The Original and Remake of The Karate Kid

SPOILER ALERT- I will be talking about major plot points in this post.

When I first heard they were doing a remake with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith, I was a bit skeptical for a couple of reasons. 1) The original is so great and I didn't want them to mess with that. 2) With Jackie Chan, they were obviously going to feature kung fu, which means calling it the Karate Kid is stupid. I know the Kung Fu Kid doesn't have the same ring to it, but still. Despite my skepticism, I warmed up to it before its release and decided to see it with my family.

To be honest, I walked away liking the movie quite a bit. It's not as good as the original overall, but with Jackie Chan starring as Mr. Han and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith produce the new one with Jerry Weintraub (who produced the original) is a good sign. A lot of the movie is the same as the original, including major plot points, the way a scene moves, and even some dialogue. Here are some of the major comparisons.

First, let's get the acting part out of the way. Both Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith were good, but Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita are definitely a much better acting duo. A few of the scenes show this, but I think the most pertinent one is at the end during the final fight when the protaganist talks to convince his teacher to heal him so he can continue.

Another part that doesn't work out as well in the new one is the "how is what I'm doing training me" part. The original had a series of tasks- wax on wax off, sand the floor, paint the fence, paint the house- to keep the story moving. In the new one, Mr. Han has Dre take his jacket off, hang it, drop it, and pick it up over and over again. It was too repetitive and the story got stale at that point. However, the payoff was just as good. It didn't have the humor of Mr. Miyagi slapping Daniel in the face, but the realization that the student was learning the entire time was just as good, ending in the line, "Kung fu is everything."

Changing the way the teacher loses his family proved to be a good plot change. In the original, Mr. Miyagi was abroad fighting in World War II, and received a note that both his wife and newborn child died due to complications giving birth. He copes with this by getting in his army uniform and drinking a bottle of whiskey (or was it scotch?). In the remake, Mr. Han lost his wife and 10-year-old son in an auto accident where he was the driver. He copes with this by rebuilding the car every year that was in the accident and then destroying it on the anniversary of the accident. This works better because the medical side of giving birth has gotten a lot better, and giving a 12-year-old some alcohol doesn't quite cut it.

Some other notes about the movie:

• Despite a review I watched, Mr. Han is not really beating up the kids who gang up on Dre. All he does is block their attacks and get them to hit each other. He even makes this point after the fight is over.
• The final kick is more like what was originally written for the 1984 movie. Ralph Macchio said in an interview that the crane kick was written as jumping off on one foot, kicking with it, and landing on the same foot (since his other leg was injured). He realized that was impossible so he ends up landing on his injured leg. In the remake, the back flip causes Dre to take off, kick, and land all with the same leg.
• It was interesting to see Yu Rong Guang as the "bad guy". I was a little disappointed to not see him fight in the remake and New Police Story (another movie he did with Jackie Chan) since he is really gifted in martial arts. After all, he was the Iron Monkey!
• A bit of interesting side trivia is that Will Smith got Pat Morita to guest on an episode of Fresh Prince in a very Mr. Miyagi-like role.

Those are my thoughts. It's not worth it for everyone to see it in the theater, so I'd say rent it to those people. It's at least worth that. Hope you enjoyed the review!

blessings