Can you use 'shoehorn fan favourite characters into a completely unrelated story and brand it with something popular to make money' in a sentence?

This is a teen drama with Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio popping up in scenes that probably took them a week or so to shoot, a film that exists solely to try and cash in on the popularity of Cobra Kai on Netflix.

Li (Ben Wang) is a student at Mr Han's (Chan) kung fu school, very much against his doctor mother's wishes after his older brother died in a street attack by thugs he was competing against after a tournament.

She informs him they're moving to New York and leaving everything he knows, but he tries to make the most of it, befriending the pretty pizza shop girl Mia (Sadie Stanley) and her dad, former boxer Victor (Joshua Jackson, looking all grown up) and making a fast enemy out of the local karate bully and tournament champion (and the love interest's ex, naturally).

After Li saves Victor from a beating at the hands of dodgy creditors connected to the crooked neighbourhood dojo where the bully trains, Victor begs Li to train him, which would go against his mother's edict against fighting.

When Victor falls victim to dirty tactics at his first underground bout and lands in hospital, Li's secret is out, with both his mother and Mia mad at him.

Meanwhile, Han has travelled to LA and recruited Daniel (Macchio) to accompany him to New York and help Li train for the upcoming tournament, which Han believes will help him put Li's demons to rest.

Cue a classic 80s style training montage and a thrilling kung fu match on a Big Apple skyscraper rooftop with a curious lack of wind (because it was all shot in a studio against a green sceen) and all loose ends are effectively wrapped up.

This review sounds a lot nastier than I intended. It does what it says on the tin adequately and the drama and plot are perfectly fine. It's just hard not to be cynical when it's so obviously machine tooled to cash in on other movies and shows.

You can almost hear the pitch meeting some development exec made to their superior; 'fans will love it if we get Daniel-san and Mr Han from the remake together, who cares what the story is? We'll just get two unknown kids and have them act out the original Karate Kid again!'

The only real fun was Johnny (William Zabka) showing up at the end for an amusing aside about opening a chain of pizza restaurants. I gave up on Cobra Kai after two seasons because it was just like this movie – a drama about the romantic entanglements of a bunch of teenagers - but the one thing I'd have liked to see was how Danny and Johnny finally became friends.