You’d be forgiven if you glanced at the monotonous western “Tornado” and decided that it’s a handsome genre exercise. The movie, which was shot in Scotland and set in 1790s Britain, follows a handful of laconic characters as they chase after each other for the usual formulaic reasons: gold and revenge. Writer/director John Maclean (“Slow West”) reteams with director of photography Robbie Ryan (“Poor Things”) for a typically attractive collaboration, which makes “Tornado” easy enough on the eyes. That helps considerably whenever the action lets up in this dialogue-light chase movie. 

Substantive themes are hinted at throughout, though they’re most clearly (and bluntly) articulated in the movie’s load-bearing dialogue between the title heroine (Kōki), a samurai-sword-wielding teenager, and her father Fujin (Takehiro Hira), a traveling puppeteer. By contrast, Tim Roth and “Slow Horses” star Jack Lowden, playing a father/son duo of scruffy bandits, don’t say much that sticks in one’s mind. 

“Tornado” also features a number of eye-popping images thanks to the filmmakers’ emphatic use of forced perspective. The movie may not deliver enough of what its creators offer, but to paraphrase the great Bugs Bunny during a rare self-justifying apology: So it’s mechanical!

Maclean’s latest—his first feature in ten years—begins mid-chase. The title character flees from vicious robber Sugarman (Roth) and his gang, whose members have Dick Tracy-esque names like Squid Lips (Jack Morris) and Lazy Legs (Douglass Russell). Sugarman’s looking for Tornado and a cache of gold; Sugarman’s son, Little Sugar (Lowden), mostly skulks about and looks for opportunities to prove himself. He finds one in Tornado, though he mostly hangs back and lets his dad and his associates go first. 

Meanwhile, Tornado tries to resume her uneasy day-to-day routine with her father, whose home-spun wisdom falls on deaf ears. Admittedly, it’s hard to take seriously folksy dialogue like, “Learn patience. Know when to move and when to wait.” This might have been more endearing coming from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ talking rat mentor Splinter. It’s less impressive coming from a major supporting character who seems to speak for Maclean, like when Fujin, speaking in character as one of his marionettes during a puppet show, explains why we never really learn why Sugarman and his group do what they do since they’re motivated by “the most evil of all reasons—no reason at all.”

Tornado, the daughter of a Japanese man and an absent European mother, only has a little more on her mind. Sugarman’s pursuit triggers her fight-or-flight instincts, and she has no time for her life-lesson-dispensing father. Tornado also happens to live in changing times, when immigrants are still treated like curious anomalies, and swords will soon be replaced with guns. A number of other qualities and storytelling values remain constant, as Maclean suggests when Fujin explains that puppet show audiences “always cheer when evil is winning.” It’s hard not to agree with Tornado when she snarks back: “Because good is boring.”

Then again, Maclean’s right to emphasize the ScottishBritish countryside, both as an eye-catching backdrop and contextualizing environment, since it often dwarfs his human characters and makes them look small or absurd. Many times, the deep focus of any given static camera setup establishes how far the characters have traveled to get from one in-between place to the next. Other times, it serves to show how close together the characters actually are, since they’re just over there, one straight, semi-symmetrical line of sight apart from each other. So it’s very easy to catch a melancholy mood and therefore to appreciate the movie’s sobering atmosphere, even if we’re still stuck watching sketchy characters trudge after and chip away at each other.

There’s also an unusual tonal clash at the heart of “Tornado,” and it’s as apparent as the movie’s suggestive title: Kōki’s young heroine doesn’t simply represent one identity or mood, as a later line of dialogue explains. Maclean’s dramedy likewise features antic comedy, as in an early pratfall involving weak floorboards and a large, heavy named Kitten (Rory McCann), as well as suggestive images of an indifferent, but stunning autumnal landscape. The lighting and the editing in this movie are appealing enough to make you want to get lost in each carefully composed frame. The wispy dialogue, variable tone, and creeping pace make it harder to care.  

