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The already much-anticipated Karate Kid: Legends, premiering on our 2025 movie guide at the end of May, now has me even more excited. Jonathan Entwistle, the sixth movie’s director, has teased the world’s continuation before, like how Mr. Han fits into the Miyagi verse, and he’s doing it again. This time, he revealed some thrilling details about how the latest flick will reflect some early Jackie Chan work. In a world full of CGI layered sequences and larger-than-life superhero battles, I look forward to watching this influence regain some Hollywood presence.
Entwistle filled Empire in on all things Karate Kid 6. They covered plenty of ground, but a highlight of the conversation related to the iconic Jackie Chan and his martial arts moves. The coming title takes great inspiration from the Hong Kong actor’s early work, along with utilizing a signature filming technique. The I Am Not Okay with This director shared:
Ben was fully training every day with the Chinese stunt team. He knew that I wanted the martial arts in the movie to feel like an early Jackie Chan film, and that’s something we tried really hard to do. We used a lot of classic Hong Kong wire-work.
In my opinion, Legends just got all the more thrilling. Knowing they took note from some classics, plus young star Ben Wang getting fully on board training, is pretty cool. Some of Jackie Chan’s best movies that showcase the influence of fighting structure are not to be missed, especially now with Entwistle’s promise. For any action sequence in any project, there are so many logistics that go into it, but knowing how much the team is training sounds like it’ll be a highly impressive watch.
Judging from the small look into the kung fu, karate, and mashup of the two styles in the first Karate Kid 6 trailer, the callback approach feels exciting (the second teaser from CinemaCon is pretty cool, too). But Jonathan Entwistle also opened up about what goes into one of these numbers is more complex than you’d think. The training team, along with Chan, revealed that it is important to think of the whys and hows of sparking a staged combat. The filmmaker said:
There’s a humour to the way the choreography unfolds. Something that Jackie — and the team — taught us was, ‘What’s the narrative for the fight? Does he pick up a thing off the floor and use that?’ We’re so used to seeing fights done in a certain way, VFX-heavy fight augmentation, the Marvel style of fighting. It was important for me to bring back an in-camera martial-arts approach.
This tease, and all they put into it physically and emotionally, seems like it’ll be a key element to how Karate Kid: Legends plays out on screen. Compared to the various aforementioned MCU and high-tech influences of many physical feuds being the norm today, it’ll be a nice change-up. I’m not sure if there are many movies out there today that can claim this kind of stripped-down choreography.
All of that being said, the coming Mr. Han and Daniel LaRusso team-up to guide Li Fong (Ben Wang) got all the more stellar, knowing what went into the fighting choreography. I have a feeling the vintage approach will be welcomed by any fan like me who enjoys those old Chan titles.
If you’d like to catch up in the Karate Kid world, you can watch the first three movies with a Hulu subscription, 4 with many VOD services, and 5 is free with Roku. Bonus points for those that want to dive into Cobra Kai, available with a Netflix account.