A young man's rebellion and guilt lead him to make choices that can have devastating consequences for his friends and family.

Are you just watching episode 162, Karate Kid Legends.

Welcome to the podcast that shares critical thinking for the entertained Christian.

I'm E.

Franklin.

And I'm Tim Martin.

And today we are going to record on a sequel to a streaming show that was a tie in to a sequel to a sequel to a sequel.

One more to a movie that came out in the 80s.

There you go.

One more.

No, no, you got it.

The original one.

1984.

Yep.

Yeah, lots of Karate Kid.

It's interesting because I don't know that I saw all of the sequels to the original Karate Kid.

You know what?

It.

It just occurred to me it should be a sequel to a Netflix series to a reboot to a sequel to a sequel to an original.

Yeah, but I don't know that the.

Although now it's not a reboot anymore.

It wasn't a reboot.

You were right the first time.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

Anyway, they all tied together somehow, so.

So Karate Kid is a bit of a franchise now.

You never would have expected it.

I think it's really cool that Jackie Chan has kind of joined the franchise because he makes kung fu and he makes the humor.

I know the original Karate Kid had humor in it, but I think Jackie Chan does humor so well that it just kind of.

It's more seamless when he's involved.

So anyway, so the.

He started the Jackie Chan movie that starred Jaden Smith myth back in.

What did we determine that was 15 years ago that that came out?

Yeah, 2010.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it turns out, you know, Tim and I thought for sure we had recorded on that one, but we didn't actually.

Oh, man.

I even remember doing it.

And that is the freakiest part.

I know.

So Daniel Lewis and I were the ones that recorded on that one.

And we did mention Cobra Kai, which is the Netflix show.

Yep.

In one of our episodes.

So anyway, we went to see this movie because we both were kind of a little excited about it.

I haven't seen all of Cobra Kai.

I saw the first season before I lost Netflix.

Didn't lose Netflix.

I got rid of Netflix.

And I really haven't missed it.

Yeah.

Was there really any reason to pay for it?

The only problem with this movie, and you'll probably disagree with me, is I kind of felt like it was just more of the same.

It was very.

To the formula.

It was very predictable.

I don't disagree with you.

At all.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think where I may disagree with you is I think that's what the fan base wanted.

Oh, well, maybe so.

I don't know.

It didn't necessarily make me hate the movie.

It was just so predictable that I didn't really ever feel any worry or concern that he was going to lose his final fight and you know, and his flying kick was going to make him lose or anything like that.

It's just like it was so formulaic.

It was like no suspense whatsoever.

It had the exact same beats.

Yeah.

It threw some twists in that I thought were well done too.

Yeah, yeah.

Right down to love interest and the.

The bad guy being the ex.

And you know, it's just like everything was just to.

The formula is like, can you.

How many times can we repeat history over and over and over again?

But in the end, I mean, it was an enjoyable movie and I love Jackie Chan.

So as I've already mentioned, he kind of.

It redeemed the movie in my eyes.

I have to admit that there's very little that Jackie Chan can do that I would watch and go, oh, I just can't stand this movie.

Because he just, he brings a special something.

I don't know.

When he is on je ne sais quoi.

Yeah.

His passion for whatever he does just really shows through and he makes everything he does good.

Even if it's low budget or formulaic or whatever.

He improves it just by being in the movie.

I don't know what we'll ever do when Jackie Chan passes away.

I think you're right.

But you know, for us he's much more of a physical actor.

We know him for his, you know, his action scenes and everything like, and particularly his facial expressions.

I think back to all the movies, the Jackie Chan movies I've watched and I've watched some subtitled ones too.

Uh huh.

He has the surprise and the worried looks that just speaks a thousand words, you know.

Yeah.

And even now that he's getting older, quite a bit older actually.

I think he's older than he looks, to be honest.

Which really is remarkable for every bone that he's broken.

Yeah.

So I really honestly felt like he brought the humor, he brought the passion.

He made the movie work.

I guess the only other thing that kind of made the movie stand out from the other Karate Kid pieces in the franchise is this graphic overlay they did in this movie, which I can't figure out whether they were trying to make it feel like a comic book or whether they were trying to go for like A video game feel or something.

But it did work.

I mean it helped tie things together.

It helped you follow stuff that you might not have followed otherwise.

And I did appreciate that.

Yeah, it was a little weird when it first started.

I'm like, what are they doing?

But it did work for the movie.

I agree.

So before I hand it off to you, I do want to mention the soundtrack because this movie had a very weird, almost cobbled together soundtrack.

The score is credited to Dominic Lewis, but I think he's actually only actually credited for like.

What was it, three or four.

Three original songs.

So three original songs.

Yeah, he.

He might have been the one who chose all the other ones.

I don't.

I don't know how that works.

Yeah, I don't know.

There was a lot of R and B and funk.

That's what I call it.

I don't know if that's the technical word, but I call it funk.

I don't think anybody's going to grade us on it.

So you're the original Karate Kid themes which I believe are kind of woven through the movie.

Yeah.

There's also a throwback scene at the beginning that is actually from.

Which is it, the Karate Kid 2 or Karate Kid 3 2?

And so the original Karate Kid theme was written by Bill Conti and I'm gonna play one of the instrumentals.

I wasn't really into the songs that were throughout the movie, but I'm gonna play a little bit of one of the instru.

I do appreciate they kept the spoken word songs, you know, the R B, rap, funk mix.

They kept them clean.

Yeah.

Family friendly, which I do appreciate.

There's so much out there that sometimes.

Very hard to do.

Yeah, Very bad themes and this one didn't seem to.

I haven't listened to them all apart from hearing them in the movie.

Yeah.

