'Karate Kid: Legends' is a fresh take on the classic

KARATE Kid: Legends steps, with a light and sprightly gait, into the timeline of the 41-year-old movie and TV franchise, opening with a brief and un-belabored prologue, courtesy of artificial intelligence.

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That intro calls on Mr. Miyagi, the beloved character played by the late Pat Morita, to kick a small chronological incongruity out of the way by resuscitating the actor a la the final season of the spin-off series Cobra Kai.

This brings the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid - originally conceived as a stand-alone kung-fu-themed reboot, set in China and starring action star Jackie Chan as a Miyagi-like mentor to a bullied youth played by Jaden Smith - into the same universe as the first film.

Miyagi’s somewhat unorthodox karate-teaching methods are explained as being partly inspired by a trip to China, where he presumably became friends with Chan's Mr. Han. Miyagi’s famous mantra of “wax on, wax off” was, we are led to believe, a permutation of Han’s “jacket on, jacket off.”

Set in New York City, the new film is cut from much the same cloth as the old: Li, a teenage transplant from Beijing, here played by the charismatic Ben Wang, learns to stand up to a thuggish high school bully, Connor (Aramis Knight), by entering a karate tournament in which Connor is the returning champion.