The Karate Kid

Super Marcey's The Karate Kid Review

Rating: 3/5

Okay first off, this really should be called The Kung Fu Kid, considering Karate is not featured at all and they do Kung Fu in this film. The only reason it kept the Karate Kid title was for marketing, apparently people are stupid and wouldn't notice there is no Karate in the film. That aside, it is not secret I was not happy to hear about a remake of one of my favourite films starring Jaden Smith. Again it is not secret I can't stand the spawn of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett, thanks in part to the horrible The Day The Earth Stood Still remake. I figured I would go into this with an open mind, it has gotten some positive reviews and surely Jackie Chan would be good? Well Jackie Chan is good, and the film isn't that bad.

Of course they have changed a lot of things, instead of moving across the country, this one sees the mother and son move countries. So our setting has changed, but it is still a fish out of water story. They also changed the age of our main character, whereas the original he was 17, here he is 12 and this for me provided a few problems. Of course as I already mentioned, since the film is set in China, we get Kung Fu and not Karate. Mr Miyagi in the original was an old man, here Mr. Han is a lot younger obviously and that was just fine. Changing the age to someone younger as I just mentioned provided a few problems, especially in this day and age. Of course we know the relationship between student and teacher is innocent, but it seems a little odd that the mother in this film just lets her son run off with a middle aged man without investigating, I find that a bit off. Also in the original we have the classic scene where Daniel tries to get revenge on the bullies but ends up in a fight where he is out number, only to have Miyagi come to his rescue and beat up the bullies. Those bullies were 17, and while it seemed an old man probably couldn't have the strength ect to beat them up it didn't seem wrong. Here we have a similar scene and Mr Han comes to the rescue but it seems a bit wrong having a 50 year old man beating up a bunch of 12 year olds. Sure they deserved to be taught a lesson, but getting beat up by a middle aged man doesn't seem right to me.

As mentioned the new film follows the formula of the first film, having similar scenes and scenario's and why wouldn't they? Despite the heavy cliche's they keep to something which was proven to work and I do applaud that. While they do have things that are the same they do make them different, and it does work for the new settings ect. As far as the situation with the bullies go, I didn't feel this film explored that enough like it did in the original. It would have helped if we got more of an idea how much of a hard time they gave Dre (Jaden Smith), and whether or not it was just them that made him miserable there. In a scene where he 'breaks down' and tells his mother he hates it there, it didn't feel like we got enough of why he did. The scene I felt was not very well down, Jaden struggled with the emotions and the mother (Taraji P. Henson) was just not a likable character and it didn't help the actress was terrible in the role. At least they showed the bond between Dre and the girl Mei (Wenwen Han), it was a cute little friendship and a strong part of the story. I felt again we didn't get enough of the bullies, I just thought we needed more a threat there. We hardly see their teacher, and he didn't seem like the real bad ass that was Martin Kove as Kreese was in the original. The scenes of the training were alright, the whole jacket thing felt like it went on way too long, the scenes on the great wall just seemed to be a little bit too much. The lessons presented were good, like picking yourself up, not being afraid, all similar lessons and themes to the original and of course always relevant.

Jackie Chan really owned the role of Mr. Han, he is a sad man with a sad past, and Chan shows that he can actually act when you give him the chance (that is in an English speaking role). Mostly we are used to him being in comedies or comedic roles (again I am talking the English speaking films), and to see his break down scene was something very different and it had a great impact. Not only is he teaching Dre, in this scene we see Dre is teaching him. I felt this was one of the strongest scenes for both Chan and Smith. Amazing Jaden Smith actually turned out to be alright here, he's given some decent material to work with. His character is of course a bit cocky (Daniel was too in the original) but it isn't an overly annoying cocky. He's alright for most of the film, I did warm up to him as it went on, but like I said it help he had decent material to work with. He's certainly a very flexible kid, and he must have done a lot of training. He's certainly a lot more flexible then Ralph Macchio was in the original, but this film does feature a lot better martial arts. The bullies weren't terribly good, aside from making mean faces but I get the feeling they were hired more for their Scott Adkins like abilities rather then their acting chops. Over all this turned out to be an alright film, entertaining enough, and keeping with the spirit of the original. It has a really nice score, props go to the awesome James Horner (Titanic, Avatar), it has similarities to the original film's score in the sense that it'll stick with you. He did a really good job, and I had no idea he did the score for this until I saw it in the credits. Of course I am always going to love the original because it is a favourite of mine, but they did a decent job of remaking it and you got to give credit where it is due.

