The Karate Kid

"Be kind of hot if I won this thing, huh Mr. Han?"
"Be kind of hot if you would Focus."

I was kind of excited, but very apprehensive when I saw the trailer for this last year. I was excited to see Jackie Chan play Mr. Miagi's role, but scared to have my youth ripped apart along with many other terrible remakes. I have wanted to see this movie for a while and finally decided to get out of the 105 degree heat and take my son along with a friend and go check it out. I'm happy to say I was not disappointed.

I was happy to see that the same story line was followed, minus Karate being replaced with a more exciting Kung Fu. I was very impressed with the acting skills of Jaden Smith. He had a crying scene and I was in awe of how well he played it. It was very obvious that he learned Kung Fu. The fighting scenes were much better than expected. The only two complaints I had were that: 1. a handheld camera was used to film 90% of the movie. It was not as bad as other, but I was dizzy before going in to the movie and that did not help. 2. was the finial fight. The final big kick that we all loved so much and practiced in the quiet of our room, just in case a bleach blond with bullying issues cornered us, was traded in for some horrible, horrible front, spinning, back kick. It was so out of place that it completely took me out of the movie. One stupid kick and this movie would have been a million times better.

The scenery was fantastic as expected. There were some fantastic shots of the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and a temple on top of a mountain. The movie, like the old one, starts with the family leaving their home and settling in a new place. In this film the move to Beijing. The shots of the city are great. I would smile as I would see a connection between the new and the old film. The bad guys getting water dumped on them or The aqua colored door of Mr. Miagi/Han.

I was very happy I was able to see this with my son. I remember going to see a few of the Karate Kid movies with my dad. I was not feeling good one day and stayed home from school. He took the day off and drove me to the theatre and we watch Karate Kid 2 and a similar story happened for Number 3. No I did not see the Next Karate Kid in the theatre. I wouldn't mind of they made the second one, as long as they did as good of a job as they did on this one.

8.75 out 10