I grew up in the 1980’s, so of course I was and still am a fan of the original 1984 Ralph Macchio & Noriyuki ‘Pat’ Morita film “The Karate Kid”. I even enjoyed parts 2 & 3 (Though they were not as great as the original), but I loathed the 4th film where they replaced Macchio with a young Hilary Swank. The only reason I own “The Next Karate Kid” (aka Karate Kid 4) on DVD is because it came in the box set with the first 3 movies and it’s on the same disk as the 3rd film…so I can’t get rid of it, even though I really want to.
Having just given you my feelings on the original film, I feel this new remake of “The Karate Kid” is very unnecessary, and I feel they should have left the original alone (but that’s my feeling towards most remakes). But the thing is, this new version is a pretty decent movie. They kept a lot of the key elements from the original in the remake but by changing the characters names, ages and locations, it really does feel like a very different movie, though it does drag on quite a bit.
The film centers on Dre Parker (Jaden Smith) who movies to China with his mom Sherry Parker (Played with great energy and attitude by Taraji P. Henson) . If you have seen the original film, you know exactly how the movie will play out. Dre will meet a young girl named Meiying (Wenwen Han) that he likes but the school bully named Cheng (Zhenwei Wang) has eyes for her as well and decides to beat up Dre in the middle of the park to teach him a lesson about talking to his girl. Dre is of course very unhappy about the whole situation and he just wants to move them back home.
During an exciting chase sequence through the streets of China between Dre and Chengs pre-teen thugs, they all gang up on Dre, but then Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) steps in to protect Dre. Eventually Han agrees to teach Dre kung fu for the same reasons Mr . Miyagi trained Daniel Larusso in the original film, so if you have seen the original, you know what to expect. And if you haven’t see the original, well….go ahead and rent the DVD. You will most likely enjoy it more than this new version. And of course the film will end with a big tournament. Gee, I bet you can’t guess who will win ?????
There are some great locations and some pretty decent acting by everyone involved, especially from Henson as Dre’s mom. But I still cannot give a strong recommendation of this film simply for just the fact that you can see the 1984 version and witness a much greater movie. That said. If you do chose to go see the 2010 version, it will not be a film you have to suffer through either.
By Marc Ferman
