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The new Karate Kid has been selected. There was a global casting search that saw 10,000 entries reported in the first 24 hours alone. After all that effort, it is a somewhat familiar face – Ben Wang.
Wang is best known as the star of the recent Disney+ series American Born Chinese and has a role in the recent Mean Girls musical, will take on this lead role for the new The Karate Kid at Sony Pictures.
The Hollywood Reporter Broke this story, and say he delivered what they called a “standout audition that demonstrated his deep connection to the character”.
Wang is fluent in Mandarin and is already highly skilled in many forms of martial arts including karate, wing chun/kung fu, gumdo, kempo and taekwondo, which clearly had to have helped.
What we know about the story for this upcoming instalment is light. So far we know both Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio will reprise their characters from previous Karate Kid movies. This means it will merge together the worlds of Cobra Kai and the Jaden Smith remake. It is presumed it will therefore be set after Cobra Kai, which finished its run later this year with a sixth season.
The new movie will be set back across on the U.S. East Coast, where Daniel left at the very start of the whole story. It follows a teen from China who finds strength and direction via martial arts and a tough but wise mentor.
Jonathan Entwistle (I’m Not Okay with This) is directing from a script by Rob Lieber.
The Karate Kid will shoot shortly for a December 13th release this year.
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