The Karate Kid (2010)

If you’ve seen the 1984 “The Karate Kid,” the memories will come back while watching the 2010 remake. That’s a compliment. The original story was long-lasting to make three sequels, and now we have an entertaining remake made mostly on location in China, with Jackie Chan as this film’s Mr. Miyagi.

The original was one of the best movies of 1984. The 2010 remake lacks the perfect freshness of the original. There aren’t many surprises, as it follows the 1984 original almost verbatim. However, here is a nice and well-made film that stands on its own feet. The Chinese locations add visual beauty, there are parts of brilliance in mountains and on the Great Wall, and the characters are once again engaging.

The original film’s strongest part was the Oscar-nominated performance by Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi. Jackie Chan is so famous that it will not come as a surprise in his role of Mr. Han, a solitary janitor, when he tells a hidden secret for the martial arts. Roger Ebert noted, “But Chan has never been a strutting, macho fighter onscreen; his charm comes from a self-kidding quality. Here he does a good job of cooling down his usual cheerfulness and keeping his cards hidden.”

In the role of his student, Jaden Smith, son of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, has a natural screen presence. Dre Parker is calmer than Daniel, but so much smaller than his opponents that we can completely buy his fear of a bully at school. When that happens, we can forget about going crazy over the 1984 film and enjoy this one. That was then, this is now.

The story once again tells about a kid being dragged with his divorced mom, played by Taraji P. Henson, as they leave his hometown and friends and move far away – from Detroit to Beijing, this time. He hates it. Then a cute young violinist named Meiying (Han Wenwen) smiles at him, and things start to look better – if it weren’t for the school bully Cheng (Wang Zhenwei). This kid is so hateful and vicious, it’s hard to explain, until we meet his evil Kung Fu coach, Master Li (Yu Rongguang). Ebert is right when he says, “The monstrous Li teaches a new form of child abuse: Kids beating up on each other.”

The story continues, as it should, with Dre slowly making Mr. Han come out, who saves him from a beating by Cheng and agrees to teach Dre Kung Fu. His training goes well, and Dre and Meiying make an agreement to attend each other’s important days: his Kung Fu tournament, her recital. Just like in the original movie, her parents, played by Zhensu Wu and Zhiheng Wang, disapprove of Dre. Why in the world would the parents of a great violinist disapprove of a Kung Fu student from Detroit who doesn’t speak Chinese?

Luckily for Dre and the movie, everyone in China who needs to speak English can do so, even his bully Cheng. Ebert noted, “Many Americans not only have little interest in learning another language, they have little interest in reading subtitles of their own. We believe, as Mark Twain put it in The Innocents Abroad, that any foreigner can understand English if it is only spoken slowly enough and loudly enough.”

It is pretty obvious that the entire film leads up to the climatic Kung Fu tournament, and that Dre is going to fight Cheng for the championship. The descent of the film is separated. The 1984 original was directed by John Avildsen, the same director of “Rocky.” This film’s climax is oddly well-handled. The tension is made in a careful way, the characters are developed, and the use of a scoreboard makes it look orderly, not rushed. Ebert admitted, “It's one of the better obligatory fight climaxes I've seen.”

Ebert goes on to admit, “The director, Harald Zwart, has not been one of my favorites; he made last year's "The Pink Panther 2." But here, with a robust script by Christopher Murphey and cinematography by Roger Pratt (who filmed two "Harry Potters"), he makes a handsome, absorbing movie.” It runs a little long, but during the championship, that’s the last thing you’re thinking of.

As much as the remake can be good, I can’t help but think how similar this one is to the original movie. Once again, it’s a repeat of the same formula, which at this point has become stale and repetitive. Still, I can say check this out, but you may not like it. If you don’t, I know exactly how you feel. I’m not saying that I didn’t like it or hate it, I thought it was nice, but it might have been better if they didn’t remake the movie.

For years I have been hearing of the possibilities of them making a sequel to this movie, but it’s been six years and nothing has been confirmed. We’ll see if there will be a sequel to this movie and if they plan to do something different, but it may not happen. Jaden Smith is getting older now and it may be difficult to make a movie with him as a young adult.

Well, that completes “The Karate Kid Month.” I hope all of you enjoyed my reviews, and hopefully I gave all of you good recommendations. You should check this series out if you haven’t because this is a beloved franchise that holds up to this day.

Check in next month to see what series I will look at next.