Ed's Review Dot Com

Columbia Pictures, China Film Group, Jerry Weintraub Productions

Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, Taraji P Hensen, Wenwen Han, Ronqquang Yu, Zhensu Wu, Zhiheng Wang,  Zhenwei Wang, Jared Minns

The Karate Kid is an unfaithful remake that never needed to be made.  First of all, why is this called The “KARATE” Kid???  It’s in China and there is no Karate in it.   It should be called  The Kung Fu Kid.  To get around this, they put in a line where during their first fight, Dre takes up a Karate stance, and they call him the Karate Kid. Cheesy.  Mr. Miyagi was, of course Japanese and taught Karate.

Second, I’m glad Will Smith’s kid is getting work outside of doing his Dad’s music videos.  He’s a cute kid, but he’s way too young to be in this story.  He’s playing a 12 year old who falls madly in love with a really cute Chinese girl, but that doesn’t seem quite 12 year old stuff.  He has way to much freedom to come and go where he wants, to sneak off to do kissing scenes for a 12 year old.  Probably he should be still saying “Girls are yucky”.   The drive and the drama doesn’t seem to fit with a little kid.  Plus he is not a very good actor yet.  He’s not ready to carry the lead in the whole film.  A lot of the dramatic scenes, he rolls off the dialog like the guest host of SNL trying to read the cue cards in a sketch.

His mom is awful.  Screechy,  grumpy, rude, oppressive, but most of all always annoying.   And I think this was the worst I’ve ever seen Jackie Chan.  I’m a big fan of his, but in this film he shuffles along, mumbles his lines, and has very little heart.  His breakdown at the loss of his life pales in comparison to Miyagi (Pat Morita)’s breakdown in the original.  I think they thought that the scenery in China would make up for the lack of acting.  Daniel-san did not get to train on top of the Great Wall of China, nor did he get to the top of the mountain to drink the magic Kung Fu water from the Dragon Well.  (not sure how the water gets up to the very top of the mountain, that didn’t make much sense to me, but since it’s magic, I guess it’s ok.)

Now I’m getting nit picky.  I have to admit, I am biased because I am a really big fan of the original film.   The original came along at a time when it was all new.  We were just learning the mystical Asian martial arts, and it was very current.  The story resonated with a lot of people, and we really got to root for the underdog.

This remake doesn’t bring that across.  Dre (Jaden Smith) has the opportunity to move from Detroit to Beijing cause his mom has a new job there.  Now I’m not sure what widowed auto worker from Detroit gets transferred to Beijing, but it sounds a lot like “Fresh Prince of Bel Aire” to me.  Of course he hates it.  But it does give us, the viewers, a chance to see China all decked out for the Olympics, and some very pretty spots.

No doubt they tried really hard, and if this movie was an original story, it probably would have been really great.   But it pales in comparison of the heart and soul of the original, and that’s my problem with it.

Younger folks, especially those who aren’t familiar (or unable to relate to the 80’s life of Daniel-san) will probably love it, and the little girls are bound to be Jaden fans.  He’s a cute kid.  And Justin Beiber sings the closing song under the credits, so how could you go wrong?   Pretty fair film, if you don’t love the original.

Note:  I promised myself I wasn’t going to comment on this, but I HAVE to.   Sorry.   I just DON’T think  “Jacket ON, Jacket OFF” is every going to have the cultural impact that “Wax ON, Wax OFF” had!  What a joke.

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