Maclean’s execution frequently makes up for his distracting habit of both over- and underthinking certain key concepts. He and his collaborators still know how to achieve the effects they set out to. So your enjoyment of “Tornado” depends on how much you want to root for thinly drawn characters who don’t look strong enough to carry an entire movie. They can and they can’t, depending on how patient you’re feeling.

KARATE KID: LEGENDS is about a young Chinese martial arts prodigy who gets help from his teacher in Beijing and from Mister Miyagi’s prize karate student, Daniel. Li Fong and his mother relocate from Beijing to New York City for an important hospital job. Li attracts unwanted attention from a local karate champion, the ex-boyfriend of a girl Li’s befriended. Li secretly helps the girl’s father, an ex-boxer running a local pizza parlor, train for some boxing matches, to earn extra money to save his business. However, the father’s seriously injured when an opponent cheats. Li feels he owes him something. So, he enters a citywide karate tournament for a $50,000 cash prize.

KARATE KID: LEGENDS has a complex plot leading up to the tournament. So, it lacks the dramatic power of the original 1984 KARATE KID movie. However, it does star Jackie Chan as the kung fu teacher and Ralph Macchio as the original Karate Kid. So, KARATE KID: LEGENDS is fairly entertaining. It has a pro-family worldview extolling honor, fair play and perseverance. However, there’s strong fight scenes and brief foul language.

(BB, CapCap, FR, L, VV, N, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Strong pro-family worldview with strong pro-capitalist elements stresses honor, perseverance, fair play, helping others, and sticking together in times of trouble, a scene shows a wall that seems like a small shrine to a beloved teacher and mother lights a candle by a small photo of her late older son;

Foul Language:

One “s” word, four “a” words, one crude insult, and one OMG profanity;

Violence:

Strong martial arts and boxing violence and three scenes of people fighting on the street includes punching, kicking, flips, a boxing match, a karate tournament, martial arts training, training to box, and a sucker punch on a subway;

Sex:

No sex, but there’s two or three mentions about teenagers having boyfriends;

Nudity:

Upper male nudity during a boxing match and while in training;

Alcohol Use:

No alcohol use, but a mention about a dead man enjoying rice wine;

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

No smoking or drugs and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Villains cheat, such as throwing an illegal boxing punch or sucker punching another teenage boy on the subway when he’s not looking, father of teenage protagonist’s new girlfriend owes money to loan sharks for his pizza restaurant.

In KARATE KID: LEGENDS, a teenage kung fu prodigy from China named Li in New York City needs help from Mister Miyagi’s prize student, Daniel, and Miyagi’s kung fu friend in Beijing, who used to teach Li and his late brother, to win the prize money in a citywide karate tournament to help out the father of Li’s new girlfriend. KARATE KID: LEGENDS has a complex plot structure, so it doesn’t reach the dramatic heights of the classic, original 1984 movie, but it’s an entertaining, pro-family action movie about honor, fair play and perseverance, with lots of martial arts fighting and some foul language, which merit caution for older children and younger teenagers.

Teenage kung fu prodigy Li Fong and his mother, a surgeon, relocate from Beijing to New York City when she gets an important hospital job. Li’s brother died after he and Li had a run-in with a kung fu opponent and his buddies after a tournament. Li feels he let his brother down during the fatal altercation.

Li promised his mother to stop kung fu training and fighting for tournaments. However, in New York, he attracts unwanted attention from a local karate champion who happens to be the ex-boyfriend of Mia, a girl Li has befriended. Also, Li secretly helps the girl’s father, an ex-boxer with a local pizza parlor, train for some boxing matches to earn extra money to pay off a loan shark.

During the first boxing match, however, the father’s opponent throws an illegal punch and puts the father into a coma. Once again, Li feels he let somebody down, Mia as well as her father.

