Review of The Karate Kid, directed by Harald Zwart

When I first watched this movie, I was eleven. It had just come out and after the theatrical run I was watching it on television, amazed at the fact I could understand the Mandarin said in the movie. I had started taking Chinese classes instead of French or Spanish at my local middle school, and suddenly I was watching this movie where I could understand the basics of what was being said. I had never heard of the original The Karate Kid at this point, but I knew it was really cool that I could understand the Mandarin.

That’s why I’m a language nerd today I guess. Regardless, I was weirdly thinking about this movie and reminiscing, as I’m almost twenty-four now. Ten years of Chinese classes later, I think I wanted to relive that weird childhood revelation, so I found this movie on streaming and decided to watch it.

Here’s my review!

Upon moving to Beijing, Dre Parker begins to learn the art of kung fu.

We begin this movie with a major movie: Dre Parker, who’s twelve, and his widowed mother are going from Detroit to Beijing, China.

His mother, Sherry, had her job transferred to a car factory in Beijing, but obviously it’s going to be a steep learning curve going from Detroit to China, especially considering they’re a Black family living in a homogenous country. When Dre first arrives, he befriends a girl his age named Meiying, but Cheng, an older bully, shows up to harass Dre because of his connection to her.

Dre gets fed up with this, and when on a school field trip, he dumps dirty water on Cheng and his buddies. They chase Dre into an ally and beat him up, but Mr. Han, a maintenance man who knows his mother, stops the boys before they can do too much damage.

As it turns out, he’s a Kung Fu Master, and he helps treat Dre’s other injuries. He tells Dre that Cheng and his buddies have a bad influence in their lives, and Dre asks Mr. Han if he can be the one to teach Dre martial arts. He declines.

Mr. Han goes to talk to Cheng’s master, Li, who agrees to tell them to leave Dre alone until a tournament. Forced to compete, Mr. Han begins teaching Dre martial arts. He struggles at first, but as they continue through the motions and even visit a temple, Dre starts getting better.

He comes back and meets Meiying on his day off, and they have fun. But when she ditches violin practice, her parents get angry and forbid her from seeing him again.

After that, Dre goes to Mr. Han, but finds him drunk and destroying a car. We then get a hint of his backstory: crashed the car ten years prior and killed his wife and son.

He destroys the car on the anniversary. Dre continues training with him and the two bond over their trauma, and Mr. Han helps Dre make it right with Meying’s parents. The tournament arrives, and Dre defeats his opponents. Li orders one of his students to unethically injure Dre, which he does and is disqualified.

The final is Dre against Cheng, and Mr. Han uses his medicine to try and heal the leg before the match. It begins, and Cheng goes straight for the leg.

He uses the stance he saw at the temple, taking Cheng down and winning the tournament. Finally, everyone respects him, and Cheng gives him the trophy. All of the students then take Mr. Han on as their new master, pissing Li off.

Overall Thoughts

Granted, there’s so much more about this movie I have questions about, but this was a solid piece of entertainment for a couple of hours. I don’t know if I’d rewatch it again outside of that childhood nostalgia, but it’s a decent movie. It’s wild to me though considering how much time has passed. Jaden Smith looks so young! He’s a full on adult now. I am glad I rewatched it as this point in my life, though. I’ve been going through a bit of a renaissance and am picking Chinese up again, so it’s a full circle moment.

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