I watched THE KARATE KID. I've never watched any of the previous renditions of it, so I had no idea what to expect. When the movie first started, I had no idea what direction the movie was going to take. It wasn't until the scene where Mr. Han approaches Master Li about how it is wrong to teach students Kung Fu to hurt others. And of course Master Li goes, "You can't just walk in here and tell me what to do and expect me to let you just walk out of here without a fight." I rolled my eyes at the overly used scene. Master Li continues, "Either you fight or the kid fights." It doesn't make sense to have Mr. Han, a retired-Kung-Fu-Master-now-maintenance man, fight Master Li's students and it surely doesn't make any sense for Xiao Dre, who can barely stand on his own two feet, to be battling highly trained students.
So Mr. Han goes, "The kid will fight at the tournament," as he signals the poster plastered on a wall of the studio.
And another cheesy threat follows by Master Li, "And if the kid doesn't show up. I will be sure to give both you and the kid a lot of pain." PUAHAHAHA. That's hilarious. WTF?!
So then the movie gains a sense of direction and everything starts to make sense. Mr. Han starts training this kid, who doesn't even know how to hang up his jacket, how to focus, be still, and all this boring crap on "life". I find it far-fetched when Mr. Han says, "Kung Fu is in everything around us. It's in everything we do. It's in how we live our lives." LIKE. SERIOUSLY?! And then he goes to show how the MOTION of taking OFF and putting ON a jacket can be used as a Kung Fu move. WTF?!?! It's cheesy but it fits the movie... I guess Jackie Chan can pull off an incredibly scene.
Jaden Smith is not a bad actor at all for his age. The casting seemed pretty decent. I like the Chinese bully. I don't like his character but I thought the actor, who plays it, does a really good job at making me hate him. Xiao Dre's love interest... didn't really work for me. Why pick a girl taller than him? WHY?! And besides, I thought they could've picked a more pretty and cute girl in China. She wasn't bad but something about her doesn't shout, "Hey. I'm playing a violin. I'm so pretty that I can catch you attention right away. Come over and hit on me." LOL.
There were some pretty impressive scenes of Xiao Dre training. In the middle of the movie, there's a scene where Mr. Han is all depressed about his dead wife and kid. They died in a car accident years ago and I'm guessing it changed him forever. Xiao Dre comforts him and teaches him how to "get up and move on". Lame. Very lame. Jackie Chan did an amazing job with the scene, Jaden Smith proved to be mature enough to handle a scene like that... but the way it was written into the script is so ridiculous. Why does Mr. Han need to have a downfall? To show that he's human? Or is it to give Xiao Dre and opportunity to help him and so it demonstrates a symbiotic teacher-student relationship? I don't buy it. Too far-fetched. Too random. Too cliche.
The ending is very cliche as well. Of course, Xiao Dre wins the competition and the Chinese bully has so much respect for him that he was take the award away from the judge and personally hand it over toe Xiao Dre as if to say, "You won fair and square. I have so much respect for you. I will never bully you again." And then all of Master Li's students go and bow to Mr. Han. WTF?! If I were Master Li, I'd go and hack all their heads off for disrespecting me and for not giving me "face" in front of so many people. But I guess... they wanted this to be a family movie so good HAS TO triumph over evil and save the day.
There's this really good scene near the end, where Xiao Dre gets injured and Mr. Han takes him backstage and tells him that he should just be proud for making it to the finals and he should just forfeit now before he gets even more injured. Xiao Dre INSISTS that he needs to go back out there and finish the battle. And Mr. Han asks, "Give me a good reason why you have to go back out there. Why must you go back out?" And Xiao Dre goes, "Because I'm still scared. After today, when I leave here, I don't want to be scared anymore." He's referring to being bullied by kids. And by winning this competition, he would no longer be afraid of them since he's proven to them and himself that he's capable of standing up for himself. Another really cheesy scene but very smoothly executed by Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. Those two, surprisingly, have amazing chemistry. But then again, I think Jackie Chan has the ability to create chemistry between any kid he has to act with. I'm not sure how he does it... but it works. I think he makes a good dorky fatherly figure. I think he doesn't seem like the type who can pull off a fatherly character but actually can...
Overall, I would watch the movie again. Cheesy but... it makes you feel good at the end of the movie... like any Jackie Chan movie. I don't know why I love Jackie Chan movies so much, probably because of all his Chinglish humor that's incorporated into the script.
