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

Family stuff

A week ago my niece "turned 2, on May 2." She is able to say that (many times I might add) any of the thousand times that we asked her. So we got together at Lance & Char's house that evening to celebrate with the family. It was great to see everyone and to see how smart Valentina is getting. She can certainly disobey and be stubborn, especially when she is tired, but there is almost no limit to how smart she is getting and how cute she is. She received some musical instruments, a toy train, and a toy that releases bubbles. She was very excited.

This weekend my nephew performed in a school play. It was a different take on a bunch of common fairy tales, but infused with a good dose of girl power and environmental issues. Very cool that it was a little like Shrek in playing with the fairy tale formula. Christian was Prince Charming in the section that retold Cinderella. He is very talented, as were many of the other kids in the performance. While I do not have a picture of this performance, I do have a picture of him with his new electric guitar, which I took the same day as Valentina's family birthday party.

changes

I got laid off from Sony and was a part of a month-long trial as a jury member for the federal district court. The federal court experience was a good one, though there were certainly many boring moments. The hard thing was that it coincided with the store closing. There was a 2-week period where I had not been that busy for awhile. I could have just done jury duty and put off work at Sony, but decided against that since the store was closing. Therefore, I ended up going into Sony during the evenings after being in court as well as when I had days off from the trial. But now all that craziness is over. I miss the people I worked with at Sony but I'm thinking it's a good thing to be done.

One smaller change is that I finally got internet at home (though I am writing this in a coffeeshop). Like I told my friend, Mary, I like to join the current decade a little late. It's probably why it took me so long to get a digital camera or an MP3 player. Working at Sony definitely helped with getting my electronics updated.

2 things to check out that you may now know too much about

One book and one movie on two very different topics. But they are both enjoyable and give you lots of information on its given topic. The first is a book called Staley: The Fight for a New American Labor Movement. The second is a documentary movie called Scratch. The former gives you an in-depth look of a labor strike in the mid-90s from the workers' point of view. The latter gives you the history of the DJ in hip hop music.

I grade part time for the Labor Education dept at UIC. Staley is a new book published this past year by one of the professors, and is really an engaging story. Not only does it talk about the struggles the Staley workers faced, but also gives you a brief history of the company as well as some nuggets of labor history in general. I found myself very drawn into the story while reading the book, and was fortunate to go to a Q&A with the authors and a couple of the workers who were a part of that labor movement.

In a similar fashion, the documentary, Scratch, gives you an overview of how the DJ started hip hop music with some turntables. It is plenty enjoyable for those both familiar and newly initiated with the genre and lifestyle. A lot of rare interviews and performances from legends in hip hop including DJ Shadow, DJ Q-Bert, DJ Babu, and loads more. If you find a copy of either of these, I highly recommend checking it out.

Braveheart...and Collateral

The last time I watched Braveheart all the way through was a few years ago...until yesterday. I finally dusted it off my DVD rack. Strange since it was one of my favorite films of all time. Watching it again reminded me of why I love the movie so much in the first place. As Robert the Bruce's father says in one scene- "Uncompromising men are easy to admire." For all you Braveheart lovers out there, just a quick note that while it is based on a true story, many characters, events, and details where fictionalized or altered to fit the movie story better. Despite that, it's still obviously a great movie.

The action scenes are still exciting, from the first revenge battle sequence to the Battle of Stirling. The dramatic scenes still work amazingly well, particularly the ones with no words and filled with stares and looks. I was just reading through all the goofs on imdb and was surprised to see so many. I don't care though. It's still a great film. I'd probably watch it more often if it wasn't 3 hours long.

The last time I watched it in its entirety was really late at night with some friends during a visit to Iowa a few years ago. There's a girl I know there named Jaime who absolutely loves the film, even more than I do. She can pretty much quote the whole thing. I miss those Iowa friends. I haven't seem a lot of them in awhile, especially Jaime.

Another movie of note is Collateral. It's probably my favorite movie with Tom Cruise because his assassin character is so well developed and he sheds a lot of the personality that you see in most of his other films. It's also directed by Michael Mann, which almost automatically means that it's good.

totally not getting married

I know most of my friends don't agree with me, but this is something that I've considered for the past year or two now. I was just at my cousin's wedding in Detroit this past weekend. It was beautiful, from the rooftop ceremony to the non-conventional breakfast food reception "dinner" to the beautiful couple that is my cousin and his wife. With all the relatives around, of course it was prime time for them to ask me where my girlfriend or date was. Not seeing anyone, I respond. Well when are your aunts from Hawaii going to come back and visit then, they ask me. I don't know. Hopefully another occasion will come.

I have this friend named Jennifer. She's a friend from college. Didn't even hang out with her very much then, but now she's one of my favorite people here in Chicago. She's become a very good friend. I started to teach her guitar about a year ago. She's social enough that I could introduce her to other friends and she would carry on a conversation. I am very comfortable in my own skin when I hang out with her. Sometimes we would talk about relationships in general. She's asked me a couple of times what kind of girl that I go for. I would say the type of girl that I'm friends with and who I trust. Oh, and someone who plays guitar, too, but then she'd be onto me. I should mention that Jennifer met this wonderful man in Africa during her time in the Peace Corps who she is now engaged to. By no means would I get in the way of that. In fact, I'm very much looking forward to the day when I can meet him (he's still in Africa). But that still leads us back to the title.

In Blue Like Jazz, Don Miller says that if you like someone you should tell them. I never brought this up with Jennifer...yet. I will. Even though I have no intention of having a romantic relationship with her at all, I think it's still important to talk about stuff like that.

There really isn't anyone else in Chicago. I was just talking to my brother about this last night. I told him how I'd want to ask out someone who I started become friends with and who I trust. No one else really fits that criteria who is available. It's amazing that despite the number of people that I meet, hardly anyone takes the time to become friends and build some trust.

It was nice talking to my brother last night. We hadn't seen each other too much lately, but we got to have this nice, serious, but short, conversation on the ride home. He really put the whole "relatives bringing up girlfriends and other things every time you see them" into perspective for me. To be honest, it really started to bug me at my cousin's wedding. Don't get me wrong. I still enjoyed myself and was really happy for them, but I couldn't really reach out and be social too much while I was there.

I think I'll end here before I start branching out into a million other things...


blessings

reading

I was never into fiction before, but I totally dig spy novels now. I read Casino Royale and then went through all the Robert Ludlum Bourne books. Obviously the books are better even though I've devoured all the movies. But now I have no more spy novels and I can't decide what to read next. Therefore, I'm going back to read books I've already read. Stupid since I have atleast 117 books on my "to-read" list but I'm getting reminded of why I liked those books in the first place. Said books are Brennan Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel and Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. I hadn't been into Christian spirituality books in awhile but as I said, I'm being reminded of why I like those books so much in the first place.

If you're not sure if you should go through those books or not I recommend a chapter in each of those books. I can't remember the exact chapter in Ragamuffin Gospel, but there's a powerful story about a time that Brennan Manning was attending an AA group retreat. In Blue Like Jazz, chapter 7 titled Grace (though almost all of the chapters are good to me) still sticks out the most.

I'l have to get back to you on that chapter in Ragamuffin. Until then, keep reading...