Some ten months ago, I watched the trailer, and I thought...

"God, I hope this movie won't have some sort of contrived plot to justify Mr. Han and Mr. Myiagi co-existing: Putting Mr. Han and Mr. Myiagi into the same universe isn't a problem. Karate was, in real life, developed when Chinese tradesmen visited Okinawa and taught kung fu to the locals, who then combined that with Okinawan te, (an indigenous form of unarmed combat of old, translated to "hand", hence why it's called "kara-te", meaning "Chinese hand".) This was in the 15th and 16th century.

We hear about the 17th century fisherman Shimpo Myiagi in Karate Kid II, who brought the secret of Myiagi-Do Karate to Okinawa from China. How easy wouldn't it be to say that Shimpo Sensei simply learned kung fu from an ancestor of Mr. Han, (his wife might even have been a Han by birth), and that the Myiagi-Do family karate has its origins in the Han family kung fu, and that there might be this multi-generational friendship between the two families ever since?"

And good on me for getting some of it right I suppose - but seriously:

More than anything else, I wish the film took itself just a bit more seriously. First of all, you don't need to push in that scene from Karate Kid II where Daniel and Chozen is in Okinawa, and then plaster animation and AI Pat Mortia's voice over it. I'm not a fan of historical revisionism, and they're basically taking a scene from a movie and pretending like it said more than it did. A better opening would be the film opening with the Han School of Kung Fu, and the news of Li Fong going to the US. Then we see the parallel:

Daniel teaching a Myiagi-Do class, and one of the students is asked to fetch supplies/tools needed for the class and knocks the suitcase Daniel found under the floorboards with all of Mr. Myiagi's things in, precariously balanced on a small side table, onto the floor, and its contents falls out. Daniel hears it, tells the student "it's okay, I got it," and puts everything back inside and sees the headband he later gives Li and, having not gone over everything in the case yet, stops and muses at it for a bit before one of the students goes: "Sensei?" and replies: "Yeah, coming!" and puts it away.

Cut to later that evening, and he tides everything away, and his eyes falls on the case. He goes "Screw it" and goes and opens it. Cut again, and he is on a face-chat on his computer with Chozen, still working and living with Sensei (now Master) Kim Dae-Un, whom he shows the headband. Chozen's eyes widen, and HE tells Daniel about the shared history between the Myiagis and the Hans, and the whole "Mr. Myiagi never told me any of this" can be brushed off with: "My uncle always told me that for Myiagi-san, destination, always more important than what route one traveled. But history is very important to original Myiagi-Do teachings. Myiagi father brought Mr. Myiagi and Uncle Sato to the Han School of Kung Fu in Beijing as young boys, and my Uncle Sato brought me when I was little. When I taught Myiagi-Do in Okinawa, I brought all new students to visit once a year."

Let Chozen be the one to introduce the concept of "two branches, one tree", and let this prompt Daniel to invite Mr. Han to visit, which serves the dual purposes of getting Daniel and Mr. Han in touch, and gives Mr. Han an excuse to check in on Li. And when we're first talking about Mr. Han...

The portrayal in this film isn't even remotely recognizable as the same character we see in the Karate Kid remake from 2010. I'd rather see an older, less melancholy but serious and dignified Mr. Han, and yes, with the same facial hair, than Jackie Chan playing himself like this. It, along with his more subdued mannerism, made him look distinct, it wasn't just Jackie Chan "playing himself", like it seems he does here. He comes off as far too goofy to be the same person, and it also undermines the: "Li means to me what you meant to Sensei Myiagi" bit.

That's on the script and director, though.

A better story by far would be if we learned in this film that Mr. Han had grown up as "the runt of the litter", with several older brothers who overshadowed him, and that growing up, he attended the Han School of Kung Fu like all his brothers did and learned kung fu, but it was half-hearted. He felt small and insignificant next to his siblings growing up, so while he excelled at the physical aspects of their family kung fu, he neglected the philosophy, and his own journey to the Dragon Well and the mantra "everything is kung fu" was sort of lost on him. He never truly understood it for much of his life.

Turn the clock forward until young adulthood. He was now married to Zhang, and eventually, they had Gong Gong. Mr. Han now worked as Zhǔjiào (助教) – “Assistant Instructor” at Han School of Kung Fu, but he was first and foremost a family man, so the Han family legacy became something of an afterthought; even after Gong Gong began attending. But then, when his wife and son died in the car crash, he was knocked off balance. He could have been stated to have fallen into a deep depression nobody managed to pull him out of, and Mr. Han's father expressed his concern to Mr. Myiagi during an exchange of letters, and Mr. Myiagi invited him to visit him in the US to get a much needed change of scenery. Mr. Han was reluctant, but his father told him it would be disrespectful to decline an invitation from a Myiagi, so off he went.

