The Karate Kid (2010)

The Karate Kid, released in 1984, was a coming-of-age movie in which a troubled teenager triumphs against all adversity in typical Rocky style -- unsurprising as it was directed by John G Arvidsen, the man who helmed Sylvester Stallone's story of an unlikely prizefighter being given a shot at the World Heavyweight Title. Given the success of the film and the kudos it brought to its stars, Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita (who was Oscar nominated for his role as the handyman who uses an unlikely methods to teach Daniel karate), it was almost inevitable that a remake was made at some point. 26 years later and the remake was in cinemas and is now on DVD and BD but with fairly large changes to the original characters and narrative.

The film begins in Detroit where a single mother, who works for one of the car companies In 'Motor City', is transferred to Beijing (somewhat topical given the perilous state of the car industry in Detroit) taking with her Dre, her extremely reluctant son who, we learn from the opening sequence, has been without a father from most of his life. Not able to speak any Chinese and openly hostile to the move, Dre is your typical moody adolescent who talks back to his mother and repeatedly leaves his jacket on the floor.

When his mother notices that the shower isn't working and that there is no hot water, she asks Dre to go and find the handyman. This is something that isn't easy as Dre doesn't know what the handyman looks like and doesn't have the linguistic skills to properly locate him. Eventually, after some misunderstandings, he finds Mr Han, a strange loner who seems to spend all of his free time refurbishing the VW Sirocco which is oddly parked in his living room.

Meanwhile, Dre is having trouble with the local kids despite a promising start where he bumped into another American who lives in the same apartment block and seeing a cute Chinese girl, Meiying who, with the prompting of his new friend, he approaches and tries to strike up a conversation. This only serves to infuriate a group of Chinese boys who, led by one called Cheng, surround and provoke a fight with Dre in which his American style of street fighting, mixed with some kung fu that he has picked up from television, proves no match to these highly skilled and disciplined martial arts practitioners. Sporting a black eye which he tries to hide with make-up, Dre goes to school where he is immediately out of place as he has gone in uniform when it was not a uniform day and wore a cap (to try and further conceal his wound) when hats were forbidden.


When they proceed to continued to torment him at school and frustrate just about every attempt he makes to fit in and get to know Meiying better, this frustration at being away from Detroit bubbles over and he throws a can of oil over his bullies who pursue him around the streets of Beijing before cornering him and are in the process of delivering another beating when Mr Han steps in and uses his considerable kung fu skills to make the kids beat themselves up. After this incident, Dre questions Mr Han about his knowledge of kung fu and eventually asks him to train him so he can beat up the bullies. When Mr Han tells Dre that kung fu is all about avoiding conflict, he takes Dre to the Fighting Dragons dojo where he sees that their sensei, Master Li, teaches them to show no mercy and continue to punch an opponent when he is helpless on the floor. Speaking in Chinese to Master Li, Mr Han makes a deal in which the students will leave Dre alone whilst Mr Han prepares his new student for the big kung fu championship. When all this is translated back to Dre, he isn't particularly impressed at being left alone as he will end up being beaten up in public.

During the next few weeks, Mr Han puts Dre through an extremely unusual training regime which principally involves in the 12-year-old picking his jacket up off the floor, putting it on, taking it off and hanging it on a peg before taking it off, putting it on the floor and starting all over again. During this time, Dre's hatred of this seemingly pointless task melts and he grows very fond of the 'old' man, treating him as a surrogate father figure. As kung fu is not just a physical activity, but something that involves both your brain and heart, Mr Han takes Dre on a long train journey and up to the top of a mountain where his father taught him kung fu. Full of mystic wisdom and realising what he must do to master kung fu and avoid being humiliated in the tournament, Dre puts all of his effort into training and becomes faster, stronger and more disciplined.


Dre also becomes closer to Meiying and they make a 'pinky promise' whereby he promises to be at her violin audition and she will attend the kung fu tournament, but this arrangement and her friendship with Dre incurs the wrath of her parents who tell Meiying that she can no longer be friends with Dre.

All of this is just a build up to the tournament when Dre will either triumph like Daniel did in the original film or lose gallantly like Rocky Balboa - I'm not going to spoil it by telling you the outcome.


As it had been many years since I sawThe Karate Kid, I rented the BD a month or so ago so it was fairly fresh in my mind whilst I was watching this and this remake is a very different beast. Despite keeping the title intact when there is absolutely no karate in the film whatsoever, I suppose The Kung Fu Kid isn't as catchy and wouldn't pull in those who were fans of the original film. In the main role, Jaden Smith proves himself to be an extremely competent actor and has developed from his debut in The Pursuit of Happyness and The Day the Earth Stood Still remake and really looks the part when it comes to doing the physical demands of the role. His mother, played by Academy Award nominee Taraji P. Henson is a much more prominent role than in 1984 film and she is constantly around him, inviting Mr Han to go out with them and is there cheering on her son at the tournament. Much of the attention is bound to focus on Jackie Chan who puts his knowing glances and grins in the locker for the time being and plays his role completely straight. Mr Han doesn't have the wisdom or depth of Mr Miyagi who was so brilliantly played by Pat Morita but Chan does a sterling job here, again proving his range but only really has one opportunity to showcase his own kung fu skills.


