So I finally saw the 2010 Karate Kid movie expecting the worst.
Pros:
# It actually is a decent remake of the original Karate Kid film. Carries the same spirit and essentially follows the same basic story.
# Placing the protagonist in a foreign country made him feel even more alienated than just being in a new neighbourhood.
# Lots of fancy looking action scenes to entertain the kiddies and gorgeous photography.
# The new catching the fly with chopsticks scene was classic.# The new Karate Kid's sass and attitude sets him apart from the somewhat more naive Daniel Larusso.
# I also liked how at the end all the students from the "bad" Kung Fu school paid respect to Jackie Chan's character... I thought that was a nice touch.
# The scene where Jackie Chan's character defended the protagonist from an entire gang of bullies was awesome. I particularly liked how he didn't actually hit any of the kids, but merely avoided getting hit and let them hit each other! A good use of Jackie Chan's hallmark physical comedian skills.
Cons:
# The obvious misnomer. There is virtually NO karate in this movie. The kid gets beaten up by kids who are learning Kung Fu and he in turn learns Kung Fu to defend himself and his honour. I cannot believe that they would set a movie in China and have the characters use a Chinese martial art, but use the name of an Okinawan/Japanese martial art in the title. It's kinda like saying "Chinese, Japanese... wateva..." which just feels insulting.
# The so-called "Kung Fu" in this movie is typically very fake -- the modern cinematic Wushu that's come to popularise Hong Kong Kung Fu movies... full of fancy moves and acrobatic/gymnastic flips and even wire stunts. *sigh* The only scene where I saw authentic looking Kung Fu was when they went to that temple on the top of the mountain, and for a few seconds you see a group of people doing the Twenty-Four Step Yang Taiji form. That's it. Then there's the whole "mysticism" aspect that they put in... just to be mystical. I know it's meant to be a metaphor for focusing, but I felt it got a bit too "hippie." These things all also perpetuate certain Kung Fu stereotypes.
# The scenes where they're training on the Great Wall (yeah right)... clearly sponsored by the Chinese Tourism board.There's nothing they're doing there that they couldn't do at a local park.
# The kiss scene was a bit disturbing given how young the protagonist and his romantic interest are!The original Karate Kid featured teenagers who were old enough to drive on their own... who the frack wants to see tweens kissing?!? Eewww... either make the characters older, or don't have them kiss please (they could just hug... or even kiss on the cheek?)
Buh?!
# So the kid is living in China... goes to a Chinese school every day... and he seems to pick up maybe half a dozen words of Chinese?!?Usually young children pick up a new language very quickly when they're immersed in a new language/culture like this... he must either have a language learning problem or he's just damn inattentive and socially isolated. Oh wait...
# For some reason, a lot of kids at the school conveniently speak English really well! Even the bullies!! (what??) And of course, the maintenance man. *sigh* Interesting that the protagonists seems to attract so many English speakers (a lot of whom want to kick his @$$). The original Karate Kid was set in America and Mr. Miyagi was a first generation Japanese-American... so there was never a need to explain why they were speaking English. Here... less believable.
# School uniform day?!?
Overall:
Storywise a good remake of the original Karate Kid. I would have preferred it if they tried to use more realistic martial arts moves instead of cinematic wire acrobatics (look at those boys defy gravity as they jump over high walls!). They really should have either had the protagonist learn Karate (thus justifying the movie title), or just drop the word "Karate" from the movie title altogether and call it something else. It's almost like they wanted to make a Karate Kid remake, but somebody forgot to tell them that Kung Fu's not Karate.
I'm glad I didn't bother seeing it in the cinema... didn't mind watching it as a cheap weekly rental. But I still prefer Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-san over this version.
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Originally Posted by Doubledealer
