The Karate Kid revisited "Wax on, wax off...."

Right this is yet once again another blog revisitation post but its again one of my early ones so this begs a re-write and since its nearly Christmas I figured I would do this one, because even though this film isn't strictly seasonal, its a film I enjoy watching around Christmas time.

So the film in question is of course, The Karate Kid starring Ralph Macchio as a young kid who takes up karate to stand up against a group of high school bullies who are karate students.

But after 32 years, how does the original film stack up???  Well let's take another look and find out...

Oh and the usual warning is coming at you....

SPOILERS ARE AHEAD!!!

STORY 

So the story begins with teenager, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) and his mother (Randee Heller) moving from Newark, New Jersey out to Reseda in Los Angeles.  Once they arrive Daniel befriends a boy from the neighbourhood and he also meets the apartment handyman, Mr Miyagi (Pat Morita) an eccentric but kind immigrant from Okinawa.  The boy invites Daniel to a beach party where he meets Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue) an attractive high school cheerleader.

However the party is interrupted by Ali's arrogant and bullying ex-boyfriend, Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) who Daniel confronts and ends up on receiving end of a beating from Johnny, who turns out to be a top karate student at a local club called Cobra Kai.

Daniel decides to start practising karate as well, as he knows a little from classes he attended at the YMCA back in Jersey.  As time goes on Daniel makes progress wih Ali, but he is tormented and bullied by Johnny and his Cobrai Kai classmates at every opportunity.  This soon culminates when Daniel plays a trick on Johnny at the school prom which backfires on him as Johnny catches up with Daniel and gives him a severe beating.  However at this point Miyagi arrives to rescue Daniel from Johnny and his classmates as he subdues them with an impressive display of karate.

Daniel is impressed by Mr Miyagi's skill and asks him to be his tutor so he can get even with Johnny, but Miyagi refuses at first, but does agree to go along with him to confront the Johnny and his classmates at the Cobra Kai class.

On turning up at the Cobrai kai class, Miyagi speaks with the class's sensei (Japanese for teacher) John Kreese (Martin Kove) who is a former special forces Vietnam veteran, who teaches an aggressive approach to karate, and that "mercy is for the weak!".  Miyagi asks Kreese that Johnny leave Daniel alone, however Kreese insists that Daniel and Johnny fight it out in the class, but Miyagi instead suggests they fight at an upcoming karate tournament, to which Kreese agrees to let Daniel attend.  Miyagi also asks Kreese that Johnny and his classmates leave Daniel alone to train, to which Kreese agrees but warns Miyagi that if Daniel doesn't show then the harrassment will continue, and Miyagi will also become a target.

And from here Daniel starts his training under Miyagi's wing, which starts with a rather unorthodox approach with giving Daniel manual labour chores, such as cleaning his cars, painting his fence and house.  After a few days of this Daniel grows exasperated with Miyagi as he feels that Miyagi is using him rather than teaching him, but Miyagi eventually shows Daniel that by doing these chores he has been subconsciously learning his defensive blocks used in karate, via muscle memory.

After this Daniel and Miyagi train closer together and at the same time Daniel continues to grow closer to Ali, but its not too long before the tournament is round the corner where Daniel will have to fight in order to gain the respect of his rivals.

THOUGHTS  

There is no doubt that the Karate Kid is a classic film of the martial arts genre, and what's great about it is of course not so much of the emphasis is on the karate as its more on the relationship between Daniel and Mr Miyagi, which is what makes the film work so well.  Director John G.Avildsen, who directed Rocky, uses a similar theme here as he did with Rocky, by using the underdog, with Daniel in a position where he is forced to stand up to his tormentors and in doing he has to learn karate, which he uses in order to fight them and gain their respect.

PERFORMANCES AND NOTABLE SCENES 

Moving onto the performances, the cast are all pretty good here, starting with Ralph Macchio who does a fine job as the amiable Daniel LaRusso, who is tormented by the karate gang of bullies and he learns karate under the tutoring of Miyagi. 

Macchio has many good scenes in the film and to mention a few examples there is for starters the scene where Daniel is knocked off his bike by Johnny's gang while he rides home.  And in the next moment we see Daniel's mum, Lucille arrive at her apartment door and she hears Daniel near by angrily yelling "This damn bike! I hate this bike. I hate this frickin' bike! Stupid bike!" and he throws it into a skip.  And as Lucille tries to find out what is wrong with Daniel he shouts " No you don't want to hear the truth. All you want to hear about is how great it is. Well it may be great for you but it SUCKS for me! I hate this place! I HATE IT! I just want to go home. Why can't we just go home?!".

Then there is the scene where Daniel dances with Ali at a fancy dress school ball and he is wearing a shower curtain as his fancy dress as he pretends to be a shower.  And as they dance Ali says to Daniel of Johnny's bullying "I'd love to see him get some of his own medicine" and Daniel says "Well what goes around comes around" and Ali says "I'd love to be there when it does".  

And in the next scene Daniel while in the bathroom overhears Johnny, who is dressed up as a ghoul and goes into a cubicle to role a joint, so Daniel grabs as nearby hosepipe and attaches it to the bathroom taps and sticks the pipe over Johnny's cubicle and turns on the water and does a runner.  And Daniel runs by Ali and says "Its coming around!".  

Then there is the one of the best moments in the film where Daniel confronts Myagi over his unconventional methods of training Daniel in Karate by carrying a series of chores around his house.  

And as Myagi notices Daniel painting his house at night, Daniel snaps and says "Hey, how come you didn't tell me you were goin' fishing?!" and Myagi says "You not here when I go" and Daniel says "Well, maybe I wanted to go, you ever think of that?!".  And Myagi says "Ah you karate training" which causes to Daniel angrily say "I'm WHAT? I'm bein' your goddamn SLAVE is what I'm bein' here man, now c'mon we made a deal here!  So, you're supposed to teach and I'm supposed to learn! For 4 days I've been bustin' my ass, and haven't learned a goddamn thing!".  

