The Karate Kid Universe, Ranked from Dojo Drop-Out to Master

 

What has now become the Karate Kid saga spans 37 years and includes five feature films, a streaming series and even a cartoon. Setting the animated show aside for now, we've ranked the live-action incarnations of the story, from worst to best.

6. The Next Karate Kid

The Next Karate Kid holds the distinction of being the only Karate Kid movie to lose money at the box office. It's also the first one not to include Daniel LaRusso or to be directed by John G. Avildsen. Their absences loom large over this dumpster juice. The filmmakers that stuck around unwisely remade the original movie with stand-ins for many of that film's characters and organizations, mistakenly believing that a remake would suffice as a sequel a mere 10 years after the initial entry's debut. Mr. Miyagi's new student, Julie Pierce, is the new Daniel (her father died as well); Michael Ironside's Colonel Paul Dugan is the new Kreese; Ned Randall is the new Johnny Lawrence; and the Alpha Elite is the new Cobra Kai. Imagine if a poorly-directed version of The Force Awakens had premiered in 1987 featuring Han Solo as the only returning original character.

Mr. Miyagi and Julie are interesting characters stuck in a terrible movie. If you haven't seen it, don't bother. It'll make forgetting its existence that much easier.

Here's a bit of cinema trivia: actor Walton Goggins appears in The Next Karate Kid (as a member of the Alpha Elite) in only his third feature film role.

5. The Karate Kid Part III

The third Karate Kid movie is more like a feature-length What If? story than a legitimate continuation of Daniel's relationship with Mr. Miyagi. If you're one of the handful of people who wondered what it would look like if Daniel had joined Cobra Kai then this movie gives you a nonsensical version of that alternate reality. It's the Rocky V of the Karate Kid saga: the film that shouldn't have been made and nearly ended the entire series. Miyagi, Kreese and Daniel are back but none of the other characters are interesting and the events that unfold aren't even believable.

Even the director, John G. Avildsen, described the film "a poor imitation of the first one" and went so far as to call it "a horrible movie". It shouldn't come as a surprise that it earned five Razzie nominations. 

In this case, the third time isn't charming at all and it's best to treat The Karate Kid Part III like it never even happened.

4. The Karate Kid (2010)

This 2010 remake actually has the wrong title. It should've been named The Kung Fu Kid, since that's the martial art that the movie focuses on. While still very much a fish-out-of-water story like the original movie, this one moves the action from LA to Beijing. Not only is Dre Parker a foreigner, he doesn't even speak the local language. Daniel LaRusso didn't know how easy he had it. Mirroring Daniel's story, Dre finds a friend in one of his schoolmates, Meiying, but that relationship gets him targeted by a local group of kung fu students.

It's fitting that the remake features an African-American lead, given that the sole Black Cobra Kai student, Jerry, in the original received the worst treatment out of the bunch by that movie (the first onscreen victim of Sensei Kreese's no mercy philosophy and the first Cobra to exit the tournament -- seemingly without even scoring a point).

3. Cobra Kai

Because we've all agreed to pretend that the third and fourth Karate Kid movies never happened, Cobra Kai catches up with Daniel LaRusso, Johnny Lawrence, John Kreese, Chozen Toguchi, Kumiko and Yuna for the first time since The Karate Kid Part II. Unfortunately, Mr. Miyagi and Sato passed away during the ensuing decades. But Daniel's mom, Lucille LaRusso is still alive and well.

Cobra Kai continues the story while redeeming it from damage done to the series' legacy by the sequels which shall not be named. The series also redeems several characters, including: Johnny, Chozen, Bobby and Jimmy. 

2. The Karate Kid Part II

The Karate Kid's first (and what should've been last) sequel picks up immediately where the first movie ended. In the wake of Daniel LaRusso's victory at the All Valley Karate Tournament, the runner-up. Johnnie Lawrence, is chastised and assaulted by his sensei, John Kreese, for placing second. Mr. Miyagi defeats him without breaking a sweat and all's well that ends well...temporarily. 

Six months later, Ali has not only wrecked Daniel's car, which was a birthday present from Miyagi, she's also dumped him for a college guy. Ali had no apparent character flaws in the original film but you know what they say: "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is." 

Anyway, a letter explaining that Mr. Miyagi's father is on his deathbed sends the former back to his native Okinawa and, needing a distraction from his girl troubles, Daniel tags along. Miyagi is subsequently reunited with his dad after 40 years; he's also reunited with a lost love, Yukie. Daniel, on the other hand, meets a new love, Kumiko, who happens to be Yukie's niece.

This time around, Mr. Miyagi's love triangle, not Daniel's, causes problems. You see, Miyagi fled Okinawa after declaring his love for Yukie. Unfortunately for him, she was already arranged to be married to Miyagi's best friend, Sato. The insult prompted Sato to challenge his former friend to mortal combat. And not wanting to kill his boy, Miyagi kicked rocks. 

SPOILER ALERT

Daniel gets into trouble as well. Sato's nephew, Chozen, pressures the All Valley champ into a deathmatch as well. Because he's the title character, he wins. But keep in mind, Daniel has roughly 10 months of karate training (two months at the YMCA, and eight with Miyagi) at this point. It's established that Sato has trained U.S. troops in the art of the empty hand for decades. He's also trained his nephew so well that the latter has become an instructor himself. Does it make sense that Chozen would (or could) lose this particular fight?

1. The Karate Kid

The Karate Kid tells the story of Daniel LaRusso, a Newark, New Jersey-native who very reluctantly moves to Los Angeles with his single mom (a widow) after she lands a new job. In no time at all, Daniel ends up in a love triangle with a rich girl and her ex-boyfriend, who just so happens to have a black belt in karate -- and so do the members of his crew. After a couple of humiliating incidents and two painful beatings, Daniel discovers that his building's maintenance man knows a few things about the way of the empty hand himself. So the victim finds a a new father-figure and a widower becomes a sensei.

The Karate Kid was conceived as "the new Rocky" with the hope that it would be at least half as successful. The similarities aren't hard to spot. Both Rocky Balboa and Daniel LaRusso are Italian-American; Rocky's from Philadelphia, Daniel hails from nearby Newark; Rocky's a boxer, Daniel's a martial-artist; each fighter is trained by an elderly expert after having already learned the basics elsewhere; both Rocky and Daniel are trained by unconventional means; they each fall in love during the film; they're both dumb as rocks; and both are poor. The two films even share the same director (John G. Avildsen). Fortunately, the "Great White Hope" storyline wasn't included in The Karate Kid. 

Rocky was the highest-grossing movie of 1976 at $55 million. Eight years later, The Karate Kid snagged over $100 million. Noriyuki "Pat" Morita even snagged a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his portrayal of Mr. Miyagi.