First published at SuperMarcey.com

Recommendations: Moon (Duncan Jones, 2009), Milk, Hurt Locker, The (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009)

Last updated: 2010-07-15 22:21:52 by SuperMarcey

Movie Bytes: The Karate Kid (2010)

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Recommendations:

Last updated: 2010-07-05 00:40:57 by hellerphant

THE KARATE KID

As we all know, The Karate Kid is a remake of the original film from 1984.  I admit that when I found out the remake would focus on a 12 year-old, I was rather disappointed.  I thought "okay, they're trying to make it more of a kids movie this time around".  Then when I saw the trailer, I realized the movie actually looked pretty good and seems to have been taken seriously.  Well it is good, and it's not just some silly kids movie.
It pretty much follows the same story of the original version with a few changes here and there.  Most notably, this one takes place in China.  As I just mentioned, it also focuses on a younger karate kid this time.  But another difference is that this time the kid is actually learning kung fu.  This makes for much better fight sequences with swifter and more complex moves.  The bullying theme from the original remains intact though.  Jaden Smith plays Dre Parker, a child who must adapt to life in China when his mother gets a job there and makes them move from Detroit.  Dre starts getting picked on by other students at his school, not only for not being Chinese but also because he takes an interest in one of the Chinese girls he meets.  He doesn't just get picked on, he gets the crap beat out of him.  At 12 years old, that can really change your outlook on life.
Luckily for Dre, the maintenance man in his building steps in to save him from a beatdown by about 6 different thugs.  Since it is basically kids that he's fighting, he fights them in a way that makes them beat each other up.  Jackie Chan plays Mr. Han, the maintenance man with obvious kung fu skills.  He knows not to punch a child, so he uses his skills in a more defensive way that takes one kid and makes him hit the other kids or block their attacks.  Mr. Han agrees to help train Dre in this manner that teaches kung fu as self-defense and a way to rid oneself of being afraid.  The kids who bully Dre, on the other hand, are taught by their teacher to employ pain on others and show "no mercy"... one of the many echoes of the 1984 film.
As a way to get the kids to leave Dre alone for a while, Mr. Han agrees with their sadistic instructor to sign up Dre for the upcoming kung fu tournament.  The film then shifts into training mode, and we get some great scenes of the master and pupil working together.  We also find out why this kung fu master has become a lowly maintenance man.  Mr. Han is fighting some personal demons from the past, but mentoring young Dre seems to be helping him deal with this.  I wasn't sure what to make of Jaden Smith as an actor previously.  He was good in his first role in Pursuit of Happyness but he was playing the son of his real-life father so it wasn't much of a stretch.  Then he was in The Day the Earth Stood Still and was easily the most annoying thing in it.  But he has a much greater presence in this film and proves himself to be a very good child actor as he just about carries the entire film. 
You can also tell that Jaden actually knows what he's doing in the fighting sequences.  Whereas Ralph Macchio from the first film might not have had any real skills in martial arts, Jaden Smith trained everyday for 4 months and it shows.  There's also a great chemistry between him and Jackie Chan with some real moments of bonding in the film.  Chan shows a more subdued side here which is nice to see rather than the outgoing charmer that he usually is even when kicking butt.  This may be the first time I ever viewed him as a real actor and not just a martial arts expert who became a movie star. 
The ending climax at the tournament is shot very well which is important considering the film has a ridiculously long running time (probably the movie's one shortcoming).  So even though it is a lengthy film, audiences will be entertained throughout as we get an updated look at an 80's classic.  Remakes can be pretty bad sometimes if not done right and make us miss the old version, but here we get a real crowd-pleaser.

