Karate Kid: Legends sports the shortest runtime in the series (2025)

After Cobra Kai had its high school characters finally graduate after six years of the series, the newest entry in the continuing story of Daniel LaRusso is surprisingly compact, especially by modern movie standards. In an age where big-budget summer movies regularly clock in at over two hours (and prestige films flirt with the three-hour mark), according to the BBFC, Karate Kid: Legends will have a runtime of 94 minutes. Runtimes of this caliber are usually commonplace for comedies, but for a new installment of a long-running franchise, it’s surprisingly brief. Even the 1984 original ran just over 2 hours.

Of course, an enjoyable movie doesn’t have to be super long, but it will remain to be seen if the film doesn’t feel rushed or underdeveloped. After all, some classic Jackie Chan films equate to similar lengths, and the director of Karate Kid: Legends claims that this film will feel like an early Jackie Chan movie. Director Jonathan Entwistle says the new film takes its inspiration from past Jackie Chan flicks. “Ben (Wang) was fully training every day with the Chinese stunt team,” Entwistle said. “He knew that I wanted the martial arts in the movie to feel like an early Jackie Chan film, and that’s something we tried really hard to do. We used a lot of classic Hong Kong wirework.“

It’s not just the thrilling action that made Jackie Chan so great, but also his ability to work humor into the fights. “There’s a humour to the way the choreography unfolds,” Entwistle explained. “Something that Jackie — and the team — taught us was, ‘What’s the narrative for the fight? Does he pick up a thing off the floor and use that?’ We’re so used to seeing fights done in a certain way, VFX-heavy fight augmentation, the Marvel style of fighting. It was important for me to bring back an in-camera martial-arts approach.“

The official synopsis reads: “InKarate Kid: Legends, after a family tragedy, kung fu prodigy Li Fong (Ben Wang) is uprooted from his home in Beijing and forced to move to New York City with his mother. Li struggles to let go of his past as he tries to fit in with his new classmates, and although he doesn’t want to fight, trouble seems to find him everywhere. When a new friend needs his help, Li enters a karate competition – but his skills alone aren’t enough. Li’s kung fu teacher Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) enlists original Karate Kid Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) for help, and Li learns a new way to fight, merging their two styles into one for the ultimate martial arts showdown.“

For comparison, here are the runtimes for the other films in the franchise: The Karate Kid (1984), 127 minutes; The Karate Kid Part II, 113 minutes; The Karate Kid Part III, 111 minutes; The Next Karate Kid, 107 minutes; The Karate Kid (2010), 140 minutes.