Well, on to you, what did you think?

So I was a 14 year old boy when Karate Kid came out.

And I want to point out that in 1984 Karate and martial arts were everywhere for my age group.

There was an actor by the name of Sho Khashogi who did this entire string of ninja films in the 80s, many of which released straight to LaserDisc, maybe VHS.

VHS.

Yeah, I think both honestly and you know, Karateka was.

Was a new release for the Apple II computer and it was a side scrolling adventure where my friends and I, we'd get together in the computer lab.

In back then it was called Junior High.

So we'd all get together in the computer lab and after school after cajoling one of the teachers to sit in there with us.

Sometimes they even had detention in there so that we could stay and play.

It was great martial arts.

I've got a picture of me in my Halloween costume that year, and it was actually a karate gi.

It was everywhere for us.

And you know, Daniel LaRusso in.

In the original Karate Kid movie, he was the same age as me, so I really associated with him, and it was very impactful for me.

Right.

It helped form my idea of entertainment and what could be in a.

I looked up to the character Miyagi as a mentor and everything.

So fast forward to, what, four years ago when Cobra Kai comes out.

It started on something other than Netflix, didn't it?

I watched the first season, and it was the exact same formula that all the movies had used, but it was a familiar formula.

It was like throwing on a nostalgic blanket.

Right.

So I watched it.

Oh, it was originally released on YouTube Red.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

It moved to Netflix.

So it was on YouTube Red for its first two seasons, and then it moved to Netflix.

There's six total seasons, started in 2018 and ended February 13, 2025.

Yeah.

Right before this movie came out.

And actually they held the release date of Karate Kid Legends so that Cobra Kai could finish its run, which was, you know, held up by the actors strike and the writers strike.

And I'm sure there were a couple other strikes in there too.

Anyway, I enjoyed it.

And as the seasons went on, the writing actually got better, but it still had a lot of the familiar elements.

And one of the things.

One of the things I always react in shock is that nobody is ever arrested for assault.

That would just enter a whole new thread in the whole thing, the law and all that stuff.

So, yeah, they all have these cheap shots happening.

And in Cobra Kai, one of the later seasons, like four or the opposing.

Talking about Cobra Kai, I know the opposing dojo breaks into Daniel LaRusso's house, and there's this big fight and nobody's arrested.

Yeah.

It's sort of like a hallmark of the series.

It's violence without consequence.

Yeah.

That's not actually true.

The consequences are relational and emotional.

They're not legal.

Yeah.

So.

But that's sort of why I enjoyed it.

Because you knew even though Johnny clearly committed assault by riding Daniel down on a motorcycle, he was still gonna be in the rest of the movie.

And like you, I've been a Jackie fan, a Jackie Chan fan, a Chan fan, a Chan fan for decades.

I actually have A movie on my watch list that I haven't gotten to yet, where he trains a horse to be a stunt horse.

Yeah, my dad was actually watching that when I was visiting a few weeks ago.

I only came in on the end of the movie, but it was really good.

It's a subtitled movie, though, so I have to be in the right mood to watch it.

Yeah, I haven't gotten around to it yet.

It's one that I do want to watch.

But there's actually.

In the very beginning, Jackie Chan's scenes are in Beijing and in Chinese, and it is just night and day.

He is.

I don't mean to disparage his English acting, but when he's acting in Chinese, he is a real good actor.

Yeah, well, it's his native language.

Yeah, exactly.

When he started in Hollywood, he could barely speak English, and so I think that's always had some of an impact on his ability to act.

But at the same time, he acts with humor, so I think that kind of makes up for it.

I just looked him up.

He's actually 71 years old.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

I hope I am half.

Half as healthy as he is when I'm 71.

But, you know, he pays for, too.

He works out every single day.

Yeah.

Well, and it's also the Chinese.

They tend to look a lot younger than they are.

Until they don't.

Yeah, just kind of until.

Until they look ancient.

Yeah.

People go around calling them the ancient one.

Anyway, he did a great job.

And you're right, he was a humorous anchor.

And pretty much all the humor beats, even when they were off of Lee or off of Daniel or even Victor, most of them were based on him.

They were based on something that Jackie Chan started.

And I saw Chan's fighting style, especially in the kitchen.

Fight.

Yeah.

If you watched the credits.

Yep.

It said under the stunts that Jackie Chan's stunt team was like the.

So it wasn't Jackie Chan by himself.

It was Junkie Chan stunt team.

You know, he probably, like, drafted all of the stunts and all the fighting so it looked like him.

Yeah.

There's a making of on YouTube for Karate Kid Legends.

Oh.

Actually, I think this was a wired where he completes the web's questions.

And it said, does Jackie Chan do all his own stunts?

And he said, I used to, but now I.

I let the stunt team handle the complicated ones.

I'm an old man now.

He's 71, and let's face it, he's wiser.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like I said, I.

I did enjoy the movie.

I really enjoyed it.

I came out of it with a nice warm feeling.

There was one scene that still bugs me, and it's just one question, and it's the next scene from when Lee gets sucker punched on the subway by Connor Day.

You know, the martial arts expert ex boyfriend of the new love interest, the Johnny Lawrence of this movie.

His mom had set him up with a calculus tutor to help improve his skills for the college entrance exams.

And Lee says something to the tutor, who's a kid his age, about how strict his mom is.

And the tutor notes Lee's Bruce's black eye and says, did.

Did she do that to your eye?

And the scene ends right there.

And all I could think is there is now this huge shadow over Lee's very hardworking and very loving mother for the rest of the movie that should not be there because my worst fear is that I get accused of beating a child.

Yeah, well, you know that in this case, the people watching the movie knew where he got the black eye.

