‘Karate Kid: Legends’ is a formidable and expertly orchestrated updating of the original ‘Karate Kid’ movie from 1984, about the young boy from the wrong side of the tracks who is bullied and ridiculed but who comes of age through the tenacity he exhibits in reaching his goals as a fighter and who comes out on top. Ralph Macchio reprises his role here as the now adult Daniel (who looks twenty years younger than he is) with Jackie Chan in the mentor role, channelling the Mr. Miyagi character from the 1984 original.

The formula is largely the same from the first film, but here there are also reflections on the passing of time, the death of those closest to us and the need to honour their legacy, and the necessity of making a mark in life against the backdrop of those opponents whose mission is to try and quell the incipient talent one has to succeed. Here it is from the family of the teenage student Li Fong (Ben Wang) that much of the opposition comes, as his doctor mother doesn’t want to see her son compromise his life by fighting, an especially heartfelt piece of advice after her other son, a martial arts champion, lost his life after the boy he beat in the ring back in Beijing came after him outside of the ring, following the match, out of jealousy and took his life in the process.

This film also plays on the motif of the mentor and mentee changing places, though here it is Li Fong who reverses roles and becomes the boxing mentor to his girlfriend’s father Victor (Joshua Jackson) whose own distinction in the ring has been dormant for decades after he prioritized the raising by himself of his daughter Mia (Sadie Stanley) but now, after he owes money to an unsavoury loan shark, he needs to get back in the ring in order to save his restaurant on which he is at risk of defaulting, and is cheated by an illegal blow which incapacitated him. What we have here is a classic underdog narrative – and it is no coincidence that the director of the 1984 original, John G. Avildsen, won an Oscar a decade earlier for the first of the ‘Rocky’ films.

There are some cackhanded expository attempts at the start to suggest that karate and kung fu are really two different branches of the same tree, but there is something winning about having a protagonist who journeys from one cultural location (Beijing) to another (New York) and using his skills learned in the former to make his mark in the latter. Along the way the film deals with grief, loss, the death of a brother, and the fine line between love and compulsion, and the vindication of fighting, and the violence that comes with it, when love is in the air.