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Film: The Karate Kid
Release date: 15th November 2010
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 130 mins
Director: Harald Zwart
Starring: Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, Taraji P. Henson, Wenwen Han, Rongguang Yu
Genre: Action/Drama/Family/Martial Arts
Studio: Sony
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: USA/China
This is an English-Language release.
It may now be set in China, with an Afro-American child lead, but there are plenty of similarities for nostalgic fans of the original, as The Karate Kid becomes the latest ‘victim’ of the Hollywood reboot.
Dre Parker’s mother shows zero responsibility and care for her child by uprooting him from his home and friends in Detroit, USA and taking him across to Beijing, China, with minimal notice or preparation, for a standard employment opportunity.
Now alone and feeling lost in a foreign land, Dre takes a shine to young Chinese musician Mei Ying, but this does not impress the local kung fu kid, who, displaying superman-esque strength, gives Dre a thorough ass whooping.
With even less friends now, and a mother too busy to spend any time with him let alone address his ill-manners properly, Dre becomes increasingly isolated and depressed, as the bullying continues.
Looking to get his own back on these young brutes only lands Dre in even hotter water, and it’s left to handyman Mr. Han to save him from a precarious situation - by beating up a group of children.
This angers the children’s sensei, and the only way Mr. Han can think of avoiding more blood spill on the streets of Beijing is to enter Dre into an upcoming martial arts competition. Mr. Han will train him, but he has some unusual methods that will test the patience of the already testy Dre…
Of course, a remake, where so much of the original’s story has been retained (bar a completely new country), of such an iconic 80s children’s favourite will struggle for much goodwill amongst fans of the original, but, given its PG-certificate, this is being targeted at a whole new generation, who have likely never seen the original, and will no doubt relate to the petulant Dre character, and be thoroughly engrossed by its flashy, over-the-top fight scenes and loud soundtrack – they don’t need any emotional weight, moral aspect, or character relation. In fact, had they seen the original they’d no doubt find it tame in comparison, where Ralph Macchio in the role of Daniel Larusso was asked to get off his butt and do a bit of work (we’ll get to this later), whilst holding an elderly fellow in reverence as he passed on words of wisdom.
Unfortunately, for an adult viewing, The Karate Kid raises some serious questions mostly about the desensitisation of children today, who are growing up with intense, and at times fairly violent and aggressive video games and television – and nothing else. Here, in one of the film’s earliest scenes, where Dre is first confronted by his nemesis, we have a character presented as demonic, with power and strength well beyond his years, beating seven bells out of a small child with the slightest frame in a fairly graphic and bone crunching manner – this should be terrifying viewing for any child. For any adult, it makes for uncomfortable viewing, because it’s outright wrong (let’s forget all the racial stereotyping in this critique).
We’ll overlook the fact that the film is called Karate Kid, even though nobody is trained in that discipline, and that they’ve set the film in China, when, had they lived up to the film’s billing, Karate originates from Japan. This is being pedantic, and, of course, makes very little difference to the ‘boy trains to beat up bully’ premise. The biggest question has to be why they opted for such a young lead (perhaps not such a big question when you consider his father’s clout within the industry – Will Smith has a production credit here), which not only raises the aforementioned concerns, but takes the film into the realms of extreme fantasy – how does this compute in a child’s mind. In the original, Ralph was a twenty-something playing the role of a 16-year-old. He was at an age where hormones are raging and romantic interests and conflicts are commonplace; he was fighting against fellow older actors of a sizeable stature, in realistic scenarios; and everything was grounded in moral messages that ultimately fighting is wrong. Here we are expected to believe that someone who looks barely 10 is really going to be all that concerned with the fairer sex – let alone displaying the depth of emotional understanding we are shown during many of the film’s laborious moments – and that the bullies of the piece can fly around the screen with the strength to give Jackie Chan of all actors – still in decent shape - a tough time. The only message coming across is violence is good, and forget respecting anyone else – let alone an elder – unless you quite fancy them.
In fairness, Jackie Chan puts in a solid performance – a far better dramatic display than his much-hyped role in The Shinjuku Incident. But again, all the fun has been taken away. Part of the joy of the original was seeing the podgy, diminutive, elder Mr. Miyagi turning out to be an agile martial arts expert, and alongside his principles that vitally grounded the film’s events, he brought a humour to the part that was so enjoyable for a child viewer (he also disposed of these older, larger adversaries quickly – it wouldn’t have been half as cool if he spent half-an-hour knocking about infants). In this film, we have a dark, breakdown scene where Jackie completely loses it and bears his soul. Apparently, we are now expecting children to take on board such heavy issues - and amongst the fierce carnage that would leave any fully developed mind a little rattled.