Yeah.

So I think it was.

It was an implied answer that, no, of course she didn't.

And we all know as the viewers that she didn't because we saw him get the black eye.

We know that, but we didn't see Lee tell the tutor that it wasn't her.

And that's what bugs me.

Yeah, well, I would assume he did, but I guess they didn't figure.

And it may have been something that ended up on the cutting room floor because they were like, well, everybody knows she didn't do it.

You know, there's all kinds of stuff that ended up on the cutting room floor.

There's stuff in one of the trailers.

There's a scene of Daniel and Lee sitting on a curb where Daniel hands him the.

Whatever that, you know, that headband is called and has this exchange that isn't in the movie.

So, yeah, I'm sure that there's probably half again as much time as the movie was long on the.

On the cutting room.

And it was a long movie.

Yeah, it was a very long.

It didn't feel long to me, though.

I never checked my watch or anything.

It felt long to me because I had 30 minutes of previews before the thing started.

My movie started at 10:50 because I took a long lunch to watch it.

And the movie itself didn't start until 1109.

Oh, no.

Excuse me.

The trailers didn't start until 1109, and then there were only three trailers.

Oh, I had more than that.

I had six trailers.

Oh, wow.

And commercials.

Yeah.

You know what Karate Kids Legends.

It's not going to win any Oscars, but the actors are all good.

The actors who played Lee and Mia, Ben Wang and Sadie Stanley, they had great chemistry.

Great on screen chemistry.

You felt like they were becoming friends and it played out well.

You know, their relationship arc seemed real to me.

And I loved the guy who played Mia's dad.

He felt every bit the kind of guy who's seen it all.

Rolls with the punches get, keeps his family close and doesn't flinch when life swings hard, which is particularly appropriate since he's a boxer.

So he was.

He was perfect for the role.

Yeah.

Well, now he's really an ex boxer.

No spoilers.

We're not worried about spoilers.

If you've seen one Karate Kid movie, you've seen.

I did like the fact that they used him to change it up a little bit.

You know, there's this bit where Lee trains Victor, Mia's dad, to integrate some of the quickness and some of the philosophy of kung fu into his boxing technique.

And honestly, I think it looked like he had a real good chance in.

In that fight, and I think we were supposed to think that too.

So.

Yeah, I like the way they modernized it.

They kept the same formula.

But the formula works, right?

Yeah.

And it was just a little bit different because Lee already knew kung fu, so it wasn't like they were turning a raw nobody into martial art genius, you know, in a week.

Yeah, that just wasn't.

There's actually.

There's one scene where they even make fun of that.

And Daniel goes, you can't turn a kid into a karate expert in a week.

And Hun says, let me show you what he can do.

And then he does.

And Daniel says, yeah, a week might work.

And then they spend my half that time just knocking him down.

That was funny.

And, yeah, and the way that, you know, Jackie Chan's character was like, yeah, but what if we.

And then Daniel's like, no, this is the way.

And poor Lee is just taking a beating.

They just keep throwing him to the ground in different ways.

Yeah.

Yeah.

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Okay.

So our themes.

I think talking about Karate Kid, it was actually a little hard for me to dig some themes out for this.

Not necessarily because there wasn't things to apply a Christian worldview in this movie, but mainly because we've been there, done that.

The movie was so formulaic.

I feel like, you know, we were kind of dealing with things that we've already dealt with and many times over.

So I wanted to try and maybe take a different spin on this particular theme.

We're going to talk about rebellion.

We could go into, you know, the whole thing about children obeying their parents and all of that kind of stuff.

We see two different types of rebellion in this movie.

First off, I think one of the better quotes in this was there was a conversation between Mia and Lee about why she was dating Connor.

And she said that her father had warned her not to get involved with him.

And then Lee says, well, why did you?

And she said, because he warned me not to.

So that's that tendency we have sometimes of doing exactly the opposite of what we are told to do by our parents.

That's almost the natural tendency of young people to rebel.

And it's sad because part of growing up, it.

Yeah, well, you know, I don't know that it necessarily is.

It might be more because we live in a permissive society that allows it to be part of growing up.

I think it's more so than when we were kids, but I.

I rebelled against my parents, too.

Well, you go further back in the Old Testament, they would stone kids for doing it.

So you can actually survive the consequences.

I appreciate that they.

That my parents didn't do that, but they probably should have.

Yeah.

So, yeah, the Old Testament is not very nice to young people who rebelled against their parents and did not treat them with proper respect.

Very strict punishments in the Old Testament law.

In Proverbs, it talks a lot about training sons to be wise and not rebellious and how foolish they are when they don't follow the wise teachings of their fathers.

So there's a lot in the Old Testament, and I was thinking, you know, we also have the example of Lee, who was at the beginning of the movie studying kung fu under his uncle, even though his mom had expressly forbid him to do so.

And by the time they get to New York, he was trying really, really hard to keep his promise not to fight.

Poor kid.

And he was trying.

Sometimes, you know, the fights just find you.

Yep.

Especially when you're in a Karate Kid movie.

Yeah, especially.

And you have a love interest who dated the five Burrows champion for, like, several years running.

I was thinking, you know, we can kill that dead horse over and over again that we've talked about in so many other reviews about, you know, raising godly children and all that kind of stuff.

And then I got to thinking is like, that there's actually a broader theme here that has nothing to do with kids and parents.

It has to do with humanity and our heavenly father.

So the broader theme is that it's the tendency of man to choose his own way, that it's part of our sinful nature, you know, that, you know, God can establish wonderful plans for our lives, that if we just followed his direction, you know, things would go well.

But we just, out of tendency, we want to try our own way, we want to do it, we want to take the credit, we want to get the glory.

