Cobra Kai's Daniel LaRusso Joins Forces With Mr. Han In New Karate Kid: Legends Trailer — Watch
There's a new Karate Kid in town, and he has not one, but two senseis ready to show him the ropes.
In Karate Kid: Legends (which takes place three years after the events of Cobra Kai and hits theaters Friday, May 30), a family tragedy forces kung fu prodigy Li Fong (American Born Chinese's Ben Wang) to be uprooted from his home in Beijing and relocated to New York City. "Li struggles to let go of his past as he tries to fit in with his new classmates, and although he doesn't want to fight, trouble seems to find him everywhere," reads the official description. "When a new friend needs his help, Li enters a karate competition — but his skills alone aren't enough. Li's kung fu teacher Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) enlists original Karate Kid Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) for help, and Li learns a new way to fight, merging their two styles into one for the ultimate martial arts showdown."
In the new trailer released Tuesday (watch it embedded below), we see the first footage of Macchio's Daniel meeting Chan's Mr. Han, as the two quickly get acquainted to help Li learn a unique blend of kung fu and karate. Pat Morita makes a brief cameo of sorts via photograph (no AI Miyagi this time), while Daniel informs Li about the Miyagi and Han families' connection throughout history. Always returning to bonsai basics, Daniel tells the boy: "Two branches, one tree."
In addition, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. star Ming-Na Wen is heavily featured in the new trailer, appearing in the film as Li's mother. Joshua Jackson (Doctor Odyssey) and Sadie Stanley (The Goldbergs) also co-star.
Jonathan Entwistle (The End of the F***ing World) directs the film from a script written by Rob Lieber (Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween). According to Sony Pictures, the studio behind the franchise, the movie will both fuse and continue the movies' mythology.
The original Karate Kid hit screens in 1984 and followed Macchio's Daniel LaRusso, a Brooklyn teen who finds himself an unlikely karate champion after being trained by Mr. Miyagi (Morita), his apartment handyman and former karate master. It spawned two sequels, plus a spinoff movie (The Next Karate Kid, which also starred Morita) before it was remade in 2010 starring Jaden Smith and Chan.
A sequel series, Cobra Kai, hit YouTube Premium (fka YouTube Red) eight years later. After two seasons on that platform, the series eventually moved to Netflix, where it continued its run and ended with Season 6. Set decades after the original films, the series stars William Zabka, reprising his role as former bully Johnny Lawrence, who reopens his old dojo in a bid to get his life back on track. Eventually, he teams up with LaRusso, now a rich and successful car dealer, to stop his old mentor John Kreese (Martin Kove) from destroying the minds of the Valley's youth.
Are you excited to see LaRusso's story continue on the big screen? Let us know in the comments below.