By Charles Pugh
The 1980s were one of the best decades for escapist entertainment in music, television and film genres such as fantasy, sci-fi and the subject matter of this list, sports themed underdog stories. While films such as Rocky and The Bad News Bears started in the late seventies, it was the high financial success of the sequels that led to Field of Dreams, Chariots of Fire and even 90s examples like The Mighty Ducks.
One of the most important and unique examples goes back to the first Rocky film, when the director to that film, John G. Alvidsen, teamed up with future Fifth Element writer, Robert Mark Kamen, to bring a concept that the latter wrote based on his teenage years, of him learning martial arts to defend himself against bullies, that was described as “Rocky with Karate”, The Karate Kid. This list will rank all the stories of this franchise that made audiences fall in love with the “wax on, wax off” way of life, apart from the short lived animated series.
7. The Next Karate Kid (1994)
Directed by: Christopher Cain
Written by: Mark Lee
Starring: Hilary Swank, Pat Morita, Constance Towers, Chris Conrad, Walton Goggins, Sonny Trinidad and Michael Ironside
Music by: Bill Conti
Rated: PG
A decade after his adventures with Daniel LaRusso, Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) travels to Boston to pay tribute to a late fellow fighter from his days in the 442nd Infantry Regiment during World War II, where he his introduced to the latter’s granddaughter, Julie Pierce (Hilary Swank). Despite disapproving of her bad temper and her constantly getting into trouble at school, Miyagi is impressed at Julie’s skills in karate, and decides to make her his next student, while also having to deal with another aggressive martial arts instructor, Col. Dugan (Michael Ironside)…
Regarded as the black sheep of the Karate Kid franchise due to the fact that it bombed so hard in critical and financial terms, The Next Karate Kid is so despised that not even the hit Netflix sequel series to the films, Cobra Kai, wanted to acknowledge the fact that Miyagi trained another student in his last appearance.
However, aside from the lack of originality and a lot of pointless subplots, this stand-alone sequel isn’t the worst sequel out there, as once again, Pat Morita’s Miyagi once again saves the film, with Michael Ironside and Michael Cavalieri making for fun new antagonists.
While Hilary Swank’s new titular character does get off to a very bad first impression, Julie does get more interesting over time and for her first performance, Swank did the best she could do with the unoriginal material.
Overall, despite not being that bad, The Next Karate Kid is definitely the weakest film in the franchise with unoriginal characters and unfunny slapstick.
Rating: 2/5
6. Karate Kid: Legends (2025)
Directed by: Jonathan Entwhistle
Written by: Rob Lieber
Starring: Ben Wang, Jackie Chan, Joshua Jackson, Sadie Stanley, Ming-Na Wen, Aramis Knight, Wyatt Oleff and Ralph Macchio
Music by: Dominic Lewis
Rated: 12A
Fifteen years after helping Dre Parker, Kung Fu master Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), now owns his own successful dojo in Beijing, but is forced to say goodbye to his great-nephew, Li Fong (Ben Wang) and his mother (Ming-Na Wen) when they move to New York City. After Li gets into familiar troubles when he crosses paths with yet another aggressive karate prodigy, Conor Day (Aramis Knight), Han goes to New York in order to help Fong defeat Day as well as recruit the late Mr. Miyagi’s best friend, Sensei Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), who, three years after his adventures with Johnny Lawrence, may know a way to combine karate with kung fu…
Despite not really leaving an impact when it came out aside from Jackie Chan’s performance , the 2010 remake of 1984’s martial arts masterpiece, The Karate Kid, ended up becoming the highest grossing instalment of the franchise, in spite of the fact that there wasn’t actually any karate in the film, focusing on kung fu instead. A direct sequel was greenlit with Chan and Jaden Smith set to return in 2014, but numerous production delays, Chan’s dissatisfaction with the script and Smith’s film career not going well, ended up pushing the franchise onto the mat. It seemed that the Karate Kid franchise’s legacy was over, until something completely unexpected in the late 2010s changed everything.
Starting off as exclusive YouTube Premium streaming series before moving to Netflix in its third season, Cobra Kai, a sequel series to the original films, was a massive success with critics and audiences worldwide, which told an epic story that tied up all loose ends of the story, gave almost every character new depths, while also introducing loads of lovable new ones and brought a whole new generation to the series. With the show coming to an end in February 2025, it is not surprising that Sony would be much more confident in bringing the films back, with an interesting twist. As they still wanted Jackie Chan in the film, they decided that the 2010 remake would be brought into the same universe as the original films, with Chan’s Miyagi-like character from the remake, Mr. Han, revealed to have been a friend of Miyagi and that he would team up with Daniel LaRusso, three years after the events of Cobra Kai.