And so we rebel.

We don't want to answer to someone else.

Right.

My pastor, we've been actually preaching through Genesis in my church.

And this last week, we dealt with the second time that Abraham lied about Sarah being his sister.

And that was with Abimelech.

The first time was a pharaoh, right?

Was the pharaoh.

Yeah.

And it was an interesting take because in the sermon he was talking about how, you know, it actually delves into the reasoning because the king asks Abraham, why did you lie to me?

And he said, well, when it came upon me to sojourn in this land of strangers that, you know, I told my wife, as a kindness to me, that if anyone ever asks her to tell them that she is my sister and so that I'm not killed because of her beauty.

And so he had already worked it out, like, from the beginning.

He was like, I'm not going to trust God to protect me in this land that he told me to wander in instead, I'm going to have this formula that's going to protect me when people like my wife a lot.

And so this was a rebellion that had been of long standing through the whole time that he had been sojourning in this area.

You know, he's like, I'm going to just, you know, if anyone inquires, you tell them you're my sister.

That way they won't kill me.

You know, we rationalize it, too.

We're like, yeah, I'm sure God will take care of it, but let me help.

Yeah, yeah.

So it just was interesting to me coming into this movie out of hearing that sermon.

It's like Abraham is held up as being like this, you know, friend of God.

He walked in with God, he trusted God, he was righteous.

And, you know, God had this wonderful promise he made happen even despite Abraham's rebellion.

And this particular scene came right after Lot was rescued from Sodom and Gomorrah.

It was, like, where he actually got to talk face to face with God.

Abraham did, you know, to plead on Lot's behalf.

And so it's like he constantly kept missing the fact that God had this, you know, especially since God had promised that he and Sarah would have a child and that's who the promise would come through.

And by allowing Sarah to be taken into somebody else's household as a potential wife, he was literally trying to undo God's promise.

Yeah.

Of offspring between them.

So it was just a very interesting take on that whole instance of Abraham rebelling.

So in Romans, it says.

And this was actually used in the sermon, Romans 2, 4.

It says, or do you despise the riches of his kindness, restraint and patience, not recognizing that God's kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

So in the sermon, he talked about the fact that God actually went to the king and said, hey, you've got this man's wife and you're going to die because of it.

And so it was kind of like he just stepped over Abraham and went straight to the source and says, you know, listen, you got to give this man's wife back to him or you're going to die.

And then he closed all of the wombs in the kingdom or the city until they couldn't have kids, until Sarah was given back.

And it was God, like, being kind and, you know, he didn't punish Abraham.

It was just more of a, you know, I'm going to force you to see it my way here.

I thought that was kind of cool.

It also says in Proverbs 3, 11, 12, do not despise the Lord's instruction, my son, and do not loathe his discipline.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, just as a father disciplines the son in whom he delights.

You know, the fact that we rebel against God is, you Know, we're His children, especially if we're Christians, if we've come to repentance and we are seen as children of God through the blood of Christ.

So he's our heavenly Father and he disciplines us.

It's so funny, because, you know, Abraham was rebellious even though he was counted as righteous.

Well, look at Samson.

Yeah, well, I don't know about Samson.

He's listed in Hebrews 11.

Yeah, that's accounted as righteous there.

Anyway, the whole point is that rebellious children, that's what we are as humanity.

We are rebellious children.

And in Hebrews 12, 7, 10, it says, endure suffering as discipline.

God is dealing with you as sons, for what son is there that a father does not discipline?

But if you are without discipline, which all receive, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

Furthermore, we had human fathers discipline us, and we respected them.

Shouldn't we submit even more to the Father of spirits and live for they disciplined us for a short time based on what seemed good to them.

But he does it for our benefit so that we can share his holiness.

So gotta love Hebrews.

How?

It just sums it up.

The preacher knocks it out.

Oh, wait, that's Ecclesiastes.

The writer knocks out Ecclesiastes.

Yeah, well, he does too.

So.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's important to note that when Paul talks about discipline here, the first thing that we think about, especially our generation, is a spanking or, you know, something like that.

And spanking is a form of disciplining, particularly if it's done properly.

But every teaching opportunity is instilling discipline in our children.

As a father, I tried to look for those opportunities and use them as something to point at.

And the suffering is the easiest one to point at and say, okay, I was just telling somebody this afternoon, this sucks.

And life is going to come at us in both barrels.

And you know what?

We just got to find our anchor, our hope, and hang on to it and use it to learn.

Right?

Yeah.

Life experience as the disciplining force in turning us back to God when we stray, that our rebellion leads us to consequences that then force us to repent.

Yeah, exactly.

And you know, the suffering that we encounter, God has a purpose for it.

And it's sometimes incredibly hard, even impossible for us to see in this life.

One of the things that is very common in my veteran circles is post traumatic stress disorder.

It was just starting to get the recognition that it deserves.

With the first Gulf War, the soldiers and airmen and sailors who came back from Vietnam, they were treated like crap by the va they were mistreated and ignored.

And it was shameful what our government did, despite knowing, you know, like, Agent Orange and everything.

And it took years for us to change the system, to actually acknowledge the fact that there are ongoing impacts, there are ongoing, sometimes lifetime consequences of the things that our fighting forces face in combat and even in training.

And there's actually an element of that here.

In Karate Kid legends, Lee's backstory includes the fact that his big brother, with whom he was training under his uncle for kung fu, he had just won a tournament in Beijing.

And the guy that he beat was not a good loser and came out and he.

With his buddies after the fight, as Lee and his brother Bo are walking home and they attack him, and they have him outnumbered, but Lee and Bo, they turn the tide.