As mentioned at the start of this review, fans of the original are going to pick holes, particularly in the initial training, where instead of the pupil being asked to clean and polish his trainer’s car (the infamous wax on, wax off scenes) and paint his fence - and the subsequent joyful enlightenment for both the viewer and the character when the big reveal shows all these menial tasks were actually grounding him in the basics of good karate skills - here the writers thought it would be enough to have him just hang his coat up, put it down, drop it on the floor, on repeat, for what seemed like an eternity. This is before it goes completely over-the-top as he quickly becomes the new Bruce Lee, if compensated for by some spectacular scenery.
That brings us to the running time. Unfortunately, the filmmakers got sidetracked with an unnecessaryily long romantic sub plot, which adds nothing – it certainly won’t impress child viewers where the thought of making out repulses, and who are waiting for their next fix of CGI enhanced kick ass, and neither Jaden Smith in the role of Dre or Wenwen Han in the role of Mei Ying have the acting chops to pull it off. In fact, the only commendable aspect of Jaden’s performance is in his physicality, although it’s uneasy that a child actor so young would be expected to develop in such a way – yet another unhealthy message for its target audience. Also clocking up the minutes is the big ‘visit China’ sell – all the key visitor attractions are enhanced and displayed on the grandest of scales. Whilst it may have helped with the production costs, and no doubt younger viewers will be in awe, it hampers progress of what, ignoring the moral concerns any right minded adult would have watching, is a decent, standard, big budget Hollywood action flick.
There’s nothing here for adults, the characters are too young for older teenagers, who have progressed to blowing people up on X-Box for their amusement, so this is definitely targeted at young children. Given its PG-rating, the choice should (although probably not) be with the parents as to whether they feel their child is ready to be exposed to such levels of emotional and physical distress – if they haven’t been already.
Kids today will lap it up. Fresh from smashing someone through a wall on their latest video game, they can now watch an actual person do it. For fans of the original, all the basic story elements are in place, it just lacks any of that film’s warmth, humour or soul. However, the biggest crime is the complete lack of responsibility Hollywood has again shown as those involved focus solely on boosting their bank balances. DH
Film: The Karate Kid
Release date: 28th July 2010
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 140 mins
Director: Harald Zwart
Starring: Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, Taraji P. Henson, Wenwen Han, Rongguang Yu
Genre: Action/Drama/Family/Martial Arts
Studio: Columbia/Sony
Format: DVD
Country: USA/China
This is an English-language release.
The classic 1984 underdog story gets an aesthetic makeover for the 21st century. Will “Pick up your jacket!” become the new “Wax on, wax off”?
With work scarce in America, 12-year-old Dre Parker (Smith) is forced to move to Beijing with his mother Sherry (Henson), who seeks to grasp opportunities in the ever expanding Chinese economy.
On his first day, Dre falls foul of local boys who belong to an elite kung-fu academy run by the strict, drill sergeant-like Sifu Li (Yu), who encourages a ruthless approach to combat.
Struggling to adapt to his new environment and culture, Dre’s problems worsen until he is saved from a severe beating by the unlikeliest of sources - the enigmatic maintenance man, Mr Han (Chan), who reveals a martial arts mastery Dre never expected.
With an invitational tournament looming, Han agrees to teach Dre the true meaning of kung-fu, so that he can stand up for himself without fear…
With Rocky director John G. Avildsen’s seminal 80s classic being somewhat dated but fondly remembered, there’s little sense of cinematic ‘sacrilege’ with this remake, and not once will an audience ponder what ‘need’ there could be for a new version of The Karate Kid. The original script by Robert Mark Kamen (who is given a thoroughly deserved ‘story by’ credit here) remains one of Hollywood’s most spiritually sound examinations of the values of martial arts - values that should absolutely be promoted in popular culture. To this end, an updating of the story for young 21st century audiences not only makes perfect sense, but is entirely welcome.
The differences between the two films are merely aesthetic: the protagonist is 12 rather than 17; he is uprooted to a whole new country rather than a different coast; and he studies not karate, but kung-fu (the title being a distracting misnomer). Despite all this, this remake sticks almost religiously faithful to its source material, even down to its bloated running time and almost superfluous romantic subplot. Running through the same beat-for-beat narrative, with many an amusing tribute to the original, 2010’s The Karate Kid should delight and inspire a whole new generation of young moviegoers. The classic underdog story is never revised nor radicalised. Instead, this is a purely traditional narrative, perfectly executed - proof that formulas can still thrill an audience if mixed the right way. What worked for the children of 1984 will work for their children in 2010.
