Was this screenplay created using artificial intelligence?  Karate Kid: Legends is as clichéd and cheesy as anything we have seen all year.  It’s centred on Li Fong (Wang), an English-speaking teenager who, after his mother accepts a new job, has moved from his home in Beijing to the hustle and bustle of New York City.  Li loves kung fu but, after his older brother was tragically killed in a fight-gone-wrong, mum has laid down the law and said he cannot fight under any circumstances.

That changes when Li walks into a neighbourhood pizza shop and befriends the owner, Victor (Jackson), and his hardworking daughter, Mia (Stanley).  The 40-something-year-old Victor owes money to violent goons (times are tough in the pizza industry) and so, as a former boxer, he decides to get back in the ring and win the cash needed to save his business.  He weirdly asks the inexperienced Li to help him train for the one-off fight.

This gets Li’s own competitive juices flowing and so he enters something – an annual kung fu tournament with a winner-takes-all cash prize of $50,000 (yet the number of entrants is bizarrely low).  Li’s skills are underwhelming, to say the least, and so he enlists the services of his great uncle (Chan) and the veteran Daniel LaRusso (Macchio) as part of his own preparation.  Despite their age, they magically teach him everything within a week… and it’s off to the tournament we go!  Oh, and did I mention that Li has fallen in love with Mia and will have to fight her ex-boyfriend at the competition?

The rushed nature to several subplots makes the script even worse and yet, the film is (kind of) redeemed by a fun lead performance from newcomer Ben Wang (American Born Chinese).  He infuses Li with likeable charm and hence, he becomes an easy character to applaud in his quest to find love and success.  Saving the best scene for last, a kung fu clash at sunset atop a Manhattan high rise, also works in the movie’s favour.

If you are wondering where this fits into the Karate Kid universe, it serves as a follow-on to the successful television series Cobra Kai, running from 2018 to 2025, which itself was a spin-off set three decades after the events of The Karate Kid which first premiered in 1984.  The original earned an Oscar nomination for star Pat Morita and while this new instalment will satisfy families looking for easy-to-digest entertainment, you will not be hearing its name at next year’s Oscars ceremony.