SPOILERS are ahead for Karate Kid: Legends, now streaming with a Netflix subscription.
There’s a lot of memorable scenes in the original Karate Kid that makes it one of the best ‘80s movies. However, I'm not sure fans will ever forget the final fight between Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence at the All Valley Karate Tournament, where Daniel beats his bully (and Cobra Kai) by executing the crane kick. Karate Kid: Legends pays homage to the OG film in various ways, but it has an even more impressive big fighting move in the form of the “dragon kick”.
When CinemaBlend spoke to Karate Kid: Legends director Jonathan Entwistle about the film (which is one of the big 2025 movie releases), I asked him about how the dragon kick was accomplished in camera. I was stunned that there’s a human in the world who can do the move without any movie magic. In Entwistle's words:
The dragon kick is no wire work. It's fully real. It is fully shot and fully in camera. And, we had one particularly outstanding stunt performer, AJ, who was able to do that move entirely without any wires. And that's one of the reasons we had him with us. So we built around making sure that we had a big, big thing. 'cause so many things have been done within Karate Kid and Cobra Kai, and we didn't wanna lose the essence of a crane kick type approach.
Upon further research, I found out the dragon kick (thanks to Vertigo Tricking) is actually referred to as the “shuriken cutter” outside of Karate Kid: Legends. The move implements a flip, kick and a twist in one single fluid motion. You can check out Ben Wang’s stunt double Anthony Correa Baniaga Jr. do some wild tricking in real life (outside the movies) below:
While Legends' use of this technique is different from what the original movie did, it offers audiences further exposure to the world of martial arts. More specifically, the legacy sequel highlights what one’s body can do outside of the moves the public has already learned, thanks to previous iterations of the beloved franchise.
Personally, when I asked Entwistle about the move, I was sure he’d tell me he and his team used wires to accomplish the move. Now, though, I’m more aware of an entire training discipline that implements both martial arts and gymnastics to achieve these gorgeous and mesmerizing moves. Overall, I find it amazing how these martial artists and stunt coordinators can do to push the boundaries of what the human body can do.
As Jonathan Entwistle also pointed out during our interview, he wanted to have a move in Legends that had the “essence” of the crane kick, but offered something different to viewers of the franchise. I'd say he succeeded in that regard.
Now that you’ve learned all about the dragon kick, check out what the director told us about the Karate Kid: Legends post-credits scene (which has a Cobra Kai connection). Fans can also read up on what Jackie Chan shared with us about doing his own stunts for the movie even though he’s in his 70s.