In updating the story for the 21st-century, Robert Mark Kamen's story, written for the screen by Christopher Murphey, holds up although the relationship between the protagonists and the girl is obviously going to be very different as they are not 16-year-olds who want to take things a little further (as in the original film) but 12-year--olds who really want to be close friends, hold hands and, if the opportunity arises, have a brief kiss. It's probably better if you try and put everything you remember abouttheoriginal Karate Kid out of your mind to take this film on its own merits as comparison's will only serve to spoil both this film and the 1984 original. I thought this stood up extremely well with the location change from Los Angeles to Beijing proving to be a bigger culture clash and the martial arts switch from karate to kung fu allowing for far more aggressive fights and a much more complex ending, with several slow motion replays!



The Disc

Extra Features
On Location: The Karate Kid Interactive Map of China is narrated by director Harald Zwart and shows the various filming locations which includes The Great Wall of China,

Alternate Ending (3:32, HD) is a fight between Mr Han and Master Li at the end of the tournament which was probably wisely removed as it really serves no purpose but if you look carefully, there is still some evidence of this scene as, in between cuts, Master Li goes from standing up to or lying prone on the ground!

The Production Diaries (29:44, HD) are hosted by Jackie Chan and are split into 10 different sections which you can watch individually or together using the 'play all' function. These function as a fairly comprehensive behind the scenes featurette as a going to virtually every aspect of filmmaking starting with the martial arts training showing Jaden Smith getting into shape and learning the various techniques to Taraji P. Henson talking about why she wanted to do the film and her experiences of filming in China.

Chinese Lessons is not really some fun featurette but something that actually does deliver six lessons in how to speak Chinese (I'm not sure whether it's Cantonese or Mandarin) from basic greetings to numbers and general vocabulary. I have no ambition to go to China so didn't really pay much attention to this but if you want to learn a little bit of dialogue to impress the staff at your local takeaway or get by when you're on a trip to China, this may prove useful.


Just for Kicks: the Making of The Karate Kid (20:09, HD) complements the production diaries very well and begins with an introduction by Jerry Weintraub, producer of the 1984 and 2010 films and goes on to talk about the reason behind the remake and how it was brought to fruition.

Music Video: Justin Bieber featuring Jaden Smith "Never Say Never" (3:49) is a dreadful song by an artist whose music I am happy to be completely ignorant about -- I never want to hear anything else by Mr Bieber!

There are also trailers for The Karate Kid (1984), The Smurfs (in 3-D) And Open Season 3.

You can watch the film with movieIQ if you so wish to gain more information about locations, music and various titbits of trivia that may be of interest.

This set is what Sony Pictures Home Entertainment call a 'Double Play' as it contains a Blu-ray Disc and DVD so if you have a high definition setup in your living room you can watch the BD there or if your kids want to watch it in their bedrooms where they have DVD players it will suit them too.


The Picture
Trying to pick faults with a high definition transfer of a film only a few months out of the cinemas is almost an exercise in futility and I really did look for any evidence of moiré, aliasing, edge enhancement or DNR and came away completely empty-handed. You can pick out every bead of sweat on Jaden Smith's forehead and count the grey hairs around Jackie Chan's temples whilst looking on open mouthed at the stunning Chinese landscapes and scenery which is especially evident when Mr Han takes Dre to the mountain.

The kung fu sequences are very well choreographed and there is some wire work to help the actors achieve the most out of their physical abilities -- I imagine there was some in the final act in the tournament but that wasn't shown on the extra features. To complement the choreography, the editing and angles are all very well chosen so that the fight sequences have the right amount of energy and visceral impact.


The Sound
As usual for a Sony Pictures Home Entertainment disc, there are a variety of subtitle options but oddly only DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio tracks in English and French and a Dolby Digital 5.1 Hindi option. The former is very well mixed and encoded with crisp dialogue from the centre channel, punchy (if you pardon the pun) sounds from the front surrounds during the combat scenes and a very nice score by James Horner.

I was less convinced by the choice of source music which seemed to incorporate a great deal of modern music which I didn't recognise and one fairly old track which I did, the Red Hot Chili Peppers' excellent cover of Stevie Wonder's Higher Ground. As there is a music video on the disc featuring Jaden Smith and Justin Bieber (someone who was a complete mystery to me until I realised that Tom Brady, the New England Patriots' quarterback had been compared to this teenage sensation because of his new, longer hairdo).


Final Thoughts
I have to admit to going into this with some reservations as The Karate Kid is, for all its faults, an iconic movie with some genuinely great lines that have worked their way into popular culture, "wax on, wax off" being the obvious example. Although the basic plot is the same, there are some massive differences including the location, at the age of the main character and the training methods he is put through. There are probably less dull moments in this than the original and although it runs at a fairly hefty 140 minutes (only nine minutes shorter than 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film that takes you from the dawn of man to the birth of the new civilisation!), there are no occasions during which I was bored or wished it would pick up the pace. Harold Zwart, whose filmography is varied to say the least with the biggest and most well-known ones being Agent Cody Banks, One Night at McCool's and The Pink Panther 2, proves to be a decent choice as director as he can handle both the action sequences and the more dramatic scenes with equal competence.

Overall, this is a very good package of a very watchable film. I can understand if it splits audiences down the middle from devotees of the original who view this is sacrilege to those who either hadn't seen the original movie or had it so far back in their memories that they are able to enjoy this and thought it was absolutely terrific. I think both viewpoints are wrong as this isn't a masterpiece, nor is it is absolute garbage but it's a film that will appeal to children and adults alike if you want something fairly unchallenging for all the family.