Legends’ exclusive first look unites Jackie Chan, Ralph Macchio around the next generation

Ben Wang first fell in love with The Karate Kid franchise in a movie theater in 2010, watching Jaden Smith’s Dre Parker rehearse”jacket on, jacket off” with his sensei, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan).

“I was the target audience when that movie came out. I was exactly the age of the character,” Wang says Weekly entertainment. “That whole movie is set in Beijing, and I had just come back from living in Beijing for a year. Also, I grew up watching Jackie Chan movies. He’s the first memory I have of knowing what an actor is . It was all my favorite things in one place.”

Thirteen years later, Sony announced a global casting search for a new Karate Kid to star alongside Chan and OG Kid Ralph Macchio in a new film directed by Jonathan Entwistle. At the time, Wang already had a starring role in the martial arts-heavy Disney+ series American born Chinese and a practical knowledge of Taekwondo, but he did not immediately consider himself for the role. “I thought, ‘This is going to be great, whichever kid gets it,'” he recalls with a laugh.

Humility aside, Wang beat out over 10,000 other wax-on, wax-off hopefuls to land the role of Karate Kid: Legends‘ Li Fong, a Beijing-based teenager who moves to New York City with his mother (Ming-Na Wen). The teenager’s transition to the Big Apple is, to put it mildly, sour: Li has trouble fitting in at his new school, and he keeps getting dragged into fights he’d very much like to avoid. According to Sony’s official plot synopsis: “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) gets the original Karate Kid Daniel LaRusso ( Ralph) Macchio) for help, and Li learns a new way to fight, fusing their two styles into one for the ultimate martial arts showdown.”

But how does Mr. He about Daniel LaRusso? Where does Mr. Miyagi (the late Pat Morita) into the story? And what is the connection between Legends and Netflix Cobra Kai? EW hit Wang and Entwistle for answers — politely, of course.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY BLOCK: There have been rumblings about another The Karate Kid films with Jackie Chan since 2014. Finally, Sony announced what would ultimately be Karate Kid: Legends in 2022. Jonathan, at what point did you become involved in the project?

JONATHAN ENTWISTLE: Well, I was originally sent the script in early 2022. It had all the pieces for Ben’s character, Li, but it had a very different ending. One of the things that was really exciting to me when I first read it was this idea of ​​connecting the Jackie Chan character of Mr. Him with Daniel LaRusso, both from the movies and then what (his character) had become Cobra Kai. When I first read the script, Cobra Kai was nowhere near as far as it is now. It all sprouted at about the same time.

Ben, you sent in a tape of yourself for your first audition. Did you show any martial arts skills in that video?

BEN WANG: I did martial arts. I was actually visiting my mother in China at the time. My mother worked in the countryside at this school in a rural province and I got the email on my phone. They said, “They want to see you do martial arts.” So I made the tape in the gym at her school. (To Jonathan) I don’t know if you guys ever looked at it and said, “Where the hell is he?” (Laughing)

YOU: It was very important that we could have someone who could speak Mandarin and who could do martial arts, and we also wanted someone who was a great actor. These three things are really, really hard to find. We started seeing the many, many, many (audition) tapes and a lot of people could do one or two of the three, but it was really hard to find the holy trinity. When we first saw Ben’s tape, we were like, “Wow, this kid is in the countryside in China. We found this guy who’s in the middle of nowhere. Wow, this is amazing,” only to find out that he is from Minnesota (Laughing) But it also helped us because Ben could fluently understand the Mandarin and the American side of what the story was about.

Ben, what background do you have in martial arts?

BW: The truth is that I have a little bit of experience in many different kinds of martial arts, but most of it was after school Taekwondo that I did when I was in elementary school. It was really fun and I had some great teachers, but it’s not really at the level that would prepare you to make a film like this. Most of the stuff you see in the film is what I worked on with the amazing stunt team led by our stunt coordinators, Larry Lam and Peng Zhang. I trained with them for about a month and a half before we started shooting. We trained five days a week, but I trained on my own on the weekends, so it was just non-stop.