Li feels he owes them something. So, he decides to enter a citywide karate tournament with a $50,000 cash prize. His chances of winning look bleak. However, he gets help in training from his kung fu teacher in Beijing, Mr. Han, who enlists the help of Daniel LaRusso, the prize karate student of the late Mister Miyagi. One of Miyagi’s ancestors and one of Han’s trained together in martial arts long ago.

KARATE KID: LEGENDS has a complex plot structure leading up to the tournament. So, it lacks the dramatic power of the original KARATE KID movie, which was released 41 years ago. However, it does star Jack Chan as the kung fu teacher and Ralph Macchio as Daniel, the original Karate Kid. Macchio has become popular on Netflix recreating his role as Daniel in the hit TV series COBRA KAI. Also, Ben Wang makes a charismatic martial arts fighter in the movie as Li Fong. The movie has a good supporting cast beyond that. So, KARATE KID: LEGENDS is fairly entertaining. It also has some humor. For example, there’s a funny “jacket on, jacket off” routine that mimics the “wax on, wax off” jokes in the original KARATE KID.

KARATE KID: LEGENDS has a pro-family worldview that also stresses honor, perseverance and sticking together in times of trouble. The movie’s dialogue describes Han’s martial arts family and Mr. Miyagi’s martial arts family, which includes Daniel, as two branches coming from one tree. That’s also the kind of relationship the movie’s teenage protagonist, Li, establishes with his girlfriend, Mia, and her father. Finally, the plot revolves around helping a small businessman keeping his successful family business open and thriving.

Of course, there’s plenty of martial arts fighting in KARATE KID: LEGENDS, as well as the boxing match that sends the girl’s father to the hospital. KARATE KID: LEGENDS also has some brief foul language, which is mostly light. Finally, two scenes show light commemorative Buddhist shrines to Mr. Miyagi and to Li’s brother. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises caution for older children and young teenagers.

For more than 40 years, the Karate Kid franchise has entertained fans with a four-film series, a remake-spinoff, and a TV show continuation. Now, the two best-reviewed movies of the bunch are crossing over for Karate Kid: Legends, with original star Ralph Macchio and the 2010 version’s Jackie Chan uniting to train the next martial arts hero, played by Ben Wang. The initial reception for the new installment is mixed, but most agree that it lives up to its past while making a star to watch out of Wang. Also, everyone seems to love Chan and Macchio together.

Here’s what critics are saying about Karate Kid: Legends:

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How does it compare to the other installments?

Legends can hold its head as one of the best installments so far, better than Karate Kid (2010), but nothing on Karate Kid (1984).
— Jack Shepherd, Total Film

As far as Karate Kid movies go, this one can’t match the surprisingly elegant characterization of the first movie, but at 94 crisply paced minutes, it’s less distended than the shockingly overlong 2010 remake, and feels less obligatory than the old Macchio sequels.
— Jesse Hassenger, Paste Magazine

Karate Kid: Legends is a sensational sequel, building on the classic underdog framework of the original 1984 Karate Kid movie, while working in fresh fun, familiar faces, and a dazzling new talent.
— Kristy Puchko, Mashable

This is a fun, breezy adventure that nests right into the world of Karate Kid and largely delivers on the action, laughs, and heart fans love about the IP.
— Ben Wasserman, CBR

While the team-up may be fun for fans of previous Karate Kid movies and Cobra Kai, it also misses the emotional core of these coming-of-age stories.
— Matt Goldberg, The Wrap

[It] adds nothing original to the formula. It’s a formula that works, to be sure, making for a pleasant enough time filler. But that’s about it.
— Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter

Neither as fun as the early seasons of Cobra Kai nor as effective as the 2010 reboot, Karate Kid: Legends relies heavily on franchise favourites while bringing nothing new to the party.
— Tara Brady, Irish Times

Between the first couple of seasons of Cobra Kai and now Legends, The Karate Kid is the rare franchise that can boast one of the very best legacyquels as well as one of the worst.
— Matt Singer, Screen Crush

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Does it fit in well with Cobra Kai?

