Cobra Kai

[Silver Nemesis]

I finally got around to watching the 2010 Karate Kid remake on Netflix.

One of the main objections I had when this film was announced, besides the whole premise of remaking the 1984 original in the first place, was the title – it's called The Karate Kid, yet it's set in China and clearly focuses on Kung Fu. It should have been called The Kung Fu Kid. Having now seen the film, I stand by that objection. Calling it The Kung Fu Kid would have helped give it its own identity. Using the title of the original movie places it among the other Sony remakes of the 2010s such as RoboCop and Ghostbusters.

Even if they had changed the title, it wouldn't alter the fact that it's clearly a remake. The narrative follows practically all of the major plot beats of the original movie. I recall many people hating on Jaden Smith when the remake came out, citing his involvement as an example of nepotism. I can see where those criticisms are coming from, but he gives a good performance and his character is likeable enough. However he's definitely not as interesting a character as Daniel LaRusso , whose behaviour in the original film is still debated to this day. Depending on your interpretation, LaRusso can be anything from a downtrodden hero to a psychopathic villain, and Macchio's performance conveyed a raw intensity that added to the film's verisimilitude. The protagonist in the remake just isn't as interesting or morally ambiguous, and Jaden's performance, while good, is not as iconic as Macchio's.

One reason for this is that the characters in the remake are much younger than in the original. The 2010 film is easily the most child-friendly entry in the franchise and is clearly geared towards a younger audience. This makes the romantic aspect less convincing, and consequently the villain's motive for bullying the protagonist is less well developed. The villain in turn is more of a one-dimensional bully and is far less intriguing than Johnny Lawrence. He hands the hero the trophy after the final fight – one of the many moments copied from the 1984 film – but aside from that one kind gesture, he's just a mean bully who shows none of the sportsmanship or relatable motivation displayed by Johnny.

Jackie Chan is the film's strongest element. The main Karate kid/Cobra Kai saga is populated by larger-than-life characters, and there's a distinct lack of such players in the remake. But Chan's Mr Han is a sympathetic character who adds a much-needed element of mystique to the story. Ultimately he is an inferior imitation of Miyagi, and the father-son relationship between him and the Jaden Smith character is not as compelling as the iconic pairing of Morita and Macchio. But Chan's performance is solid and he was well cast in the role. I just wish we could have seen more of him fighting, but I suspect they limited his action scenes so as not to upstage Smith.

On the subject of fight scenes, I didn't like the way Smith's character starts pulling off flashy acrobatic moves after just a few weeks of training. It's stated in the dialogue that he'd already trained in Capoeira and Jujitsu before studying Kung Fu. By contrast, Daniel was a wimp who'd never trained in his life prior to meeting Miyagi. And while his defeat of Lawrence in the All Valley final was clearly down to luck more than skill, the techniques he employed in that tournament were believably within the capabilities of someone who'd trained intensely for a couple of months. In short, Daniel's progression in the first film was more believable than Smith's in the remake.

So those are my thoughts on the 2010 Karate Kid. The Chinese setting provides an attractive backdrop, all beautifully shot by Batman '89 cinematographer Roger Pratt (who sadly passed away last December), and James Horner's score is decent. Overall it's pretty good as far remakes go. It's inferior to the original and is as superfluous as the majority of remakes are. But it's not a bad movie and is certainly a better film than The Next Karate Kid (which is the only really awful entry in the series). It also offers the most suitable entry point into the franchise for children, as the other films are really geared towards teens and adults.

I'm looking forward to seeing LaRusso meet Han in the next movie and learning how Chan's character will be incorporated into the central mythology.