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Karate Kid (Drama, 2010) Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, IMDB Starring: Jaden Smith,Jackie Chan, Taraji P. Henson Directed by: Harald Zwart Produced by: Jerry Weintraub, Will Smith, James Lassiter, Ken Stovitz Trailer  The Karate Kid remake is another example of the artistic bankruptcy you've probably come to expect from Hollywood. It repeats the same story we already know, either from seeing the original, or just from living on the planet Earth in the last 50 years. It's predictable and unimaginative in every way. It takes no risk in altering the plot significantly (not that I would approve of it any more if it did) and it takes the few elements of the original that were different or unexpected and smooths out those bumps, making it even more bland. More broadly, I'd argue that it's another example of how Hollywood thinks every movie has to be the same. The original Karate Kid always seemed to me to be a poor man's Rocky (same director by the way). Not as deep, but it had more that young people could relate to. So the original while a weaker movie than Rocky still has the basic elements that make this type of movie work: the main character is flawed (less so in Karate Kid, but still not a complete stock character), he gets knocked down, trained, dies (figuratively), is reborn, and wins the contest or battle. It's the classic hero story. Done well, it guarantees you'll at least have a tolerable story. What makes it good, great, or average depends on the other elements going on in the meantime. The new movie does the same thing, but like I said, it smooths out the edges. What I mean is that the film has a very steady incline in the action. It's so steady in it's escalation to the climax that events become predictable. You know when a fight will break out, when someone will succeed, when they'll get hurt, etc. I've come to expect this in modern movies, but this is more than just a standard hero movie, it's also a remake and one that follows the original very closely, (minor spoiler) even down to the cause and type of injuries received. One final negative I'd like to point out is the setting. Racism isn't touched on in the movie explicitly, but in real life he would have been tormented quite horridly and it would have been stated explicitly(more). Furthermore, living in Beijing would almost certainly have long term health problems by the time he graduated high school (more). There are some positives. The acting is convincing, although I'm not the best judge on acting. There was an attempt to flesh out the subplots a bit more which is done to modest success, although it too suffers from the "smoothing out the bumps" that gives many older movies more individual character. Finally, I wouldn't say the movie is boring. It kept my attention throughout and I didn't feel cheated. You can boil most of the movies problems down to the simple fact that it was unnecessary. It adds nothing, it provides no new lessons and everything is painfully the same. That said, I enjoyed it enough as a compromise since I had no interest in a teen sex comedy. It's a timeless story, just be aware that it's cheep entertainment. It's a good compromise movie (3/5), but seeing it alone is really unnecessary (2/5). 2.5 / 5
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Jun 19, 2010 03:11
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Not really a remake of the cult classic Karate Kid; this time it is set in China, the martial arts taught are kung-fu, and Jackie Chan performs rather well. It is substantially different in these respects which lead me to believe they chose to call it "Karate Kid" to ride on the remake wagon cashinator and hope to gain nostalgia viewers over the mainstream and casual ones. For these reasons I do not think it had to be titled "Karate Kid". Could have been called "kung-fu child" or "Bejing hustle" and none would be the wiser. The settings are beautiful, the score is appropiate. It's not Citizen Kane and you could probably figure out the ending within the first 20 minutes. 4/5
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Jun 23, 2010 04:05
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The remake failed to capture what made "Karate Kid" a timeless film. The age difference ruined the fighting, the stakes, and the romance. The characters are shallow and don't represent anything except "here's a good guy, here's an evil guy". Participation of Chinese State in the filming sterilized certain parts which weren't meant to be sterilized. Martial arts weren't portrayed as something more than punches and kicks. The movie essentially became no different from "Bloodsport" or any other tournament/underdog film. The original "Karate Kid" was more than that - it was a stand-off between martial philosophies. The remake stands on its own as a generic adventure/action film as well as Chinese propaganda that cloaked itself in an American classic. It is "Karate Kid" in name only. 2/5 P.S. I made a long, detailed and researched video review, comparing these films in detail.
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May 7, 2015 03:47
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