I watched the remake of The Karate Kid the other day and - if I am to be completely honest - I enjoyed it.
I initially thought it wouldn't be any good but ended up liking it. I still think the original is better, though.
There are a lot of similarities between this film and the original. Here are some I can recall:
- Both are about a young boy and his mother moving to a new place after a job relocation (1984 - New Jersey to California, 2010 - USA to China)
- The man who teaches the boy martial arts is a janitor on the apartment block they live at in both movies
- The boy falls for the local girl which causes the local gang leader to become jealous
- The gang beat up the kid. He is saved by the janitor
- The janitor teaches the kid the art of fighting via unorthodox methods (1984 - 'Wax on, wax off', 2010 - 'Take the coat off, put it on the floor, pick it up, hang it up, put it on, take it off...'* )
- The teacher enters his student into a tournament even though he isn't ready for it after making a deal with the evil karate instructor to stop his students bullying until the day arrives
- The tournament is exactly similar in both movies. The semi-final ends with the 2nd lead bully injuring the 'Karate Kid' and there is doubt whether he will make it to the finals. The janitor does a special healing process on the hurt limb and this is good enough to make his pupil ready for the final
- The kid beats the bully in the final and the bullies embrace the winner in the end.
There is one thing about the new film that does confuse me, however.
The martial art that is taught in this movie is kung fu. I was under the impression that karate and this art is different and I'm certain I am right. In that case, it's baffling why they decided to have kung fu in a film based on and with the word 'Karate' in the title.
Maybe the original idea was to call it The Kung Fu Kid but it would have looked like a rip-off so calling it Karate Kid and making it a 'remake' was their way of covering up the notion that it was a rip-off.
Either way, and like I noted earlier, it was a good film.
*I think that's how it went!
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