Jackie Chan is returning for the upcoming Karate Kid: Legends, and this means an explanation regarding a weird 2010 The Karate Kid detail is a must. The famed martial arts star played a wise king fu teacher, Mr. Han, with Jaden Smith playing his underdog student, Dre. The formula of the 2010 movie was nearly identical to that of the original 1984 The Karate Kid, though with a different setting and characters. It was initially acknowledged as a remake, but the way audiences originally understood the Karate Kid universe is now being changed.
Karate Kid Legends features a new titular karate kid,
Li Fong (Ben Wang), who will be taught by the joint efforts of Mr. Han and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio). This is an exciting concept since fans have long been hoping to see these two characters brought together. It had been hoped that Chan would join up with the cast of Netflix’s Karate Kid spinoff series, Cobra Kai, but the showrunners noted that this would be impossible since the characters of 2010’s The Karate Kid exist in a separate universe. Karate Kid: Legends has proved them wrong, but the movie will still have some explaining to do.
Mr. Han, was constructed to be a rebooted version of Mr. Miyagi. Smith’s Dre was the new Daniel LaRusso, and their time together practicing through practical means like waxing a car or hanging up a jacket was also meant to mimic the original 1984 story. This is pretty standard for a remake, but now that Karate Kid: Legends has placed Chan’s movie in the same universe as Macchio’s, it’s far stranger that these characters would all share so much in common. How could identical stories happen to different characters in different times and places?