The selling point of “Karate Kid: Legends” is the pairing of initial franchise star Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan, a star of the 2010 reboot that shares the title of the 1984 original, “The Karate Kid.”

Their characters, Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Han, respectively, come together to train a young man for a big karate tournament.

Train him they do, of course, but those characters are little more than window dressing in a film that, fortunately, has a compelling young star in Ben Wang. In theaters this week, the short but relatively sweet “Karate Kid: Legends” benefits most from the young actor, who portrays would-be champion Li Fong.

In a reversal of the story from the 2010 movie, which saw Jaden Smith’s young character move from the United States to China, “Legends” has Li moving from Beijing to New York City after his doctor mom (Ming-Na Wen, “The Book of Boba Fett”) takes a job at a Big Apple hospital.

Unlike Smith’s Dre Parker, however, Li arrives to an unfamiliar land with some fairly serious martial arts skills, having been one of Han’s favorite students at his kung fu academy, where, yes, the students all learn the art of putting on and taking off a jacket, the 2010 flick’s answer to “wax on, wax off.” The youth has been spending time there despite the disapproval of Mom, who, after his brother’s death, has forbidden him from fighting.

That’s inconvenient, as Li immediately meets a girl, Mia (Sadie Stanley), whose jerky ex, Conor (Aramis Knight), spends all his time training in karate and soon sucker punches Li on a subway car.

Also inconvenient: Mia’s swell-guy pizzeria owner father, Victor (Joshua Jackson), owes money to the owner of the gym where Conor trains.

Victor, a former boxer, has called in a favor for the staging of a fight where, should he win, he’ll be able to pay his debt. He’s not the fighter he once was, though, so he asks Li to train him in kung fu techniques to give him an edge. And thus we have a surprising and highly enjoyable first act constructed by director Jonathan Entwistle and writer Rob Lieber, with much of the training taking place within fun, doughy constraints of the pizza joint.

After the boxing match, though, we get the expected narrative, Han visiting Li in New York and nudging him into the citywide Five Boroughs tournament in the name of saving Victor’s business — while, of course, also helping him to move on from the loss of his brother.

Han decides that he will not be teacher enough if Li is to win, so he travels to Los Angeles to recruit LaRusso, now a sensei, to help train Li in the short time leading up to the competition.

For you see, there is a deep connection between the Han family and that of LaRusso’s late mentor, Mr. Miyagi — so deep (cough) that it obviously was ginned up for this team-up affair.

If Li is to win, Han concludes, he must be trained in Miyagi’s specific brand of karate, which only LaRusso can teach. OK, sure.

“Legends” is at its best when Wang — star of the Disney+ series “American Born Chinese” but said to have been found after a worldwide search to cast the role — shares the screen with Stanley (“Kim Possible”) and Jackson (“Dawson’s Creek”).

And though neither Han nor LaRusso is given anything approaching a character arc, Chan (“Rush Hour”) and Macchio (“My Cousin Vinnie”) have their moment during the training sequences, as Han and LaRusso have what could be called a “mentor-off,” Li taking the resulting physical toll as each tries to one-up the other with fight suggestions.

The contemporary shooting and editing of the obligatory final confrontation between Li and Conor is a bit much at times, but the fight delivers the requisite excitement to bring home the affair.

Look, we’re not normally in the business of complaining about a brisk runtime, but with only about an hour and a half of actual story, some extra minutes could have been spent to do something grander with this tale, especially as it pertains to LaRusso and Han.

Still, “Karate Kid: Legends” crosses its kicks and dots its punches and offers a pretty fun and nostalgic trip to the theater.