Recommendations: The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Se7en , 25th Hour

http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-philadelphia/danny-porcaro

The Karate Kid (2010)

Plot: A remake of the 1984 classic.  12 year-old Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) moves to China with his mother (Taraji P. Henson) and is instantly the target of Cheng (Zhenwei Wang), a bully who is also a top kung-fu student.  Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), a reclusive maintenance man in Dre’s apartment building teaches him kung-fu and prepares Dre for an upcoming tournament in which Cheng will also partake in.

The 1984 Karate Kid is one of my favorite movies of all time, so it was really hard for me to get into this remake.  But I’ll come right out and say it; there is absolutely no reason for this movie to exist.  This is not just me being nostalgic.  If you want to see the Karate Kid, than go see the original.  This remake does absolutely nothing new.  It is scene for scene the original with different character names and a different setting.  I’m not just talking about similar scenes.  It’s every single detail.  This is the prime example of how to do remakes/reboots wrong.  Why did Batman Begins work?  It did something new with the character and franchise.  Why did Superman Returns fail?  It’s a worse rehash of the original.  We have the same thing here:  A pathetic retelling of a classic movie.

It’s not just the same exact scenes and conflicts that are copied.  Character reactions and dialogue are ripped right from the original, but they try and slightly tweak them to seem different.  Let me give you some examples.  In the original, when Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) first asks Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) to fix the kitchen faucet, he gets a little scared and closes the screen door.  Dre Parker does the exact same thing action for action in this scene.  Oh, but this time he’s asking Mr. Han to fix the shower head.  Oh, that is so different.  Wow.  How clever.  I’m glad they remade this.  I know it seems like that’s some random detail, but if you’ve seen the original Karate Kid, you’ll notice 800 of the same details happening.  The characters literally mimic everything the original actors did.

The dialogue is really what’s pathetic though and drove me nuts.  This is how much effort they put into this script.  In the original, Mr. Miyagi tells the bad guy karate master John Kreese (Martin Kove) that it’s not fair for Daniel to face a 5 to 1 problem.  In this version, Mr. Han asks the bad kung-fu master it’s not fair for Dre to face a 6 to 1 problem.  You’ve got to be kidding me.  Now I know what you’re saying.  “Hey, I haven’t seen the original Karate Kid, so this was all new to me.”  But what you don’t realize is that the original is a superior film and I’m going to tell you why.

Like I said, this remake just spits out the same scenes from the original, but they are more drawn out and boring.  The director (Harald Zwart) tries to make it this big epic spectacle, but it’s so uninteresting.  What made the original work was its subtlety.  Everything that happened was believable.  And this is where this version truly fails.

One of my favorite parts about the original Karate Kid was the training scenes.  If you haven’t seen the original or this remake, I’m going to give away some spoilers in this paragraph so be warned.  Mr. Miyagi has Daniel do basically house chores like waxing cars, painting fences and so on.  Like Daniel, you get frustrated because you aren’t sure where it’s going.  But when you finally realize Mr. Miyagi is teaching him how to block, it really hits you hard.  And the reveal of that scene was not over the top.  It was believable, which is why it was so amazing.  In this remake, they do this lame “Jacket on/jacket off” thing for like 15 minutes.  And when the scene finally comes where Dre realizes he is learning kung-fu, its complete bull shit.  He’s doing all kinds of advanced moves that had no correlation to the “jacket on/jacket off” motion.  It’s totally ridiculous.  The film wants you to buy this as believable like the original, but it fails horribly.  And the tournament at the end is worse.  Dre is doing shit that no human being could learn in the amount of time he had.  But in the original Karate Kid, the stuff Daniel learned was totally believable. 

The training scenes in general are total garbage.  They are way to long.  They are boring as hell, and there is nothing clever about them.  There is one scene in the movie where Dre and Mr. Han are climbing these long ass steps.  It lasted for eternity. 

