Karate Kid

Karate Kid, or Kung Fu Kid as it is called in Asia, is a beautiful film. It is also set in Beijing, which is a beautiful place. I’ve been to Beijing before and I would have thought that wide, sprawling shots of the city would look like a cigar bar. It makes you wonder how they got the shots through the smog. Maybe the air has been cleaner since the Olympics?

I liked this film a lot better than the first one. Throw me on the cross, but I did. I don’t like Ralph Maccio, I don’t like stupid eighties cliches, and I certainly don’t like the directorial style of the original Karate Kid, which might be called minimalist. Karate is also pretty lame, not enough ass-kicking involved. Yes, it was low-budget and likely invented the cliches I despise, but it doesn’t hold up. Avildson made two other famous films, Rocky and Saturday Night Fever, both of which are wonderful and timeless. But enough about the original…

The new film stars Will Smith’s kid Jaden Smith, who blew my fucking mind as Dre Parker. I loved him in this role and might even go see future films solely on the grounds that Jaden is attached. He delivers big time in a movie where he occupies most, if not all, of the scenes. I read this article from CNN discussing people who have been slamming the little dude for riding the fame of his father into super-stardom. The article suggests that people are offended by the fact he’s cocky, self-assured, and outspoken. Really? Like REALLY? What other type of personality can handle the pressure of having to deliver on a forty million dollar production, set in another country, and acting across from one of the world’s biggest stars in Jackie Chan?

“Oh, he’s cocky.” No fuckin’ shit he is. If he wasn’t, he’d be in his trailer having nervous breakdowns vomiting every morning due to fear. This little guy plays a quick-talking, funny, emotionally vulnerable kid. While also bringing a physicality to the role that the original was missing.

Jackie Chan’s performance also surprised me. Jackie Chan is one of the world’s greatest action stars. He reinvented martial arts films by inventing comedy Kung Fu movies. I was disappointed that Chan was relegated to toning down his tongue- in-cheek personality, a personality which made him a super-star. His performance is instead a tragic one, a mistake which remains the largest error with the film. I wanted desperately for him to punch someone and shake his hand comically in pain.

The cinematography of this film blew me away. The meticulous lens flares, the beautiful wide-shots, the fight sequences were shot with urgency, but not edited like a Michael Bay film. It was a lot of fun to watch a truly talented cinematographer nail the look of a film. And like I said, China is gorgeous and the filmmakers know it.

Another thing of note, the movie was made on a relatively reasonable, but not low, budget of forty million dollars. So many summer films feel obliged to spend over a hundred million dollars on a film to get a hit.

New plan: Keep the budget low, find great actors who don’t charge twenty million dollars a film, deliver a great story and visuals with camera techniques, not technolust, and you’ll have a hit.

Also, to answer critics of the film who take issue with the fact that it is called Karate Kid, when clearly they practice Kung Fu: Their criticisms are justified. In this article, Jackie Chan says this when considering what the film will be called: “Probably ‘Kung Fu Kid’ in China and ‘Karate Kid’ in America. Maybe a different title? I don’t know. But mostly we’ve called it ‘The Kung Fu Kid.’”

I think the filmmakers should have scrapped the Karate Kid name, taken it as read that they were making a sequel, and gone in the direction that it was a remake but with Kung Fu as the martial art. Then they wouldn’t get as many people crying heresy that they’re remaking a “classic.” They would have less people giving the film a 1 (1,500 people) on IMDB. Consequently, there are also 1,700 people who gave it a 10 and very few in between. Love it or hate it I guess.

Release date: June 2010

Collin says: B+

You’ll say: B