Contrary to the title, this is not a remake!
Two reviews in one week! It’s your lucky week!
Anyways, this evening, since it was cheap movie night, I went to see The Karate Kid. (Thank god I went to see Toy Story 3 last night, the line was absolutely INSANE.) This has been my most anticipated summer blockbuster so far, right up there with Avatar The Last Airbender.
Before I go into any details, I just want to point out this important fact: No, I have not watched the original Karate Kid movie. And honestly, I don’t feel I needed to.
It’s been rather annoying to hear people go on about this movie before seeing it, saying that Jackie Chan is no Mr.Miyagi. Well, I would hope not, he is Chinese. Not Japanese. And they don’t TRY to make him be the same character.
The movie starts with Sherry Parker being transferred to Beijing, her son Dre reluctantly going along for the ride. There’s a lot of really well shot moments in the first few minutes. We don’t need someone to tell us that they’re moving to China because there aren’t many other options, because you can see that simply from the cab ride to the airport, where everything is closed and boarded up.
Right away, my heart went out to Dre. Moving anywhere is hard. Moving to another country is difficult. Moving to another country where you’re suddenly illiterate is DOWNRIGHT IMPOSSIBLE FEELING. And this is coming from someone who has happily put herself in this situation once, and wants to do it again and again. I won’t lie – moving to Asia is scary and upside down and backwards.
Watching this movie, I wondered what other people watching thought of the first bit. I’ve never been to China, but I have moved to Japan, and hopefully will be moving to Korea. I could relate to the feeling Dre had when it seemed the entire world was ganging up on you. You don’t understand the language or the culture and you just want to scream loud enough that somebody who understands English will be close enough to hear you exclaim how you just wish you could give up and go home.
But you never really want to go home… Or, at least, I never did. I wanted to fight it out until the very end, to be able to say I was able to survive in Japan and leave with my head held high. And… in some ways, I feel I never got to do that. Others might argue that. But either way, I could really relate to Dre throughout this movie.
I really appreciated the way the movie showed both the good and the bad things about the culture they had moved into. There are so many amazing and beautiful things about Asian cultures. The history and the people and the spiritual and religious beliefs are really amazing, and I think people should be more exposed to them. But at the same time, it can seem cold, and harsh, and different. It can feel a little cut throat. And of course, on top of that, there was the bullying, which is international and horrible in whatever country you go in.
Either way, my heart went out to him.
So, I won’t go into details about the plot, because of spoilers. But really, it’s an action movie with a sports them and a child as the protagonist. If you don’t know how this movie ends simply from those facts, you’re hopeless. I felt that this movie was really beautifully filmed. China is beautifully portrayed, and fairly as well. There’s a lot of shots of what an average street would look like, along with beautiful moments in famous landmarks like the Olympic stadium, the Forbidden City, and of course, the Great Wall of China. While I don’t know if this movie would make me want to MOVE to China (I’ve never had a desire to live there though…) it did makes me want to vacation there!
The acting in this movie was really impressive, I thought. I didn’t know what to expect from Jaden Smith, the son of Will Smith, but I was really impressed. That kid could have a bright future if he chose to pursue it! And Jackie Chan had some lady in my theatre crying during the sad scene. So kudos.
I also want to point out that the antagonist, Cheng, looked alarmingly like one of my students from last year. I don’t know if this is cool, or just frightening.
And, to my surprise? Theme song? Justin Bieber song. 
!