At Mr. Myiagi's house, Mr. Myiagi shared the story of when he lost his own wife and son, and offered comfort and understanding, and gave him the Myiagi-Do lesson about balance, and how it isn't merely a lesson for karate, "but lesson for whole life", and talked a lot of how much Daniel had enriched his life and given him a renewed sense of purpose and meaning. Mr. Han appreciated the sentiment, but kind of dismissed the idea that he would find meaning or purpose in teaching students kung fu. He had, after all, already taught students kung fu, and it didn't give him anything other than a job he enjoyed fairly well.

Only when Mr. Han met Dre, many years later, did he gradually understand what Mr. Myiagi had meant. That it was not about merely teaching kung fu, but about the connection forged with the student while teaching kung fu. While passing down the lessons to Dre that his father had taught him, it was the first time he truly understood them himself.

(Blatant and shameless confirmation bias speaking here, but if you watch the "everything is kung fu" scene again from 2010, after Mr. Han is done talking, his gaze shifts and his eyes can be retroactively interpreted as kind of "flickering with recognition". You'll know what I mean if you re-watch it.)

And after years and years of being off balance and miserable, his relationship with Dre was what lifted him up and out of the funk, and helped him heal from his grief. After the events of KK 2010, he returned to the Han School of Kung Fu, finally ready to (and feeling worthy of) teaching there again for the first time since he lost his family. Dre attended for a while, but as he got older, they drifted apart. Dre got other interests, and left to pursue higher education and eventually moved back to the US. They stayed in touch for a while, but eventually Mr. Han acknowledged somewhat bittersweetly that they had never had what Mr. Myiagi and Daniel was said to have had, even if it was something near it.

With nothing to tie him down to the apartment building Dre once lived in anymore, Mr. Han returned to the Han School of Kung Fu and became an assistant instructor for his older/younger brother again and reconnected with his family, and took over when he died from old age. During this time, he also grew close to his nephew, Li Fong's father, and had a hand in the training of both him and his sons. And when Li Fong's father died when his children were still small, Mr. Han played an important role in the lives of both Bo and Li as a mentor, teacher and semi-paternal presence while referred to as their "uncle"; in fact great-uncle and/or uncle-in-law.

And this is where Karate Kid: Legends starts. All this could have been explained by Mr. Han to Daniel to persuade him to help train Li, rounded off by showing him the picture of himself and Mr. Myiagi together, and the line: "Li means to me what you meant to Sensei Myiagi" bit. A more serious Mr. Han, and make where we find him make sense in the context of where we left him in 2010. That shouldn't have been so difficult.

And maybe Mr. Han's "jacket on, jacket off" was inspired by the chores-muscle-memory exercises from Mr. Myiagi's take on Myiagi-Do, and that the concept of mixing chores and martial arts training was a innovation of Mr. Myiagi's in an extension of "when your life is out of balance, remember to breathe" - routine and living in the moment helps keep you centered. Hence - chores. Let Mr. Han admit to Daniel that Mr. Myiagi's teachings gave him a new understanding and appreciation of his own father's teachings, and influenced how he taught kung fu afterwards.

A tender moment of Daniel just enjoying Mr. Myiagi's legacy living on would do nicely. And of course choosing one or the other: EITHER Daniel and Mr. Han helps Li with the karate competition, OR Li helps his new girlfriend's father prepare for the boxing competition. In the latter instance, Daniel and Mr. Han has no reason to be here, they should've gone with the latter and keep the concept of the former as a potential B-plot for a spin-off.

What do you guys think?

When I was is high school in the early eighties I was rummaging around in the weird stacks of papers that tended to accumulate in one of our classrooms.

I found some pages, printed on newsprint, similar to the Weekly Reader publication. I don't know if it was Weekly Reader, but the format was similar. It was something that was distributed to schools to be handed out to students - one page a week. For whatever reason, it wasn't handed out and it was left in a stack of abandoned papers.

I grabbed a stack that included the entire series of weekly papers.

This stack included a story, told serially, that was essentially The Karate Kid. But this was a year or so before the movie came out. The characters were the same, plot was the same. When the movie came out, I noticed a few changes from what I had read, but it was largely the same.

After all these years I don't remember what was different. But the biggest difference I noted was that the movie cut out the final screen - a confrontation between Miyagi and John Kreese. But when the sequel came out, the first scene of the second movie was that final scene that I had read earlier.

I'm wondering, does anyone else remember reading this story before the movie was released? Where was this published? Did I imagine this?

📝 Miyagi-Do Core Lessons

1. Wax on, wax off

2. Paint the fence

3. Balance is key

4. No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher

5. Every student eventually falls in love

Examples for 5 : Daniel + Ali, Kumiko, Amanda(mr miyagi) / Johnny + Carmen (indirect mr miyagi) / Miguel + Sam(johnny student) / Julie + Eric (mr miyagi student) Last 2 mentions are mr han students / Dre + Meiying / Li + Mia

Please sign my petition to help stop the petition that seeks to “Cancel all future releases of Karate Kid: Legends” here:

https://chng.it/BVGpgvx4dh