New Photos of The Karate Kid remake are up over at slashfilm.com.
Be prepared to have your childhood raped fanboys. There is so much wrong with this remake that I don’t know where to begin, but I’m still going to have a “wait and see”. I’ve watched the original Karate Kid recently, and it still holds up today. (The very lovely Elisabeth Shue from that movie holds up today too.) But, does this movie need a remake considering Hollywood has been making this movie for years with cheap knockoffs?
From the IMDB page, ((Jaden Smith's character moves to Beijing with his mother, where he encounters a bully situation similar to Macchio's in his new locale. Smith's character will be named Dre instead of Daniel, and take lessons from Chinese martial arts master Mr. Han, played by Jackie Chan.))
Here are a few problems that might doom the movie,
~MC and a few others have stated the different cultural aspects of Japanese vs. Chinese martial arts. For a moment, the movie was called The Kung Fu Kid. When you think about it, it makes prefect sense to call it that. But do you know why they changed it back to The Karate Kid? Branding...
~The director is Harald Zwart : He was the guy responsible for The Pink Panther 2 (RT rating of 13%). Does that give him the right to direct the remake to The Karate Kid?
~Jada Pinkett Smith and Will (2+2=4) Smith are involved: With the Space Church warping their minds, I have little faith in either one of them to make grounded decisions. It does seem to be a vehicle to boost their child to stardom.
~Why is it set in China and not America? Part of the charm of the first series was seeing the Asian culture their American eyes.
~Jaden Smith’s character is too young. Daniel was much older than a little fart like Smith. Is this aimed at little kids? How about making him older? Nope, remember this a movie for Jaden to get a career out of it.
There seemed to be two other key elements which I think are important.
ReplyDeletePat Morita was really playing against type, as before the Karate Kid movies, the role people would have associated him with was Arnold on Happy Days and his string of guest roles across 1970's TV. We all know Jackie Chan is a badass Kung Fu master... he isn't really playing against type... he isn't surprising in that role.
And if you remember, the Cobra Kai, while being almost entirely blond and rich looking, also had this theme of Asian hatred, especially from Krease... so there was irony in the fact that the fish out of water is being trained to fight against anti-Asian forces by a Japanese caretaker... someone who actually lived by the values which the Cobra Kai had bastardized into their own warped view of the world.
You're completely right about Morita. We get the impression that We are led to believe that Morita’s character is merely hired help that likes catching flies with chopsticks. You’re right about the whole racism thing. Plus, there was that sweep the leg subplot where we see the fear in Johnny’s eyes when his master tells him to do it. That no matter how evil these kids are, they’re still kids.
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