The Kung Fu Kid (The Karate Kid Review)

Before the 2008 Olympics, my wife studied abroad in Beijing during the months in which the city frantically tried to make itself as presentable and pollutant-free as possible so that athletes would not, as many eventually still did, boycott the Olympics for the sake of their own health.  While she was there, I studied abroad in Sydney, which you would think would be close by.  Turns out it was something like a 12 hour flight straight north for me to get there, but I did get to visit during my Spring break.

I do not share the love of China that my wife has, even after visiting places like Wangfujing and The Forbidden City, and even after proclaiming my undying love for all things Jackie Chan, but there you have it.  China has captivated my wife, and really, it's not hard to see why.  So long as the Chinese keep producing insane martial arts experts who like to star in action films, I guess I don't mind them, either.

I'm sad to admit that I have never seen the original The Karate Kid, though I feel like I have, given its pervasiveness in today's culture.  There's the "wax on, wax off" reference in one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies.  There's the "montage" song in Team America.  There's even Stan's dad Randy singing the "You're the Best Around" song during his fight with some other dad in South Park's brilliant episode concerning little league baseball.  It's just one of those movies where you know all about it without actually having to see it, like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or Star Wars: A New Hope.  "Wax on, wax off" seems almost as ubiquitous as "I'm not dead yet!" and "Use the force, Luke".

This was definitely a Drafthouse movie: the pre-game show was full of clips from the original Karate Kid as well as nearly a half-dozen clips of old Jackie Chan fight scenes, the only two of which I recognized were from The Legend of Drunken Master and the ridiculous mall scene from Police Story - you know, the one where Jackie jumps off the rail five stories up, grabs a pole, slides down it until it ends with a storey to go, and then freefalls down on top of a little vendor stand in a cloud of dust.  As icing on the ocular cake (sounds gross, eh?), a local martial arts studio did a demonstration at the front of the theater before the movie, so we all got to enjoy the sight of an eight-year-old boy swing nunchakus and a ten-year-old girl wailing on one of the adult male teachers.  I do love Alamo Drafhouse.

The new Karate Kid actually surprised me in a lot of ways.  For one, it's two-and-a-half hours long, quite the ambitious length for a family film.  What's truly surprising about that, though, is that it doesn't feel like it's two-and-a-half hours long.  The movie draws things out, sure, but it does it surprisingly well.  You spend a good chunk of time meeting Dre and his mom and establishing exactly why Dre grows to hate living in Beijing.  Then you spend an equally long time watching Dre train under the enigmatic Mr. Han, and then, finally, you get to the final tournament.  The buildup feels absolutely appropriate and very well-paced.

Another surprise came from a bit of pessimism on my part.  As you know, the movie is called The Karate Kid.  But it's based in China, which is patently NOT the birthplace of karate.  This would be akin to, say, calling Lord of the Rings science-fiction, or writing a movie about Shakespeare that has him being born somewhere in America rather than Stratford-upon-Avon.  My irritation upon hearing that the Karate Kid was to be based in China was considerable, partially because it's just wrong, but mostly because GoldenPigsy has instilled in me a considerable awareness of Hollywood's amazing ability to portray Asia as nothing but being full of acrobats who cry out "ching chow wai!", cannot pronounce their L's, and call their students "grasshopper".  Now, while the title is still annoying, the movie itself does make it very clear that the styles shown are kung fu, not karate (Dre actually argues with his mom about this because she calls it karate).  I suspect that the filmmakers were afraid to or legally could not call the movie The Kung Fu Kid because of its plot similarities to the original.  So, blame the lawyers for the continued dumbing of America with regard to Asia.

Actually, Pigsy, help me with this one: is calling it "kung fu" also slightly incorrect?  Kung fu is not an actual style but rather a sort of blanket term for several styles of martial arts... or am I just making that up?  Wushu more or less translates to "martial art", if I'm not mistaken, and kung fu is more the philosophy behind different types of martial arts... right?  Please tell me I'm right.  I'd love to be right on this.

Annoyances aside, I really enjoyed this movie.  There's nothing unexpected here - it's your standard "stand up to the schoolyard bullies" story, but it works, and along the way Dre - and through him, the audience - learn about respect, patience, and other virtues that help you become disciplined and wise.  All of the actors put in solid performances (even Jaden Smith, who has received considerable criticism from the yahoos on the message boards, though I can't figure out why - jealousy, perhaps, because Lord knows that I wish I could kick something being held over my head), and the soundtrack consistently matched the emotional feel of each scene.  The fights were pretty good, especially given that the fighters were almost exclusively somewhere between 12-16 years old, but there were a few random moments of wirework that threw off the realism just enough to shock you back into the theater and remind you that you were watching a movie and not, as it sometimes felt, standing in the movie's audience watching a real martial arts tournament unfold before you.

Easily recommended for anyone except Asian cinema aficionados, but be warned: if you take a child under the age of 12 to this movie, I can personally guarantee that s/he will spend the next several hours punching and kicking his/her way around town.  If the child is male, then increase the age range up to about 45 - higher, if he's in exceptional shape.