The Karate (Kung Fu) Kid

The Karate Kid (2009)
Cribbed onto the page by Christopher Murphey, Robert Mark Kamen
Cribbed onto the screen by Harald Zwart
Starring Will Smith by Proxy, Jackie Chan ('s accountant), Taraj P. Henson


Synopsis
will smith and jada pinkett-smith feel the need to shove their kid in our faces.
MOster
I remarked to Leila when she suggested giving this movie a 1 that said rating would require her to produce an essay in the neighborhood of a thousand words.  I'm not going to do that because I really don't have that much passion for this.  However, it was excruciatingly long. 

To call such a production a "travesty" is to elevate the original film far above its station.  It's true that calling it "The Karate Kid" is disrespectful to southern Asians on the order of "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these;" but to harp on that would be retarded.

My big problem with the movie is that it doesn't work as peopled by middle school students.  It's really sketchy to watch Jackie Chan beat up 12-year-old kids regardless of how many of them were beating up his friend, and it's at least equally sketchy that such young children are encouraged to perform such acts of violence on each other.  I simply cannot believe that this is the norm in China.

It's similarly sketchy to watch a courtship between two children of such age, even if it does bring the only moderately-interesting (read: hackery of something worth stealing) shot of the entire 140-minute endeavor.  And it doesn't help that the kid lives in China for most of a school year without picking up a lick of the language. In what mixed-race school in China would such academic performance be tolerated?  In the one about which I really don't care.

Excruciatingly long.

The Woman
horrible. after it was done i couldn't believe we sat through the whole thing. i don't even know where to start. i guess it's more disrespectful to make jackie chan play a japanese guy than to CHANGE THE FUCKING TITLE OF THE MOVIE!!!!!!! i might even go as far to say that i might have respected the movie more if they did. then it could be seen as an homage instead of whatever it was. the reason we watched this was kind of a morbid fascination. to see how they approached it. to see how badly it pissed on it's origin.

there were all sorts of inappropriateness because the shifted age of daniel-san, i mean, dre. granted our children nowadays have to deal with more adult things sooner, but falling in love at age 12? no. would you fight an entire dojo, i mean, kung fu school, over some stereotyped, violin playing, pressured to be perfect, chinese 12 year old you just met...when you were 12? no. would it be ok for jackie chan to beat up a bunch of 12 year old kids bullying the new black kid in town? not really.  it's uncomfortable and weird. is it more believable that a teenager would thwart his mother's attempts at protecting him from bullies than a 12 year old. yes. you can bet your ass if some kids were beating up my 12 year old i would get involved not only with the schools, but the authorities as well. it's obvious that the only reason it was set in china was because the only asian hollywood star with the draw power is chinese. how are they going to do the sequel? they're already in the foreign country. the culture shock has already happened. is jackie chan going to be the fish out of water? do we, as americans regard honor so highly that dre will have a fight to the death with some detroit gang banger? that's stereotypically uncomfortable as well. you know there is going to be a sequel. will smith loves his kid too much not to subject the world to another one of these.

a perfect example of disrespecting the original is the catching the fly with the chop sticks sequence. in the original it is an exorcise of meditation with a lesson to be learned daniel even asks miyagi "wouldn't a fly swatter be easier" the response is "man who catch fly with chopstick, can do anything" explaining the core of mr. miyagi's belief system. in this contemporary scene jackie chan pretends to be tracking a fly with his chopstick and then smashes it with a flyswatter. what's to be learned here? that it's all about money and remakes? i think this is a perfect metaphor of the reboot's take on the two movies actually, now that i see it in type. there's no thought behind anything in this movie. i'm not saying the original is some great masterpiece, and i have never read or seen the comic, but at least the 1984 version had something there. an introduction to a new way of thinking about things. two outcasts bonding, and becoming great friends. grrrr. stupid will smith. shame on you jerry weintraub, shame on you!

was that a long enough rant, my dear husband?