Review for The Karate Kid 2010

The original Karate Kid is one of the seminal movies of the 1980s, like Back to the Future, Indiana Jones and The Goonies, these are films that generally should not be remade. However, with Hollywood rapidly running out of ideas (The fact they have recently remade the horrendous I Spit On Your Grave should show this) it seems that the only films being made these days are remakes (A Nightmare on Elm Street) or awful sequels (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Nonsense Plot). The Karate Kid felt like a film that did not need a remake or an update and stood the test of time. Having watched and reviewed it recently I was still convinced that the story worked and it was still a very enjoyable film.The Karate Kid is a film that should not be remade. But I am so glad that they did.

Jayden Smith stars as Dre a young boy from Detroit who has moved to China with his mother. Here he finds he does not fit in and within a few minutes is on the other end of a beating by the local bully and his gang over a girl. This goes on, until Dre seeks out the help of the local handyman Mr Hann, played by Jackie Chan. Hann tells Dre that he will teach him kung fu (not karate?) and this leads to not 'wax on, wax off', but a 'take off your jacket' routine, which serves the same purpose. Slowly Dre finds that Hann has been teaching him all along and in order to stop the bullies beating him up he is entered into a tournament. Along the way, Dre travels with Hann across China to train on the Great Wall and at the birth place of kung fu. This all cumulates to the wonderful tournament that is just as good as it was in the original and although we all did the final crane kick from that one that I would pay good money to see someone do the final move from this film which is quite frankly awesome.


With most remakes you find yourself groaning at the in jokes or just holding your head at the travesty of what the filmmakers have done. So what about this remake? All I can say is that if Pat Morita can be nominated for Best Supporting Actor for the original, then surely Jackie Chan deserves the same for this wonderful performance as Mr Hann. His performance is possibly the best that I have ever seen Chan acting and if Jayden Smith continues the way he is in this film, it will not be long before he is giving the performances that we expect from his Oscar nominated father Will. The film has been beautifully made and if anything is a perfect advert for someone who would like to go to China. The sights and the way they are filmed is wondrous, the soundtrack is subtle, but works so well and there is literally nothing that I can say that is bad about this film.


The extras are a nice mix of 'making ofs' and behind the scenes footage showing Jayden training and how the filmmakers went about creating this film and also include a look at the culture of China and the language which was a nice element to add. Though I would like to have seen maybe more of a discussion as to how the script was written and maybe thoughts from the original cast, this is still a great amount of extras. One thing that is great is the alternate ending which sees Chan in action which I actually do not understand why they did not use, unless they want to use this as the starting point of a sequel, which would still be a great idea.


The Karate Kid is just as good, if not better than the original and there are not many remakes that can say that!