The movie grows out of that show’s ebullient spirit.
— Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Much like Cobra Kai, Legends has a bit more to say beyond revisiting some Crane Kicking hits.
— Ben Wasserman, CBR

For anyone who’s seen Cobra Kai, [this has] a familiar format, echoing how LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence tried to teach their students both Miyagi-do and Eagle Fang.
— Jack Shepherd, Total Film

Karate Kid: Legends ignores essentially all the events of Cobra Kai… Fans hoping Karate Kid: Legends will continue its storyline in some way should adjust their expectations accordingly.
— Matt Singer, Screen Crush

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How is the story?

The plot is a “paint by the numbers,” generic story…It is also a stereotypical, “feel good” movie where one roots for the underdog and isn’t disappointed in the end.
— Allison Rose, FlickDirect

So simple, so unironic, so cheesy-sincere, so analog that you may feel it transporting you right back to the “innocence” of the ’80s. And that’s the best thing about Karate Kid: Legends.
— Owen Gleiberman, Variety

This is a surprisingly self-contained story all about Li, and a darn good one at that.
— Aidan Kelley, Collider

Turning the formula on its head where the young person will train an older person is a nice twist that still adheres to the standard beats of learning martial arts as material necessity and personal growth.
— Matt Goldberg, The Wrap

Karate Kid: Legends is like the IKEA instruction booklet for making a Karate Kid movie: a marvel of abbreviated, gestural storytelling that should be taught in schools as an example of what a perfectly structured script looks like.
— Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central

This latest installment goes way beyond recycling the basic premise… They might as well have called it Karate Kid: Déjà Vu.
— Matt Singer, Screen Crush

The plot is just awful, crammed with so many cliches that you’re barely done chuckling at one before another kicks you in the head.
— Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter

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Does it play better for older fans or newer audiences?

Older audiences will reminisce about watching Macchio play the Karate Kid. In comparison, younger audiences will enjoy the story and Ben Wang’s skills as an actor and martial artist.
— Allison Rose, FlickDirect

It’s certainly a crowd-pleasing film that will make you feel good all the way through, no matter how long you’ve been with the franchise.
— Mae Abdulbaki, Screen Rant

Setting the movie years after Cobra Kai certainly helps sell the movie to casual fans, allowing them to get into the story without having to cram six seasons of television into their heads in advance.
— Ben Wasserman, CBR

The movie ultimately chooses to work for its young audience more than its potentially nostalgic (or puzzled) parents.
— Jesse Hassenger, Paste Magazine

Karate Kid: Legends [is] a movie that understands its identity but still feels forced to cater to older fans in a way that neglects how well the film works for its target audience of younger viewers.
— Matt Goldberg, The Wrap

Starting off with a clip from 1986’s The Karate Kid Part II… there are numerous callbacks to past installments, and the end credits feature a cameo by one more franchise veteran.
— Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter

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How is the pacing?

Karate Kid: Legends is a movie that, for better and worse, doesn’t let up, offering you no chance to catch a breath.
— Jack Shepherd, Total Film

At a cool hour and 34 minutes, the film understands what it means to keep a story tight and moving.
— Mae Abdulbaki, Screen Rant

Working in Karate Kid: Legends‘ favor is how it’s cut and paced a lot like Jeff Rowe’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. It’s jaunty and light.
— Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central

The moment Daniel LaRusso is introduced, Karate Kid: Legends begins sprinting towards its closing moments at a jarring, breakneck pace.
— Aidan Kelley, Collider

Legends barely lasts 90 minutes, and it often feels like it’s been severely truncated in the editing room until all that remained were the training montages and fight scenes.
— Matt Singer, Screen Crush

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And the martial arts action?