Is there anything I liked about this remake?  Jackie Chan held his own as Mr. Han.  This is certainly one of his better acting performances.  But his character actually leads me into something else I hated about the film.  When Mr. Han rescues Dre from the gang of kung-fu bullies, they have this 6 minute comedic fight.  What made Mr. Miyagi so bad ass in the original was that he defeated the bullies in about 10 seconds.  Isn’t that more powerful then some lame drawn out comedic fighting sequence?  I guess that’s just me.  Jaden Smith isn’t horrible, but he lacks a lot of charisma in the role.  He’s just there going through the motions.

So please, if you are going to take your kids to see the Karate Kid movie, don’t go to this one.  Just show them the original.   The only thing outdated about the original is the music.  All they did was take the original script and used a thesaurus to replace certain words in the dialogue.  This was an astonishingly bad remake.  Even just not comparing it to the original, it’s a boring, boring, boring movie.  The training scenes bored me to tears.    It’s a bad movie…I have nothing else to say.

Rating: 4.0 out of 10 (Bad)

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The Karate Kid Movie Review

Hey, cute Chinese girl with the violin, I`ll go to your music recital if you come to my Kung-Fu Tournament.  We can cheer each other on and then I can visit the Forbidden City, if you know what I mean!       
One Word Movie Review: OKAY - 3 Stars
The Karate Kid attempts to pay tribute to a classic coming-of-age movie while updating and relocating it to China, the home of martial arts and jobs for people from Detroit.  Although the visuals provide fresh locales, the stale story gets little more than a mechanical A to B to C plot structure which we’ve now seen a hundred times over.   All this could be forgiven if the writing pushed the main characters beyond petulant adolescent attitudes and Kung-Fu homilies, but if you only “fix car, you fix nothing”.  Life will knock you down but you choose to get back up.  Oh, there’s more.  Much more. 
There is jacket tossing, shadow kisses, dragon wells and a cobra lady standing on one foot, all leading to the big ping pong – whoops, I mean Kung-Fu Tournament where our young Karate (Kung-Fu) Kid gets a chance to overcome his fear and stand on his own two legs, even if one is really sore.
But first, before all the slow-motion kicks and punches and scoreboard close-ups, we have to feel the pain of a new school, a local bully and a young girl playing the violin.  Only then can we learn not to say “ass” and kick the bell hanging way up there over our heads.  You just know when he can do that, he’s ready for victory – cue AC/DC`s Back in Black…
The casting is central to the success of this movie, and Pat Morita and Ralph Macchio nailed the principal roles of teacher and student in the original movie.  Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith reprise the characters with mixed success.  Jackie cannot truly be the humble janitor and when he kicks the unmentionable ass, the movie vaults into another gear.  Jaden Smith, the son of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith who also produced the film, is asked to work beyond his range both physically and emotionally.  The result is a restrained Chan no one wants to see and a detached Jaden who seems more at home breakdancing on a skateboard than channeling his internal energy to harness the essence of life into the power from within.
So you don`t get surprised or moved by the film, but it is pretty to watch and full of energy, and the moral lessons of life are there for the target audiences of pre-teens and up.  You could strive for more and fail or shoot for the averages as the producers of this film did and get there safely. 

