Karate Kid franchise via Cobra Kai was a major twist of fate, and one that a remake like the 2010 Karate Kid generally seems to preclude, but which ultimately opened a door to bring the entire Karate Kid universe under one roof.
With several Cobra Kai spin-offs in the works and the debut of a new Karate Kid protagonist in Ben Wang’s Li Fong, the possibilities for where the franchise could go are endless, especially with Jackie Chan’s Mr. Han mentoring Li right alongside Ralph Macchio’s Daniel. 2010’s The Karate Kid definitely left an impact upon its release, and thanks to Karate Kid: Legends, it’s become an even more foundational building block of the entire Karate Kid franchise.
2010’s The Karate Kid can be rented on Amazon Prime Video, Fandago at Home, and Apple TV, and Karate Kid: Legends is now playing in theaters.
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