By bringing Mr. He and Daniel LaRusso together, the film establishes that OG The Karate Kid and 2010 The Karate Kid exist in the same universe, also called the Miyagi-verse. Jonathan how come mr. Him and Daniel-san together in this story?

YOU: Without giving too much away, I can say that Mr. He and Mr. Miyagi is the connection to Daniel. The Han family and the Miyagi family are connected all the way back to ancient times. And there is a mention of this within The Karate Kid film canon for the people who want to go out and look for it.

And how would you describe Jackie Chan’s presence on set?

YOU: Besides being a wonderful human being who is very warm, he is the type of actor who does not leave. When his day is over, you’ll often find him sitting next to me, sitting next to the DP, telling stories, talking to the actors. Jackie Chan is a movie star, and that’s something you don’t see much anymore. He had the ability to come up with a little idea that I had never thought of – and all of Jackie’s little ideas are in the film. He was like the magical Dumbledore for us on the set and he is in the film as well.

Can you give me an example of one of his little ideas?

YOU: There’s a wonderful fight sequence in the movie that I’m not going to spoil, and Jackie had the idea to jump out at Ben from a random corner of this room without Ben even knowing where he was supposed to be. He would spring from the place that would have the greatest effect. He was always looking for an opportunity to either roll on the floor, roll over a table, jump off a flight of stairs – he would just say, “I’m going to do this.” None of us ever had a choice. It was like Jackie wanted an idea and we just shot it because it’s Jackie and it was always going to be great.

Some of the film takes place in New York City, and according to those who saw the teaser at New York Comic-Conthere are fights in very New York locations, like the subway. Jonathan, how else do you incorporate the city setting into the story?

YOU: That’s the idea of ​​- in a classic The Karate Kid sense — the fish out of water. Ben’s character, Li, is finding his way around town and he gets caught up in something that will force him to stand up and fight. I was really excited about how we can make New York feel like a character—not just visually, but how can that interact with the way he feels and what he does? We put it together by shooting on location, and we built some pieces of New York (on soundstages). There are many areas that really involve the Manhattan skyline, and you can see small hints of that in the poster for the film. It was important that it felt like we got some enjoyment out of the action sequences, and fighting and training in the city really gives you that.

Ben, give us a preview of the most challenging scene you had to shoot.

BW: Our stunt team and the whole crew were so excellent that these fight scenes – which are very, very, very difficult to do – they had plans for every contingency, for everything that had to be done. Those were really long and really hard days, but it never felt impossible. It’s not super sexy, but on movies like this, the hardest thing is when you have to pretend it’s summer but it’s winter and it’s 30 degrees and you’re wearing a T-shirt and Jonathan goes, (mimics the director’s British accent) “No! Do it again. Go back to them, start again!” And you freeze, you try really hard to act, and you take 17 takes. And then Jonathan says, “Okay, I think we’ll just use the first one.” (Laughing)

YOU: Accurate. (Laughing) We set out to make something that was both cinematic and action-packed. The fight sequences, they are really exciting. My hope is that when you sit in that theater, you are on the edge of your seat.

Jonathan, you were in touch with Cobra Kai creators throughout production, and we know it this movie takes place after the events of Cobra Kai series finale. What else can you tell us about how Karate Kid: Legends connects to the world of Cobra Kai?

YOU: I’ve been a huge fan of Cobra Kai right from the beginning, and that’s one of the reasons why I thought it was an exciting project. I was excited about the idea that the movies and the series can all be part of one family. I’ve had some really detailed conversations with Cobra Kai team on just cool stuff that we can do in the movie and can make it all feel holistic. And of course Ralph is really, really close to it after all these years Cobra Kaiand they have been involved in small steps along the way. Everything we talked about made it into the movie in one way or another, either through Ralph or through the conversations. We are really happy that we have added another piece to the total universe.

Karate Kid: Legends opens in theaters on Friday, May 30, 2025.