The Karate Kid

Rating: 4/4 (Get lost in the fun world of Jackie Chan and Chinese kung fu in The Karate Kid, a perfect homage to the original)

The new The Karate Kid movie is hard to resist for anyone who likes the original 1984 movie, with the unforgettable character of Mr. Miyagi and his student’s Crane kick. The new movie is a perfect homage to the older one pitting Jaden Smith as the student and Jackie Chan as his guru.

How the times have changed! In the old movie, the kid and his mom move to California and the teacher is an immigrant from Japan who teaches Karate. In keeping with the rapidly changing geopolitics of our time, Dre (Jaden Smith) and him mom move from Detroit (USA) to China, following the move of the auto industry. And when Dre is bullied, when he tries to flirt with a cute Chinese girl, he turns to Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), a maintainence man. Mr. Han teaches him kung fu, this is China afterall and karate is a Japanese martial art. The movie pretty much follows the original completely, with a Cobra maneuver replacing the cult-classic Crane kick. For the few who are not familiar with the old movie, the bully belongs to a bad-ass kung fu training school, where the teacher teaches an evil no-mercy version of the art. Dre and the bully collide frequently, and they decide to face off in a kung fu tournament to settle their differences. Mr. Han trains Dre, he uses Dre’s bad habit of not hanging up his jacket to teach him the basic moves. (This replaces the wax on, wax off routine of Mr. Miyagi.) Dre is ready after a couple of cool training montages and spectacular journeys through Chinese mountains and temples. Though the bully tries some unjust moves on Dre at the tournament, Dre finally prevails and earns the respect of everyone.

The movie is completely set in China, with almost all scenes shot on location. Most of the action takes place in Beijing (which I visited last year) and I found myself noticing and recalling the places, food, language and other cultural references. Surprising for a Hollywood movie, Dre and his mom are the only principal American actors, everyone else is Chinese. This makes this remake a lot more fresher and believable. The casting in the movie could not have been more perfect. Jaden Smith, the son of Will Smith, does not do a Dakot Fanning and delivers a believable performance. Taraji P. Henson, as his mom brings laughs to every single scene. Jackie Chan is peppy and charming as always, delivering almost all the fun of the movie. The grubby maintenance man look fits Chan perfectly, since he has finally started to show some age. Wen Wen Han (Dre’s crush) is very cute and Zhenwei Wang plays the perfect school bully to Dre. The Chinese locations are all spectacular, Forbidden City and The Temple of Heaven Park in Beijing, The Great Wall of China and the Wudang Mountains (location of the fake Dragon Well). The movie concentrates a lot more on the characters than on the kung fu, which is a relief. Even the matches in the final tournament are very short and quick, with very few moves. The movie had me completely sucked me into its world and I did not even notice its 2+ hour length! No matter what your age The Karate Kid will be hard to resist!

Kickboxer

Rating: 3/4 (Super clichéd, yet good fun!)

Every Bollywood movie viewer must be familiar to death with a story that goes like this: 2 brothers who dearly love each other. Elder brother gets hurt in a duel with a badass fighter. Younger brother decides to take revenge on his behalf. He finds a teacher who stays in the middle of nowhere who trains him. Throw in a girl for the hero’s love interest. The plot is boiling now, let us add in a few more baddies for the hero to fight with. To get the hero even more roiled up, let the badass villain now rape his girl. Hero is fuming now at the right temperature, put him to a duel with the baddie, so he can defeat him in the climax. That in essence is the plot of Kickboxer. It should have been a forgettable movie, but surprisingly it is not.

This is one of the earliest movies of Jean-Claude Van Damme, who has real martial arts background in karate. Kurt Sloane (Van Damme) and his older brother land in Bangkok, Thailand for a Muay Thai fight. The local champion Tiger Tong Po is a baddie and beats the pulp out of the older bro. While his brother recovers in a hospital, Kurt finds an old teacher in the hills to teach him Muay Thai to take revenge. The training is very reminiscent of movies like The Karate Kid. Some of the training takes place in the middle of some spectacular Wat ruins, which the teacher calls Stone City. (I could not identify what place in Thailand this is.) Kurt also falls in love with his teacher’s beautiful niece. The predictable climactic fight turns bloody as the players fight with hands wrapped in broken glass.

As I said before there are no surprises, yet the movie is a good watch. For one, it is shot well and on location in Bangkok and other places in Thailand. There are no CGI and special effects, so it is thrilling to see real fighters and real action. I cannot stand Van Damme in his older movies, here he is very comfortable in the role of a pure martial arts fighter. Many times during the movie he demonstrates that he can do the splits, which for a man of his massive build is quite something. His martial arts moves and training routines are a delight to watch. Muay Thai fights here are actually more interesting than the typical boxing fights in say the Rocky series since the legs are involved. Lastly, the music in this movie is very good. Some of the 80s beats and the Western-Asian fusion music that plays a lot in the background are all very notable. All in all, Kickboxer is super clichéd, yet good fun!

The Shaolin Temple (少林寺)

Rating: 3/4 (Classic kung fu fun!)

The Shaolin Temple (少林寺) released in 1982, was the first martial arts movie to be shot in China. It was the movie debut for Jet Li, who back then was the wushu champion of China. The movie begins with an introduction of the real Shaolin Temple located in the Henan province of China. At this Buddhist monastery, monks have been practicing a form of martial arts (now popularly known as Shaolin Kung Fu) rigorously for centuries. The murals at this temple are filled with kung fu stances and legends of the kung fu monks of Shaolin. The rest of the movie is loosely based on one of these tales in which 13 Shaolin monks help save an emperor.

Chueh Yuan (Jet Li) has witnessed the death of his father, a famous fighter at the hands of Wang Jen-Tse, a cruel general. Wang betrays the emperor of the Tang Dynasty and takes control of the East Capital. Gravely injured Chueh Yuan escapes to the Shaolin Temple, where he is nursed back to health by the kind Shaolin master and his 12 disciples. In time, the master and disciples become good friends of Chueh Yuan, who works odd jobs at the temple. One day he runs away to confront Wang, wanting to extract revenge for his father’s death. But, he is defeated badly and is saved by Li Shi Min, who is opposing Wang’s atrocities. Chueh Yuan also saves a beautiful girl Ding Laam, who turns out to be his master’s daughter.

After returning to the temple, Chueh Yuan embraces monkhood, starts learning kung fu and in time masters it. When Li Shi Min escapes imprisonment from Wang, Chueh Yuan helps him get away to build an army. Angered by this, Wang turns his ire on the Shaolin Temple, where he arrives with his army to destroy and burn it to the ground. This sets up a culminating showdown between the 13 monks, their master and Li Shi Min’s army against the evil Wang and his army.

Though pretty dated, The Shaolin Temple is an enjoyable experience. Jet Li in his movie debut looks young and his action is fluid. All the monks in the movie are real kung fu practitioners and it shows in the excellent action scenes. There are no special effects, wires or stunt doubles in this movie. It is refreshing to see such high quality martial arts performances flowing from real performers! Most of the scenes are shot at the actual Shaolin Temple, the gorgeous Pagoda Forest (the cemetery for the Shaolin masters) and some breathtaking rural Chinese landscapes, which is a big plus. Even the room where the monks practice is the real Shaolin practice room, whose floor is broken due to the centuries of foot pounding it has endured. The abbot’s minister and the master, both provide the typical martial-arts-movie-comic-relief. The story is cliched all right, but this is one heck of a good martial arts movie!