The fight scenes are well-choreographed and entertaining.
— Mae Abdulbaki, Screen Rant

For those who are fans of action sequences and especially Karate and Kung Fu, they should especially be pleased with what first-time feature film director Jonathan Entwistle has done to showcase the art form.
— Allison Rose, FlickDirect

[The movie is] designed to give you that “This is not your father’s Ralph Macchio fairy tale!” feeling.
— Owen Gleiberman, Variety

There’s some brilliant choreography on display, especially during one back-alley brawl that sees Li take on a bunch of ruffians. Yet, other fights are cut too fast, and some fancy camera work stops certain hits from having the impact they should.
— Jack Shepherd, Total Film

The fight sequences in Karate Kid: Legends can occasionally feel over-edited with one too many cuts and some creatively distracting animated additions, but on the whole, the fight choreography and stunt-work on display feels more elaborate than any of the prior films.
— Aidan Kelley, Collider

The fights are well-done, but nowhere near as crazy as what people saw on the Netflix series.
— Ben Wasserman, CBR

The fight choreography is passable but never impressive, and an over-reliance on shaky quick cuts drains out some much needed physicality. It doesn’t help that there’s surprisingly few of them.
— Wilson Chapman, IndieWire

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Does it work as a comedy?

It is incredibly funny with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments that land at the right place and at the right time.
— Allison Rose, FlickDirect

Karate Kid: Legends had me laughing.
— Kristy Puchko, Mashable

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How is Ben Wang?

Ben Wang is a great new lead for this series, not just for some stellar martial arts skills, but also for his almost effortless charisma and lovable personality.
— Aidan Kelley, Collider

He’s lithe and captivating.
— Owen Gleiberman, Variety

The young actor exudes an electric, everyman appeal.
— Ben Truitt, USA Today

Wang is excellent not only as an actor but as a student of martial arts.
— Allison Rose, FlickDirect

Wang carries on Chan’s legacy by performing action skillfully while being funny.
— Kristy Puchko, Mashable

An early fight sequence positions Wang to be an able inheritor of Chan’s prop-heavy, comedic, hero-who-gets-hurt style, and he himself is a charming, effortless sort with a touch of ineffable star power.
— Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central

There’s a natural charisma and vulnerability to Wang that lends itself well to Li’s journey… He’s also got a bit of an edge that, like Daniel in the original Karate Kid, defies the usual tropes of a picked-on teenage protagonist.
— Ben Wasserman, CBR

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What about the Ralph Macchio-Jackie Chan team-up?

Watching them spar with Wang and each other is a treat to behold. There is a joy in watching them on screen together that audiences, young and old, will love.
— Allison Rose, FlickDirect

This tag-team of combat gurus turns out to be an ace comedy team.
— Owen Gleiberman, Variety

The few moments where Han and LaRusso bicker over how to teach Li are highlights, albeit underutilized ones.
— Aidan Kelley, Collider

When Chan and Macchio share the screen, it is an absolute joy… It’s such a fun dynamic that you cannot help but partly begrudge the writers for not giving Chan and Macchio more to do.
— Jack Shepherd, Total Film

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Are there any other standouts in the cast?

Sadie Stanley… acts with an eagerly ingenuous personality that feels entirely pre-social media, to the point that she evokes the Ally Sheedy of WarGames. (Yes, that’s a high compliment; keep an eye out for Sadie Stanley.)
— Owen Gleiberman, Variety

Though he’s in a minor role, Wyatt Oleff is a scene-stealer as Alan, Li’s tutor.
— Mae Abdulbaki, Screen Rant

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Does the movie have a villain problem?

Like William Zabka back in the day, Knight nicely inhabits the unstoppable karate villain role, though the movie begs to spend a little more time with him.
— Ben Truitt, USA Today

The film’s villains are a bit of a low point… one-dimensional even by Karate Kid standards.
— Aidan Kelley, Collider

Connor and O’Shea feel like afterthoughts in a way other Karate Kid antagonists didn’t, albeit for more over-the-top reasons pre-Cobra Kai.
— Ben Wasserman, CBR

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

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