Indeed, in this new version, the plight of young Dre is arguably one deserving of more sympathy than that of Daniel, the older teenager played in the original by Ralph Macchio. Where Daniel was a sullen, petulant, somewhat melodramatic character, Dre - as played with natural charm by Jaden Smith - is an instantly likeable boy with little hope of adapting easily to his new surroundings, thus earning an audience’s goodwill from the off. Unlike the original, the protagonist’s arguing with his mother is understandable rather than irritating, his alienation affecting. It helps that Smith - whose comic timing and easy charisma is highly reminiscent of his father Will in his Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air days - has not only the acting ability that Macchio lacked, but also a credible athleticism when it comes to the training and fighting sequences.
Smith is one half of a destined-to-be-classic double act with the venerable Jackie Chan, who shows a determination to grow old as gracefully as possible, bringing to his Mr Han a quiet intensity that differentiates him from the jovial, twinkly-eyed Mr Miyagi played so memorably in the original by the Oscar-nominated Pat Morita. Come ‘awards season’, Chan’s work may be forgotten by academies and critics groups, but that should not detract from his performance here, which is hands-down the best he has given in an English-language film. Building on the sombre weariness exhibited in recent Asian films like The Shinjuku Incident, Chan plays his age, with his body of work and reputation lending a Master’s credibility to his character. If some actors are described as being “born for” certain roles, then Mr Han is surely the role that Jackie Chan has lived for.
This unlikely dream pairing of Smith and Chan is given feisty back-up by Taraji P. Henson as Dre’s mother Sherry, who brings the same matriarchal warmth to this role as she brought to her turn as Brad Pitt’s adoptive mother in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, spiked with an appealing dose of sass and spirit. As Sifu Li, Yu Rwong-kwong might not end up on as many nostalgic T-shirts as Martin Kove’s Sensei John Kreese, but there are few actors in the world who could convince an audience of their martial arts mastery in a role that requires almost no fighting, and Yu is never less than a thoroughly menacing presence.
On the subject of fighting, the action sequences - coordinated by the Jackie Chan stunt players - might not match the creative ingenuity of his best Hong Kong work, but are certainly on a par with Chan’s Hollywood output. With the man himself having only the one fight sequence, it falls to the younger actors to thrill an audience with their martial arts prowess. Though the characters are blessed with exaggerated physical capabilities - a combination of wire, trampoline and computer effects gives the Chinese bullies preternatural grace and agility - that could undermine believability, the fights are perfectly staged, and the stakes of each fight perfectly raised. And if the action is more bone-crunching and hard-hitting than the original - early scenes feature Dre getting hit with kicks and punches that should, by rights, put him in hospital - the aforementioned stylised approach tempers any sense of gratuitousness or sadism.
This is a bona-fide American/Chinese co-production, as evidenced by not only the dual-language closing credits, but also the filmmakers’ commitment to showing off the cultural and architectural wonders of contemporary Beijing, and the natural scenic beauty of China in general. It is a testament to the engrossing nature of the story that director Harald Zwart can pad a training montage with shots of Mr Han and Dre training on a Great Wall of China curiously devoid of tourists and not leave his audience alienated with eye-rolling incredulity. That said, a sequence with Dre’s class on a field trip to The Forbidden City (making this, after The Last Emperor, only the second international production to be granted permission to film there) adds nothing to the narrative, and is symptomatic of what is really the only flaw in an otherwise fine, classy production - running time.
During a scene involving violin prodigy Mei Ying - the object of Dre’s chaste affections, their mild flirting being what attracts the bullies to Dre in the first place - practising for an all-important audition, she is told by her stern tutor that she should “play the pauses.” This is a motto Zwart and screenwriter Christopher Murphey seemed to have taken to heart, regularly putting the brakes on a narrative that should, when aimed at a young audience, be fast and energetic. While the sojourns to mystical temples and mountains are pleasing on the eye, and the subtle (if slightly clichéd) master-student/father-son relationship between Dre and Han is packed with moments of genuine emotional power, Dre’s courting of Mei Ying feels like needless padding. Indeed, it is questionable how invested this film’s intended audience - ‘tween’ boys - will be in a gentle romance that seems to delay the action scenes rather than add weight to them. Among the many virtues Mr Han teaches Dre is the importance of focus - it is ironic that the filmmakers don’t seemed to have taken this on board themselves.
But this is a minor notch against a well-made, well-intentioned film that is not only uplifting, exciting and inspiring, but also shows a cultural sensitivity uncommon to Western films taking place abroad. It may not have quite the same impact on popular culture as its source material, and it may not spawn as many sequels, but The Karate Kid is one of the better summer event movies to come out of Hollywood in 2010.
A very pleasant surprise, and a near-perfect underdog story for children who will surely cherish it and compare it favourably to the inevitable remake in 2034 - even if its title makes no sense at all. JN