And the guy who lost the tournament pulled a knife and he stabbed Bo.

And Lee froze up.

And for the entire movie, it is clear that Lee is taking the blame for his brother's death and for his freezing up.

And I thought that was a really interesting way of presenting that, especially, you know, this kid is 15, I think.

Yeah.

He somehow thinks that he could have stopped it, right?

Yeah.

It's like he couldn't have.

I mean, he was younger than his brother.

He wasn't as accomplished a kung fu artist as his brother.

Yeah.

He didn't have the same skills to take on a group of people.

And, you know, that freezing, it's actually part of the body's survival mechanism.

There's this survival system that's applied to us called the four Fs.

Fight, flight.

The fight or flight.

We.

We know those well.

Freeze or fawn.

And the freeze is.

Is obvious.

The fawn is.

Become very submissive.

That's the word I was looking for.

Thank you.

Very submissive to the attacker.

In hopes that he won't hurt you.

Yeah.

That you'll earn the attacker's favor.

And in moments of extreme stress, it can cause the brain to shut down.

And that's when those four Fs kick in.

And, you know, I've been tricked by Hollywood.

I was absolutely convinced.

See, in the army, I was in the first Gulf War, but I never saw combat.

I was in the rear echelon the whole time support.

My unit, never deployed to the front lines, even though that's what we had trained for.

So I got lucky.

But a friend of mine, a very good friend who stayed in for 26 years, even though I got out after eight, he got.

He was deployed to combat zones four different times.

And over those four times, he was wounded three times.

He still has shrapnel in his eye from being the victim of an IED in Iraq.

So when he retired, he was E7.

He had been a sergeant first class as E7 in the Army.

So I reached out to him and I asked him about freezing in combat, and he said that he had never seen it in all the combat he was in.

And we got to talking about it, and the fact of the matter is, when you join the military, you have to go through an extremely intensive training course called basic training or boot camp.

And for those who have never been through it, you really can't imagine it, but they literally work to break you down so that they can rebuild you as a cohesive team.

But as they rebuild you, one of the things they work into you is the muscle memory that you gain for when that stress hits.

When a soldier encounters combat for his first time, that muscle memory kicks in, and they start doing what they were trained to do, which is good, because if you stop to think, hey, I am actively trying to take the life of a father, a brother, a son, I can see freezing up on that.

Yeah.

And so Rob told me he'd never seen it.

He actually.

The closest thing he saw was on his third tour, which was in Afghanistan.

It was one of the guys who had been in as long as him.

They were going out in patrol, and the guy just had his driver stop the Humvee, and he said, I'm not going back out.

And they couldn't get him to move.

And they ended up, you know, this kind of thing, you don't recover from it in a combat environment.

Yeah, they sent him home and they got him treatment, which is.

Or at least I think they got him treatment, which I hope is indeed the case.

But, you know, this trauma, this PTSD that Lee encountered, it can show up afterwards.

And that's what we're seeing in Karate Kid.

And they're doing it well.

They're showing, you know, the flashbacks.

In his mind, he's not trained to deal with this.

He's just a scared kid facing something no kid should ever have to face.

And the fact that he feels guilty for thinking that his freezing, it was not only his fault, but a mistake.

That kind of trauma leaves a really serious Scarlet.

And it's not just the grief over not doing anything, but it's a shame of not doing anything.

You actually see that exasperated in the movie when he freezes up again when Victor gets hurt in the ring by the other guy cheating.

And again, this is another one of those cases where Victor should have been declared the winner of the fight because the other guy disqualified himself, but you don't see any consequences for that happening.

But Lee froze up when Mia's in the ring, leaning over her father, saying, you know, calling for help.

Somebody get help.

Get me help.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And she singles out Lee because Lee's the guy in Victor's corner, and he's frozen up, and he ends up running away.

But, you know, he's internalizing this responsibility for something that's not his fault, that is 100% normal.

And now I want to bring this full circle back to your rebellion comment.

And this is 100% the exact same thing.

The same way that we rebel when we bear the guilt for things for which God has forgiven, given us, it is rebellion.

Yeah.

God has already, Jesus on the cross bore our sins, all our past sins, all the sins we are committing at this very heartbeat, and every sin we're going to do until we stand before the throne of judgment and Christ steps forward and says, this one is mine.

And it's like Christian going to the cross and the pilgrim's progress, letting his burden fall off and then turning around and picking it back up and carrying it in his arms.

What's the point?

Why give it to God if you're just going to carry it anyway?

Yeah.

You know, Christ says, take my yoke, not my yoke on top of yours.

So, you know, it can be survivor's guilt, like we see with Lee, a failure to act or even just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But we let this guilt take root in our hearts, and that is one of the best ways for the enemy to get a foothold.

Yeah.

For that guilt to grow into uncertainty and, you know, eventually it'll convince us.

Maybe I never really accepted Christ as my savior.

Maybe I'm not.

Maybe I'm not a child of God.

Worthy.

Yeah.

Oh, I'm definitely.

I'm not worthy.

And, yeah, you know, ever since Wayne's World, you know, I'm not worthy.

I'm not.

Triggers a joke for me.

But the point is, we are not worthy.

Yeah.

It's only Christ who is worthy.

And he, through his grace, has imparted that worthiness, that righteousness on us and taken our unworthiness, our sin, our guilt, our shame onto him in his infinite capacity.

And that's the wonderful grace, the wonderful gift that we've been given.

And, you know, he teaches that lesson to Peter as told in Luke 22, 61 and 62.

This part was in the courtyard where the first time Peter denies him, this.

Was after all, three denies.

Oh, yeah, this is at the end.

Yeah, because the rooster crowed and then the Lord looked at Peter.