While this does sound like a smart move to relaunch the franchise on the big screen, the problem with Karate Kid: Legends is that it plays it way too safe, reusing the same formula from the 1984 and 2010 films of a kid moving to a new location, he gets in trouble with an aggressive fighter over a girl and gets trained by a mentor to beat him in a tournament. While this formula is easy for mainstream audiences to love, and it was proven to work with the Creed films within the Rocky franchise, if anyone loves the interesting twists and subversive elements of Cobra Kai, don’t expect this here.
However, Ben Wang does make for a likeable new lead, with his subplots of him already being a great kung fu student and him teaching his skills to help his girlfriend’s father (Joshua Jackson) become better at boxing, being the best parts of this film. Jackie Chan’s Mr. Han and Ralph Macchio’s Daniel, fresh off of Cobra Kai, do have fun chemistry, with the jokes regarding their approach to teaching, getting the biggest laughs.
Overall, despite being very predictable and the questionable pace and editing of the fight sequences, Karate Kid: Legends does manage to be a entertaining return to the big screen dojo for this franchise, even though a Cobra Kai film would have been more exciting.
Rating: 3/5
5. The Karate Kid Part III (1989)
Directed by: John G. Avildsen
Written by: Robert Mark Kamen
Starring: Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Thomas Ian Griffith, Robyn Lively, Sean Kanan and Martin Kove
Music by: Bill Conti
Rated: PG
Shortly after returning from Okinawa back to San Francisco, both Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and his karate teacher and best friend, Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), open a bonsai tree shop together after losing their homes. However, their old nemesis, Cobra Kai leader John Kreese (Martin Kove), has hired his Vietnam war companion, a corrupt billionaire named Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), to seek revenge on the duo…
Derided at the time of its release due to the recycling of the plot of the first Karate Kid film and Ralph Macchio’s Daniel regressing as a character, the third film, as well as the final one to focus on the relationship between him and Miyagi, is not as bad as its reputation suggests.
As mentioned even by some of the harshest critics during 1989, Thomas Ian Griffith is the best part of The Karate Kid Part III, thanks to his ferocious fighting style and his hilarious over the top performance, which, despite being slight derided as being unrealistic for a billionaire to act at the time, was sadly ahead of its time, given how today’s billionaires act at the slightest moment of being criticised.
While Director John G. Avildsen, writer Robert Mark Kamen and even Ralph Macchio have not looked back fondly at the third film, the former two still manages to make this feel as emotional and well directed as the previous films, and Pat Morita is once again, fantastic as Mr. Miyagi.
Overall, despite being the weakest entry of the Daniel-Miyagi story arc, The Karate Kid Part III is not a complete train wreck, as the best parts of this franchise are still present, even if the series was running out of ideas by this point.
Rating: 3/5
4. The Karate Kid Part II (1986)
Directed by: John G. Avildsen
Written by: Robert Mark Kamen
Starring: Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Nobu McCarthy, Tamlyn Tomita, Danny Kamekona, Yuji Okumoto, William Zabka and Martin Kove
Music by: Bill Conti
Rated: PG
Six months after defeating Cobra Kai, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) learns that his best friend and karate teacher, Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), is heading back to his home village in Okinawa, to say goodbye to his dying father (Charlie Tanimoto). Choosing to join him on his journey back home, both Daniel and Miyagi soon find themselves in the middle of a generational conflict between the latter and his former friend, industrialist Sato Toguchi (Danny Kamekona) and his psychotic nephew, Chozen (Yuji Okumoto), who both want to settle an old debt with a literal death match…
As the wise and friendly karate master, Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), was the most popular character of 1984’s The Karate Kid, it only made sense for director John G. Avildsen to focus the sequel on him. As a result, The Karate Kid Part II fully embraces the Eastern philosophy of Miyagi, and his backstory is given much more weight with the new location of his home town, offering some fantastic worldbuilding.
While a lot less focused on the karate aspect of the franchise, which does make Daniel feel like a side character at times without much to do, Pat Morita is the heart and soul of the film, with his relationships with new characters, Sato and his own love interest, Yukie (Nobu McCarthy), showing new depths to this fantastic character.
Overall, while the ending battle does feel out of place with the rest of the film’s laid back nature, as if it suddenly remembered that it was a Karate Kid film and had to quickly add in a conflict, The Karate Kid Part II is an interesting continuation of the story of Daniel and Miyagi.
