‘Karate Kid: Legends’ revives virtue and tradition

The new “Karate Kid” movie has a surprising twist: older men teaching younger men to work hard, honor tradition, and develop a virtuous character. “Karate Kid: Legends” is exactly what you think it’s going to be — and thank God for that.

If, like me, you grew up trying to perfect the crane kick in the living room after watching the original “Karate Kid,” then this movie will hit all the right beats. It follows the classic formula: an underdog with raw talent, a wise mentor with quiet gravitas, a villain who cheats, and the enduring truth that virtue matters more than victory.

New movie, timeless themes

You might ask, “So … it’s not a great movie?” No. It is just what you expect, and that’s what makes it great. It doesn’t pretend to be something else. It’s not trying to be edgy, subversive, or “reimagine the genre.” It isn’t the millionth movie in the “Sixth-Sense-twist-at-the-end” series of hackneyed films we’re all bored with. It’s just a good old-fashioned “Karate Kid” movie. And in an age when every studio seems bent on turning childhood memories into political lectures, this is a welcome roundhouse to the face.

The tradition here is simple and good: older men teaching younger men how to face suffering with courage and to live lives of virtue.

No woke sermon, no rainbow flag cameo character delivering predictable lines about systemic injustice, no Marxist backstory about how dojo hierarchies are tools of capitalist oppression — this isn’t a Disney film, and you can tell.

Instead, it asks a dangerous question, one so controversial it might get you fired from an English department faculty meeting: Do hard work, discipline, tradition, and honor still matter?

In the woke world, of course, the answer is no. Disney movies now teach that tradition is oppressive, virtue is repressive, and hard work is a tool of colonialist mind control. Your feelings are your truth — and your truth is sacred. If you feel like turning your back on your family to pursue LGBTQ+ sex, then you’re the greatest hero in human history. But “Karate Kid: Legends” doesn’t go there. It doesn’t need to.

It’s not a message movie. But it has a message. And it’s one even a child can understand: Be honorable. Do the right thing. Grievance and self-pity don’t lead to victory. And if they do, it’s a hollow one.

Mentorship, hard work, virtue

The film also manages to affirm tradition without being heavy-handed about mystical Eastern spiritualism or ancestral ghost sequences. Disney spews New Age spirituality in cartoons for kids at every opportunity.

The “tradition” here is simple and good: older men teaching younger men how to face suffering with courage and to live lives of virtue. That includes working through loss — deep loss, the kind that could break a person. But instead of turning to rage or self-indulgence, our young hero learns to endure, to persevere, to get back up — and maybe, just maybe, deliver that final clean kick.

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Photo by CBS via Getty Images

Of course, there’s a villain who cheats. You’ve got to have that. And yes, he’s detestable. That’s kind of the point. As the smug leftist professor at your local state university might say, “So it’s about childish morality?” Yes, professor — it’s about what even a child can know: Doing the right thing and building character matters. Wallowing in the self-pity of grievance culture will never get you there.

Somehow, this simple truth has become controversial. In a world where adults cry on TikTok about microaggressions and activist professors turn every syllabus into a therapy session about their own victimhood, it’s refreshing to see a film that reminds us that life is hard. But that doesn’t mean we give up. It means we get better. Stronger. Kinder. More honorable.

And that’s what “Legends” delivers — without apology, without postmodern irony, and without the cultural sludge we’ve come to expect from Hollywood.

No Oscar? No problem.

It’s clean. It’s earnest. It’s nostalgic without being desperate. And it shows us a vision of manhood and mentorship we desperately need: older men guiding the next generation, not with snark or shame, but with honor, wisdom, and love.

So if you want a movie that will entertain your kids without corrupting them — and hopefully inspire them to build a virtuous character — go see “Karate Kid: Legends.” It may not win an Oscar (which already tells you it’s good), but it might just help restore your faith in simple, straightforward storytelling. And that’s worth more than a golden statue.

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