So Peter remembered the word of the Lord and how he had said to him, before the rooster crows, today, you will deny me three times.

And he went out and wept bitterly.

But that's not the end of it.

That denial, that shame and grief, that wasn't the end.

That's a great part.

And it's not the end for us either.

Because in John 21, 15, 19, we see Jesus offer Peter the vision of grace that has, you know, forgiven him.

And the risen Jesus, you know he's come back.

And it says, when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus asked, Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?

Yes, Lord.

He said to him, you know that I love you.

Feed my lambs.

He told him a second time, he asked him, simon, son of John, do you love me?

Yes, Lord.

He said to him, you know that I love you, shepherd my sheep.

He told him he asked him a third time, simon, son of John, do you love me?

Peter was grieved that he asked him three times, do you love me?

He said, lord, you know everything.

You know I love you.

Feed my sheep.

Jesus said, truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you would tie your belt and walk wherever you wanted.

But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will tie you and carry you to where you do not want to go.

He said this to indicate by what kind of death Peter would glorify God.

After saying this, he told him, follow me.

And by that, he took their entire relationship full circle, and he put the Christian church, the faith in Jesus, in Peter's hands.

And that's why Catholics think of Peter as the first pope, the beginner of the apostolic succession.

And that just is such a wonderful picture to me.

I had talked about how Jesus really is the one who has taken our blame first.

Peter 2:24 says, he bore our sins and in his body on the tree, so that having died to sins, we might live for righteousness.

By his wounds you have been healed.

So this isn't just some metaphysical, you know, Jesus forgives us type thing.

Jesus physically bore our guilt, shame and sins on the cross.

There was a supernatural saving that goes on here.

Yeah, it's not up to us to atone.

It's not up to us to be worthy.

It's up to us to trust that Christ is worthy and has atoned for us.

Yeah, and when we carry that guilt, especially guilt for sins we didn't actually commit, we shouldn't be doing it.

That's our rebellion.

We should be trusting that God has taken care of it, is taking care of it, and will take care of it.

Yeah.

And, you know, there's this line in the movie where Lee tells Victor, he hints to Victor about the trauma in his past.

And Victor gives this word of wisdom.

You've got to deal with it or it's going to deal with you.

And that's a spiritual truth, too.

If we do not address the guilt, it's going to become part of our identity.

And the only identity that we should have is in Christ through the redemption he brought us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we dealt with that in our last episode, too.

Yeah.

It all ties together.

It's amazing.

It's all like it's from the same book or something.

There's some additional scripture.

Scripture offers clarity on our freedom from guilt.

Romans 8:1 2.

Therefore, there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the spirit of life in Christ has set you free from the law of sin and death.

He's made a promise.

Let's trust him to keep it.

Psalm 55:22 says, Cast your burden on the Lord.

He will sustain you.

He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.

And you know that.

Shaken.

It doesn't mean that we're not going to be tested, because we are.

No.

Yeah.

Boy, are we ever.

But if we trust in God, we're not going to be shaken out of that tree.

Yeah.

The last reference I have in Here is Matthew 11:28.

Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

And you know, when we don't do that, that's rebellion, too.

Yeah.

It's easy to relate.

Yeah.

What we see in Lee, you know, he's carrying that burden of his brother's death, and he's letting it affect his life and his growth.

But as believers, as children of God, we not only can hand it over to the Lord, we are supposed to hand it over and let it help with our healing.

This actually falls into.

All of our themes are kind of running together, because I think the next theme that I have written in here is also one of rebellion.

And it falls very much into what you were just saying, because one of the things that is really pushed very much in this movie is all about making choices.

And one of the things I thought was very interesting is that martial arts is very empowering, and I know.

And one of our Fellow podcasters is a black belt.

So.

And this is, you know, if he listens to this episode, I know several Christians.

Daniel Lewis is a, is a black belt.

There are a lot of Christians I know of that are in the martial arts.

And it's very empowering because it, it puts you in the correct mindset to be able to get yourself out of trouble.

And it's not.

And when I took a self defense class from some martial artists, one of the things they always point out is that you're not supposed to get yourself in trouble.

Martial arts is only supposed to get you out of trouble.

You're not going to go like trolling the alleyways in the bad part of town just looking for a fight.

That's not what the point of martial arts is.

But at the same time that empowerment means a lot of times that we are attempting through martial art to make choices that are empowering to us, like we're trying to empower ourselves.

And this isn't true of all martial arts philosophy, but it is definitely the root of the spirituality aspect that is in the Asian martial arts, because especially certain disciplines are very much tied into qi and the whole spiritual realm of the body and all that kind of stuff.

So there's some aspects of martial arts that is meant to be self empowering in a way that would take us away from God.

And the fact that I know many Christians who have black belts, they all did like Christian dojos where they kind of like take out the mysticism, the.

Buddhist root or the Shintoist root.

Yeah, it's all about the disciplining.

And that's what Christianity is all about too.

Yeah, I mean, there is a putting yourself under the guidance and the leadership of a master.

And there is that aspect of discipline and submission to somebody who is greater than you, which is part of being Christian and, you know, being the slave of God rather than the slave of sin.

And so there's those aspects of it that can be very Christian at the same time that one of the things that I really see in the Karate Kid movie is that it's not necessarily that type of empowerment, like the kind of empowerment we would think of as Christian.

It's more of making correct choices.

And like one of the lines in here was, you cannot control when life knocks you down, but you can control when you get back up.

So the empowerment that is being put forward in this movie based on choices is self empowerment.

It's not getting your power from anyone else.

It's internalizing that power and being in control and that is the actual opposite of the way we are supposed to live as Christians, because we are supposed to let go.