The Story
The story starts in Detroit with a growth chart on the wall, where Dre, the boy of destiny has charted his rise for years, even after his dad died.  Now, they are leaving home for a new one in China because mom has been transferred there, as there are no more jobs in Detroit, plainly evident by the foreclosure and factory closing signs seen out the window of their bus as they drive to the airport. 
From the stilted “let`s learn Chinese” scenes to the “fish out of water” vignettes at Dre`s new school and the local playground, our hero hasn`t even recovered from his “airplane lag” (isn`t that the cutest variation on jet lag?) before he`s in love with a violinist and beaten up by the playground bully.  Luckily, both of them speak English so Dre can try and make out with one and avoid the other without learning the local language.
Dre`s life gets more and more miserable until the local janitor helps him out by beating up the bullies and offering to teach the young grasshopper the ways of Fu.  You know, it is a way of life, not a fighting style.  You must be one with the Fu, young Jedi Dre.  Yes, they use a reference to Star Wars.  Help. 
Dre`s really prepared for life in China, down to his useless attempt to use chop sticks and ignorance of the Chinese dominance of ping pong.  Hasn`t he seen Kung Pow: Enter the Fist?  He would know how much being beaten up by martial arts bullies “hurts like crap, man!”   
Boy and man must bond and help each other, between travel scenes of the Great Wall and the Forbidden City and irritating invasions from Dre`s mother who is clueless about her son`s troubles but keen at the end to cheer him on as he gets “hurt like crap” in front of thousands.  Way to go, Mom!
No, we need Jackie Chan to get drunk and smash up his car and then cry and then we`re all on the same team.  Some ancient Chinese medicine at strategic times solves every plot issue and the story works out for the best after all.  Then, after a final shot of teacher and student bonding in triumph we get the credits and precious production stills of Jaden and his mom and dad over the end song of Jaden and Justin singing Never Say Never, which may be a threat for a sequel, let`s hope not.  One home movie of the Smith family is enough.
The Genre
The re-make coming-of-age genre is a specialty category.  Troubled kids growing up fast by competing against others in slow motion is ripe for more remakes like The Last Starfighter, The Flamingo Kid, American Graffiti, Top Gun and Mystic Pizza. 
Recently, these stories have been replaced by video game adaptations and super hero tales of kids not fitting in but blessed with super powers or abilities grown-ups just don`t understand but fear like a bad case of head lice.  It is so much easier to get bullied at school and then, whoops, get bitten by a radioactive spider and guess what?  Super-strength without all the inner spiritual nonsense about reflecting water controls cobra. 
The previews were well-received a month or two ago.  I remember several guys seated near me stating how much they wanted to see this picture.  There is a large reservoir of good will in the generation who remembers the original film and thus, the re-make will open big and then fade away.
The Overall Quality
The Karate Kid is not a bad move, just okay.  This is faint praise when you consider all the effort and talent participating in this project, including the Chinese production sets and locations, fresh faces in key roles and built-in devotion to the source material.  With some imagination in the writing and spark in the performances, this could have re-launched this franchise like a few others have done, namely the recent Star Trek and Batman films.  Sadly, this is not to be. 
As Dre confesses when asked why he is so motivated to keep fighting, he admits he is still scared.  Well, he should be.  Jared Smith is very young and the camera likes him.  He will have every opportunity to build a career beyond this film, but he has to come of age too, just like his character.  Until then, he should be very scared of his mom and dad and their career plans for him.
As for Jackie Chan, who really wants to see him act?  Honestly, he is an action star and playing the humble janitor fits him like two bags of dirty laundry.  He repeats a few times the main conflict in the film, “not bad kids, bad teacher”.  This begs the real question, why didn`t they make that movie: Jackie Chan kicking the teacher`s ass, all his students and about a thousand others, all in slow motion.
Movie/Market Analysis
MarketBOB’s sentiment indicators, the GQS (Genre, Quality, Story) rate The Karate Kid an lukewarm emotional BULL.  This remains an uplifting story which kids will enjoy and parents will sit through contented, if not thrilled.  There is just enough going on to make it worth the money and time spent and, if nothing else, it will teach kids to hang up their jacket when they come home from school.            
Craig Forgrave (MarketBOB)
For the latest reviews and analysis of movies and their impact on market psychology, go to www.marketbob.com. 
My new Report on the Investing Decades of Depression: The Lost Decades of the 1930's, 1970's and the 2000's is available as an ebook.  Check out a preview.  It traces 30 years of stock market declines and the movies audiences flocked to during these depressing years. 

The Karate Kid (2010)

Before discussing the film, I have become aware of some protesting of some remakes, and 're-boots' in general, and some protests and demonstartions against this film specifically. But I'm not going there. There are also protests about Will Smith who cast his son in the lead. I'm not going there either.. If you feel strongly against remakes, or Smith casting his son, then you can choose to not go the movie, as well as choose to not read the reviews.

