Karate Kid (2010)
KARATE KID
SONY
RELEASED 28 July 2010
Hollywood is churning out so many remakes at the moment that whenever a new one is announced, you can almost hear the cry from the film-loving public. So many are simply terrible, and pointless, with studios dredging through their archives looking for something cheap and existing to remake. If it’s not a remake, it’s a sequel. Originality is a dirty word in Hollywood.
The latest of these remakes is ‘The Karate Kid’, auspicious for being a remake that takes the barest bones of the original story, that of an outsider learning karate (or kung fu in this instance), and going on to face his school bully in a tournament.
Whereas the original transplanted the wise old Chinese karate teacher to America, this reverses that and transplants the student to China, making it all the more inevitable that he will be the outsider.
It also makes the kid definitely a kid (original star Ralph Macchio was twenty-three years old), starring twelve-year-old Dre Parker (Jaden Smith, son of producers Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith). Dre accompanies his mother to China after her job takes her there. Introduced onto the old streets of downtown Shanghai, Dre joins a local school, meets a girl, and instantly finds himself being the target of the local gang of bullies. While these bullies are never truly developed in any sense beyond the usual two dimensions, it’s the character arc of Dre Parker and Mr Han, played here by Jackie Chan (in what must be one of his best performances in an American movie) that grounds this version; everyone else takes a back seat to that relationship.
It’s a shame then that we don’t really get a sense that this is China, with the director Harold Zwart trying his best to make the streets and apartments look like anything you’d expect to see in an old suburban part of America. Maybe it’s the Chinese films that have been coming out over the past decade that have spoilt us on their visions of China, but the majesty of its landscape and ancient landmarks are simply ignored when really they should have been used to show just what an outsider Dre truly is. His instant acceptance into the society of China sits at odds with his immediate bullying for being an outsider. We’re led to believe that it’s simply because he takes an instant liking to a Chinese girl, Meiying, and she to him. In fact, Meiying is the only other character that has any kind of arc other than the two leads, leading to a humorous moment when they share a kiss behind a shadow puppet performance that Mrs Parker and Mr Han are watching.
There’s a huge amount of charm from Jaden Smith, much like his father, and it was impressive how much work he put himself through to truly show the transformation Dre must achieve to win the martial arts tournament Mr Han enters him in.
Jackie Chan, as we know, is a natural performer, much more comfortable here than we’ve seen him before speaking English. His Mr Han is the Parker’s apartment supervisor, dour and shuffling along as if broken by life. When he witnesses the bullies beating up Dre, he steps in and we get to see a bit of the old Jackie Chan charm, simply defeating the bullies by skilfully blocking every attempt they make to hit him. It’s Chan’s only scene where he shows us he can fight but it instantly enlivens the movie. Soon Mr Han agrees to teach Dre what his father taught him – the art of kung fu. We don’t get a wax on/wax off scene, but we have something similar that soon evolves into kung fu. These scenes soon move to other locales, sometimes mystifying and without explanation, such as the Great Wall of China, others have reasons, even if they are lame. These scenes are again shot without appreciation of the grandeur they deserve, and when the director of photography is someone like Roger Pratt (who shot all of Terry Gilliam’s early films), it’s a true waste.
Not much is made of the Cobra Kai’s of this movie (the Fighting Dragons here!) but then again that was true of the original. Here they are taught by the evil Master Li, who demands of them “No weakness! No fear! No mercy!” Mr Han is appalled by this philosophy and agrees that Dre will fight them but only in the upcoming Tournament of Champions.
In essence, this movie would be nothing without its two leads, both of who show huge amounts of charm that make us believe in their characters. Otherwise this is another pedestrian remake of a nostalgic 80’s movie that didn’t really need to be remade in the first place.
PAUL FORRESTER
THREE OUT OF FIVE