We're supposed to surrender.

We're supposed to give that control to God.

But that's what the world's all about, right?

Is.

Yeah, take control.

Take control.

Make the right choices.

And there was another line in there.

It was actually about the black eye, because when Lee got attacked in the subway, he was doing nothing.

He was actually following his girlfriend off the subway.

And this guy.

She wasn't.

She wasn't even his girlfriend at that point.

Yeah, his friend, who was a girl off the subway.

They were literally on their first outing.

Yeah, he didn't do anything.

And he got slammed into a piece of the train and got the black eye.

So he was being very passive.

He wasn't attempting anything other than just being present.

And so he really didn't have a choice.

He did not fight.

He was actually just standing there.

And so he told his mom, I didn't have a choice.

And she was like, you always have a choice.

And I was thinking, that's kind of unfair because she didn't even give him the chance to say that he didn't fight, that this was done to him when he was standing there passively, not fighting back.

But then there was this other scene where Mr.

Han Shifu Han tells Lee that it's not about the relationship between him and his girlfriend.

They weren't supposed to give up, that they were supposed to keep trying.

And so there was a lot of these, like, lines throughout the movie about them, you know, internalizing, taking it on, being in control, making good choices and all of this kind of stuff.

And I was thinking as you went through about Lee's guilt and as I talked about, you know, their obvious disobedience and rebellion at the same time.

This empowerment through choices from a Christian worldview is also a type of rebellion, because that's like taking on.

Likely was taking on his unnecessary guilt for his brother's death.

He's also being made to be responsible for getting back up when life knocks you down.

And I was thinking it's like if we're constantly having to pick ourselves up when we fall down, that in itself is very depressing because life's going to keep knocking us down.

That's part of living as human in a fallen world, is that we'll have instances of really great things where we're on top of the hill and things are going good, and then we're going to fall into that valley again.

And, you know, it makes Me think of Psalm 23, you know, that we need the shepherd to help us through those valleys, that we can't do it by ourselves.

So, you know, this empowerment through choices, this idea like with martial arts that you can take control, that you can make better choices, that you decide when you're going to get back up and you get back up and you do it right.

You know, all of those kind of things are philosophies that are of the world and they are of martial arts.

You have to be careful as a Christian if you're dealing with martial arts, that you don't internalize that form of rebellion against a God who is loving and who wants to guide us and take care of us in specific ways, where if we try to take that control back, we're actually rebelling.

For a Christian, it should be all about the self discipline that you can then turn to spiritual discipline too.

You're right.

You don't see that in this movie.

They don't show the disciplining and the surrender.

Yeah, yeah.

Is it Aaron that has the black belt?

Yes.

I think he would agree that it's all about the focus and disciplining and giving it up to God that a Christian martial artist learns.

And we don't see any of that in here.

But it's good to know that there are dojos out there that teach it.

Yeah, yeah, there are Christian dojos, thankfully.

And I think that if you want to pursue martial arts, you just have to be careful who you put yourself under.

I think that's even true when you look at Cobra Kai and all of this kind of stuff is that there was the bad karate and then there was the good karate.

We should probably remind people this is not real.

This is not how life works.

Well, I do want to just tie this up with several pieces of scripture.

So just a reminder that the mindset of the flesh versus the mindset of the Spirit.

This is Romans 8, 5, 8.

For those who live according to the flesh, flesh have their minds set on things of the flesh.

But those who live according to the spirit have their minds set on things of the spirit.

Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the spirit is life and peace.

The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit.

There's that submission, not rebellion to God's law.

Indeed it is unable to do so.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God because they are rebelling.

There.

There's rebellion versus surrender.

It's submission or rebellion, right?

Yeah.

And then there's arrogance.

This is James 4, 13, 17.

I had, you know, get James in.

Gotta get your James in.

I'm surprised we made it through without an Ecclesiastes.

Should we go throw one in there?

I talked about the preacher earlier, so.

Yes, you did.

Come.

Now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.

And yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring, what your life will be for.

You are like a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

Instead, you should say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.

But as it is, you boast in your arrogance.

All such boasting is evil.

So it is sin to know the good and yet not do it.

So the reason I put that in there is because in talking about the fact that you can make your choices or you can choose and you can be in control.

That's what it looks like to God when we say, I'm going to be in control of that.

I'm going to go to the city and do this and that.

But it's your arrogance that says, I can control this.

And God's like, you're a vapor, you know, quit boasting.

Then we can fall back on Proverbs 3, 5, 7.

We've used these scriptures a lot.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Do not rely on your own understanding.

In all your ways, know him and he will make your paths straight.

Don't be wise in your own eyes.

Fear the Lord and turn away from evil.

So this is that whole understanding that we can't control our paths.

We have to rely on God to make our paths straight.

So there's that surrender again.

And then in Joshua 24:15, this is, I think, one of those verses that sometimes gets taken out of context.

But at the same time, I think it's true of Christian living just as well as it as it was the rebellious Israel under.

Under the judges.

But if it doesn't please you to worship the Lord, choose for yourselves today.

Which will you worship?

The gods your ancestors worship beyond the Euphrates river?

Or the gods of the animal rights in whose land you are living?

As for me and my family, we will worship the Lord.

And that's kind of like where choice is.

It's like you either choose the world or you choose God.

Those are the only choices.

And we would hope that as Christians, you are choosing to follow God.

More rebellion, that seems to be the main theme.

That's Going through this movie, or at least that we saw.

The interesting thing to me is that the rebellion theme, it's only a theme when you look at it from a Christian viewpoint.

Right, right.

Because as a theme from a secular viewpoint, it's never addressed, it's never resolved.

You see it throughout the whole movie.