As I recall, I didn't see the original Karate Kid (1984) in the theaters when it came out. I think I probably decided to watch it only after watching Jean-Claude Van Damm in Bloodsport (1988) on a VHS tape in the early 90's. So I missed out on popular movie franchise when it was really popular.



But if you live long enough, what goes around comes around. And here we are in June of 2010, a mere 26 years later, and The Karate Kid has just opened. Having been to Beijing, China, the film interested me on that level. I was also a fan of Jackie Chan's, and I wanted to see if super-star Will Smith's kid Jaden, had inherited his Dad's acting chops.

I am pleased to report that The Karate Kid pleased me on all of the above levels of criteria - China, Chan, and the precocious Jaden Smith.

This film is somewhere between a remake and a brand new film. Though the title is the same, there's no karate in this film. Instead, it is all about kung fu. It's not about a white kid who relocates from NJ to California. This is a black kid and his Mom has taken a job in China. And finally the other major difference is that the Pat Morita role - that of a Japanese who teaches the kid karate, has been updated to a Chinese guy who teaches the kid kung-fu.



Of course none of this is too far removed from Yoda teaching Luke Skywalker those Star Wars lessons. Only we don't have a Darth Vader. Instead we have a school bully who is after Jaden Smith who's character is called Dre.



Dre has his hands full. He's the new kid in town and he's no longer in Detroit. He can't speak Chinese. He's on brand-new turf, and there's no way for him to get lost in the crowd.



So naturally he's the one picked on at his new Beijing school. He does make a friend, and she's not only a cute girl, but she's a cute Chinese girl. The school bully (below) isn't happy about this and he easily tosses Dre to the ground in the process of giving him a good roughing up.



When Dre and Cheng, the school bully cross paths again, Dre douses Cheng and his gang. There's a chase but Dre can't out run them forever. Just as Cheng throws a punch at Dre,  enter Jackie Chan as Mr. Han, a local maintenance man but also a secret kung fu master. He saves Dre from another beat down and soon the lessons begin.

According to Mr. Han, kung fun is not only a martial art, but its tenets will make you a better person, help you get in tune with your surroundings, enable you to be in harmony with nature, as well as allow you to utilze all the energy around you.

As Mr. Han says, "Everything is kung fu."

So our journey with young Dre is not only one of intense training and discipline, but also one of strengthening our inner selves at the same time. With kung fu maturity and inner calm are posible for any and all of us, even 12 year  olds from Detroit.



What makes the film so good is young Jaden. When he brings us the frightened and scared Dre, who must now live in a new and strange world unlike anything he's known before, we see and feel his fears, his loneliness, and his struggles becomes ours. His work is masterful.



Jackie Chan has turned himself inside out as well. He's no longer the center of the film. He's just Jaden's guide, but his teachings are universal as are the problems that Dre undergoes. I mean 12 year olds in any country must all survive the rites of passage.



The film was directed by Harald Zwart, who I don't know much about other than he helmed the Steve Martin vehicle, The Pink Panther 2. Zwart worked quite well with Jaden and Jackie. Since this is a feel good film, the script has no surprises, but the China visuals are superb.



I've been on the Great Wall of China, a few hours from Beijing, so when Han and Dre do some training there, I knew it was eye-candy for the viewers but still I love revisiting that place again.



This is a very fine film. Jaden Smith is on  screen about 95%  of the time. He's likeable, entertaining, and goes about his business. The boy-girl aspect is sort of a side story, after all, they're just 12 year olds.  The kung fu tournament isn't at all suspenseful, but then again, it wasn't expected to be so.



About the worst thing that I can say about it is that the title for the film in the USA is The Karate Kid, which seems like a 'visible to everyone' unnecessary marketing ploy. The film will do well, and word of mouth will get out and put the fannies in the seats. And this would be the case even if they called it The Kung Fu Kid.

Maybe Chan should have said to his producers, Your focus needs more focus..."

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Recommendations: Chak De! India

Last updated: 2010-06-13 07:40:33 by JustMeMike