Karate Kid: Legends, Kankhajura

Karate Kid: Legends Is The Crown Jewel Of Hollywood Mediocrity

Karate Kid: Legends single-handedly undoes the nostalgia and cultural impact of every single Karate Kid story in the last four decades. Rahul Desai reviews.

Dir: Jonathan Entwistle

Cast: Ben Wang, Jackie Chan, Ralph Macchio

Playing in: Theatres

THE LAST FEW YEARS have been spent watching the downfall of mainstream Hindi cinema. I’ve reviewed so many atrocious Bollywood movies that I often sound like a bitter Indian dad citing the example of the exemplary “Sharma-ji Ka Beta” when I write about a foreign film. I can’t help but compare — and wave my finger disapprovingly at my litter. But once in a while, an absolutely horrid Hollywood movie like Karate Kid: Legends arrives (last year it was Madame Web ), and all feels right with the world. The mediocrity is almost soothing because, as an Indian cinephile, it doesn’t feel so lonely anymore. They can be just as bad as us; it feels so nice to say that. We’re all in this together: divided by borders but united by bad cinema.

Karate Kid: Legends single-handedly undoes the nostalgia and cultural impact of every single Karate Kid story in the last four decades. If anything, it makes us question the sanctity of the past entries. It is so annoyingly assembled, half-hearted, poorly shot, haphazardly edited, tropey, cash-grabbing and lazy that I’ve seen 30-second influencer reels and animated Panda franchises with better emotional and production values. A sequel to the underrated Jaden Smith-starring The Karate Kid (2010) and the Cobra Kai Netflix series, this mercifully short 95-minute dumpster fire revolves around a Chinese boy, Li Fong (Ben Wang), who gives up kung fu in Beijing and moves to New York with his doctor-mother. She forces him to stop fighting because he has a dead brother who was killed by a bitter rival after winning a tournament. So, of course, he fights again. His teacher, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), who was once a grieving janitor-turned-shifu in The Karate Kid , isn’t done with him.

Li’s American accent isn’t explained till around 10 minutes in, when the local white girl dutifully asks the question we’re all stumped about. His explanation — that he studied at an American school in Hong Kong — rivals the corny London backstory that most Katrina Kaif characters are given to justify her accent. Not once does Li look or sound like the new outlier on the block, and in no time, there’s a campy and unimaginative Karate-champ bully, a love interest, her middle-aged father who wants to get back to amateur boxing under this kid’s tutelage (go figure), a ‘Five Boroughs’ underground martial arts competition (whose final is on the terrace of a skyscraper during the longest twilight hour ever), and not one but two throwback mentors because it’s been a long franchise. Once the pizzeria is in trouble and the boxer-owner is hospitalised (because Li sucked as a teacher), the kung-fu expert sets out to fight the 80s-Bollywood-coded bully in a Karate tournament for a cash prize.

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Kankhajura Is A Toothless Series About Vindication

The eight-episode series by Chandan Arora takes some interesting strands and instead of crafting a compelling psychological drama, dunks them in the excess of a thriller, writes Ishita Sengupta.

Dir: Chandan Arora

Cast: Roshan Mathew, Mohit Raina, Sarah-Jane Dais, Trinetra Haldar

Streaming on: SonyLIV

IN CHANDAN ARORA'S Kankhajura , an actor is pitted against the show. This isn’t the story, but the effect. Roshan Mathew plays the protagonist and delivers a performance that is at once suited to the presumed complexity of the series and at odds with the inert ambition of it. The bravura turn uplifts Arora’s work, prompting a reading of what it could have been had it strived harder, and underlines its failure to match up to the merit of its protagonist.

Arora is Ashu, a timid young man who stutters when anxious. And, he is anxious all the time. His eyes are perpetually lowered, and his back is slouched like he is pinned against the wall. His defeatist body language suggests decades of bullying, and yet, he was imprisoned for killing someone. The only person who gets him going is his brother, Max (Mohit Raina), a flamboyant builder dissimilar to his sibling in every way. Max is ambitious and reassured, forceful and scheming.

When Ashu comes out of prison 14 years later, Max shelters him, only to gradually start distancing himself. He has his group of brash friends (Pedro played by Ninad Kamat and Shardul by Mahesh Shetty), and his younger brother is not just a misfit in it, he doesn’t even fit. Ashu, however, only wants to please his brother. Max, a married man with a daughter, has a big development project in the wings. His politician uncle has made it possible and Max has focused all his energy on keeping things together. Ashu, who only has eyes for him, tries doing the same.

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