And how does Lee's rebellion against his mother work out?

She forgives him.

Yeah.

She comes over to his side.

Yeah.

And same thing with Victor and Mia.

And it'll all work out in the end.

So.

Isn'T it funny how that always happens in a formulaic movie that's repeated like umpteen million times and different formats?

You know, I joke about how formulaic the entire Karate Kid franchise is.

Yeah.

But we see a lot of this exact formula of self empowerment and forgiveness without repentance.

We see this all the time in Hollywood.

Yeah.

Because people want to feel good.

They don't want to see the consequences of sucker punching somebody in public.

Yeah.

So there was one last thing that I wanted to talk about.

Very short theme.

Both Lee's mom and his uncle, they have two very different perspectives on violence.

Lee's mother is deeply opposed to martial arts and violence and blames it for the death of her son, and rightfully so.

At one point she says, you practice violence, you get violence in return.

And that sounds really familiar.

Let's see if we can get to that.

Yeah.

And you know, her opposition, it's got a very strong emotional root to it, and it's perfectly understandable.

You know, martial arts, it's not this gateway to discipline and empowerment.

It's this doorway to danger.

You know, she looks at pulling Lee out of his training and making Lee quit as protecting him.

Right.

It's perfectly understandable the way that they present her viewpoint in this movie.

And, you know, we get the same thing.

You know, when Jesus was in the garden, Matthew 26:51, 53 says, at that moment, one of those with Jesus reached out his hand and drew his sword.

He struck the high priest's servant and cut off his ear.

Then Jesus told him, put your sword back in its place, because all who take up the sword will perish by the sword.

Or do you think that I cannot call on my father and he will provide me here and now with more than 12 legions of angels?

And, you know, he's got a point.

Yeah.

At any time, he could have stopped the entire process.

And the fact that he didn't.

Yeah.

That's.

He was submitting to the will of his father, even though it took him to the cross.

It's the opposite of rebellion.

Yeah.

So Lee's uncle, Sifu Han, and I looked up what sifu means, and it.

It is essentially, it is the Chinese version of sensei in Japanese or rabbi in Hebrew.

And I just thought.

I thought that was interesting.

So Sifu Han sees martial arts, you know, as a path to discipline and healing, but he's been doing it for years.

Years and years and years and years.

So it's about inner mastery, you know, not about domination, which is clearly what Connor Day's sensei seems to think.

That it's domination.

Yeah, yeah.

Just to make that.

That clear.

Yeah.

And.

And we see that through the way he teaches Lee.

It's not about how to fight as much as it is to survive, to endure, to make wise choices, and to be there to protect others.

The first time that he really fights after he told his mother he would stop, is when he stumbles upon two enforcers coming to beat up Victor.

Because Victor owes this guy, who happens to be the sensei of the other dojo, of course, money because he's also a loan shark, you know, because being a sensei isn't being an evil sensei isn't enough.

So, you know, when he chooses to fight again, it's to protect Victor.

And he does so.

He does so very well.

So as a believer, is this where we get our strength from, this discipline, this inner mastery?

It's not.

Spoiler alert.

I know Proverbs 14:16 says a wise person is cautious in terms from evil, but a fool is easily angered and is careless.

And Proverbs because it's a great place to go for Proverbs.

Wisdom.

Yeah.

A person who does not control his temper is like a city whose wall is broken down.

Proverbs 25, 28.

So sifu han has a point, too, in that wisdom is knowing when to fight and when to not fight, when to back away.

And they're both reacting to pain.

Sifu Han was there when Bo was killed, and he.

The same way that Mia was hovering over Victor in the ring, calling for help, Han was in the same position, hovering over Bow, calling for help while Lee was frozen.

And, you know, there's no one answer here.

There's no, pacifism is the right answer or fighting for your faith is the right answer.

The wisdom of God is knowing when each is appropriate.

And in my notes, it's called disciplined meekness.

You know, the Sermon on the mount, Matthew 5:5, Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

And I commented to you yesterday when we were working on these notes that my preferred translation, the Christian Standard Bible, had changed the word from meek to humble.

And I acknowledge that that's probably a better word for the Hebrew.

But blessed are the meek is how I learned it, darn it.

When, when I was a little kid.

So that's the way I'm reading.

It's my little act of rebellion.

But the word meek does not have the same connotations today as it did in the 15th century when the King James was written.

And you know, when, when it was translated, then humble really is a much better word.

And humility is knowing.

Knowing that you are not better, that I am not better than the people I work with or the people I'm gaming with, or, you know, the people I'm standing on a bus with.

We are all equal.

Or if you like in the case of Christ, who went meekly to the cross, it's having knowing you are better, but not using that as a bludgeon to destroy other people.

Yeah.

And he's the only one who could have done that.

Yeah, not me.

Definitely not me.

So we're called to live with humility, disciplined meekness, but also disciplined courage.

And we need to trust that God will lead us in the right way when and if that time comes.

Where we need to know, is this where I stand firm or is this where I walk away?

And that is what makes the wise warrior in God's kingdom.

Yeah.

So that was my last theme for Karate Kid Legends.

Yeah.

And we'll get this out to you guys and then we are going to turn around immediately as soon as we get this episode out and go see the live action of how to Train youn Dragon, which is also animated as well as live action.

It sounds like it's getting rave reviews, so I'm actually really excited to go see it.

So hopefully we will wrap this up and get to that really quickly.

So thank you so much for listening to this podcast and we're going to bring you another exciting episode in July.

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Don't forget to like subscribe and hit.

The little notification bell.

Yeah, hit the bell.

Yeah.

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Thank you so much for listening.

I'm E.

Franklin.

I'm Tim Martin.

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