Rating: 3.5/5
3. The Karate Kid (2010)
Directed by: Harald Zwart
Written by: Christopher Murphey
Starring: Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, Taraji P. Henson, Wenwen Han, Zhenwei Wang and Yu Rongguang
Music by: James Horner
Rated: PG
Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) has his life turned upside down when he and his mother, Sherry (Taraji P. Henson), move from Boston, America to Beijing, China. Despite forming a crush on a gifted student named Meiying (Wenwen Han), Dre finds himself in trouble with a brutal boy named Cheng (Zhenwei Wang), the toughest kung fu fighter in the ruthless Fighting Dragon dojo. Only with the help of Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), a lonely janitor with a hidden skill for kung fu, can Dre ever hope to defeat Cheng at the upcoming tournament…
Released at the height of Hollywood’s obsession of remaking and rebooting every 80s action film throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s, the Will Smith-produced update of the classic 1984 film, The Karate Kid, does manage to be one of the better ones, even if the title is a complete lie, as karate is not in this film at all.
Despite being a bit too long for a sports film and Jaden Smith’s performance as the Daniel LaRusso-type character being hit or miss, Jackie Chan does a fantastic job as the Miyagi replacement, Mr. Han. Bringing a more gruffer and younger take on this mentor role, their relationship gives off more of an older brother-younger brother approach, which is made more heartwarming when the story comes to the point of his tragic backstory.
Overall, with fantastic fight sequences, Zhenwei Wang giving an absolutely demented performance as a completely different take on the Johnny role and incredible visual presentations of China and its kung fu community, the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid (or not, since the next film, Karate Kid: Legends, reveals that the remake took place in the same universe as the original films), is a great update on the original series, with a greater emphasis on its themes and on the culture of martial arts, even in spite of the lying title.
Rating: 4/5
2. The Karate Kid (1984)
Directed by: John G. Alvidsen
Written by: Robert Mark Kamen
Starring: Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Elisabeth Shue, William Zabka, Martin Kove and Randee Heller
Music by: Bill Conti
Rated: 12A
After moving from Newark, New Jersey to Reseda, California, teenager Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), strikes up a romance with cheerleader Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue), which gets him targeted for brutal bullying by her ex-boyfriend, Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka). After discovering that Johnny is a part of Cobra Kai, an infamous karate group known for its brutality, Daniel receives unexpected help from his new neighbour, an eccentric, yet wise and kind-hearted Okinawan man named Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), who agrees to train him in karate for an upcoming tournament…
Although it is obvious that director John G. Avildsen decided to just take his most famous film, Rocky, make the protagonist a young boy instead of a young adult Italian man, and switch the sport from boxing to karate for The Karate Kid, it is clear that he is an expert at making timeless underdog sports films.
Pat Morita absolutely deserved his Best Supporting Actor nomination as one of the best mentor characters in cinema, Mr. Miyagi, and his relationship with Ralph Macchio’s Daniel, is one of the most heartwarming out there, especially in several emotional plot twists. Both William Zabka and the delightfully over the top Martin Krove make for fun antagonists, though even before Cobra Kai would completely transform the character of Johnny Lawrence into a much more sympathetic one, his final actions do manage to convey a more complex character once he realises the dark truth about his master.
Overall, with a greater focus on the ideals of learning karate only for self-defence, keeping in touch with Eastern philosophy, and a timeless underdog story about standing up to injustice, The Karate Kid is another fantastic sports film from the people that also brought the Italian Stallion to life.
Rating: 4.5/5
What, you’re wondering why there is no film at number one. That is because….
Number 1 is: COBRA KAI! (2018-2025)
Directed by: Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, Jennifer Celotta, Steve Pink, Michael Grossman, Lin Oeding, Steven Tsuchida, Marielle Woods, Joel Novoa, Tawnia McKiernan, Ralph Macchio, Sherwin Shilati, Joe Piarulli and William Zabka
Written by: Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, Joe Piarulli, Stacey Harman, Michael Jonathan Smith, Jason Belleville, Kevin McManus, Matthew McManus, Luan Thomas, Bob Dearden, Alyssa Forleiter, Mattea Greene, Bill Posley, Ashley Darnell, Chris Rafferty, Emily Abbott, Olga Lexell and Kyle Civale
Starring: William Zabka, Ralph Macchio, Courtney Henggeler, Xolo Maridueña, Tanner Buchanan, Mary Mouser, Jacob Bertrand, Gianni DeCenzo, Martin Kove, Peyton List, Vanessa Rubio, Thomas Ian Griffith and Dallas Dupree Young
Music by: Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson
Rated: 15
No words, just watch the amazing show!
Rating: 5/5
Chaz’s Cinematic Odyssey 