And Myagi says "Ah you learn plenty!" and Daniel shouts "I learn plenty, yeah, I learned how to sand your decks maybe. I washed your car, paint your house, paint your fence. I learn plenty!".  And Myagi says to him "Everything not as seem" but Daniel has had enough and says "Oh, bullshit, I'm goin home, man!!" but Myagi calls him back angrily "Daniel san!  Come here!" which leads into the great moment where we see Daniel has subconsciously been learning his blocks.    

Another good scene is when Daniel rubs up Johnny's gang the wrong way after they made their agreement with their sensei, Kreese to leave Johnny alone so they decide to go after Johnny at lunch time.   "However as Daniel says them come toward him he spots a teacher and calls him over and says "Mr. Harris, can I talk to you?  LaRusso. Third period history class.  I wanted to tell you, I really got a lot out of that lecture about the Indians. I was telling my buddies about it.  Could you give us a quick review?".  And the teacher says "Sure, I'm free this period" and all of a sudden, Johnny's gang all make their excuses and go "No, I got to go!".  Its a great moment and a shrewd way for Daniel to get himself out of trouble.    

And lastly there is the scene where Daniel, having been injured by one of the Kobra Kai gang during the tournament, pleads for Myagi to help him mend his leg so he go back out and fight in the final.  And Daniel says to Myagi "Can you fix my leg with that thing you do?" and Myagi says "No need fight anymore.  You proved a point" and Daniel says "What, that I can take a beating? Every time I see those guys, they'll know they got the best of me.  I'll never have balance that way, not with them, not with Ali...not with me".  So Myagi takes a moment then says to Daniel "Close eye" and he then starts to rub his hands to use his pain suppression techniques to help mend Daniel's leg.  

Pat Morita next is great as Mr Miyagi and he also received an oscar nomination for his performance as well, and he plays Miyagi as an eccentric but decent man, who helps out Daniel and during their training they become good friends, and he plays Miyagi with a calm tone and a dry wit.

Morita's oscar nomination ironically was actually the result of the scene where he get's drunk and wears his army uniform from his days in the second world war, and he sadly reflects on the death of his wife, who died in childbirth.  But the execs at the time of the film's shooting felt this scene detracted from the pace of the film and felt it should have been cut, which once again just goes to show what they know!

Morita get's most of the film's best dialogue and he has plenty of highlights, which include the scene where Daniel asks Miyagi what kind of belt does he have, i.e. belt in karate status, and Morita shows him his belt around his trousers "JC Penney, $3.98!  Do you like??  In Okinawa belt is only used as a rope to hold up pants!".

Then there is the scene where Miyagi goes with Daniel to confront Kreese over Johnny and his gang and Myagi proposes that Daniel settle their dispute at an upcoming karate tournament.  And in the scene at first Kreese asks "What are you here for, old man?" and Miyagi says "Come ask leave boy alone" and Kreese says "What's the matter, can't the boy take care of his own problems?" and Miyagi says "One to one problem, yes. FIVE to one problem, too much ask anyone!".

And after they arrange for Daniel to fight at the tournament against Johnny and his gang and leave, Daniel says in disbelief to Miyagi "I can't believe this!  What you just got me into!".  And Daniel says "I thought you said you would make things better" and Miyagi says "I did!" and Daniel says "How?" and Miyagi says "How?  I just saved you two months of beating!".    

Also when he first shows Daniel the movements he wants him to use when cleaning his cars, he says the famous line "wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off....." and as he moves off Daniel asks Miyagi where did he get his cars from and Miyagi answers "Detroit!".

But one of Morita's best scenes is of course where Myagi finally reveals to Daniel what his laborious chores have been about and that they were to train Daniel in using his defensive blocks.  And as Daniel is about to walk away in disgust at feeling used, Miyagi suddenly calls on him "Daniel san!  DANIEL SAN!!" and Daniel wearily asks "What?" and Miyagi says "COME HERE!" and asks Daniel to show him the moves that he has learned by saying e.g. "Show me sand the floor" or "show me paint the fence!".  And at the end of the scene as Daniel bows he looks down and Miyagi testily smacks him on the head and says "Eye!  Always look eye!  Come back tomorrow!".

Then there is the scene where Miyagi and Daniel finish training on the beach he walks up to his truck and Miyagi asks two men to remove their beer bottles of his car.  However the men refuse and one of them says "Do it yourself, Mr Motto!" which leads Miyagi to angrily carry out a karate chop, which cuts the tops of the bottles off without the bottles dropping on the ground, which scares the men into removing the bottle.  Daniel looks on amazed and then says "How did you do that???!" and Miyagi replies "Don't know.  First time!".

Another scene worth a mention is when Miyagi takes Daniel out on a boat in the sea, where Daniel stands on the bow of the boat and practices his moves while also learning to keep his balance.  And in the scene Daniel asks Miyagi "When can I learn to punch?" and Miyagi says to him "When you first learn how to keep dry!" and he rocks the boat, which sends Daniel falling into the water, which causes Miyagi to burst out laughing.  And Miyagi laughs saying "Oh, Daniel-san!  YOU ALL WET BEHIND THE EAR!! HA HA HA!!!".

And lastly there is the scene where Miygai gives Daniel one of his cars that Daniel had previously washed as a gift and in the scene Daniel says how he feels scared about the upcoming tournament.  And Miyagi says "You remember lesson about balance?" and Daniel says "Yeah" and Miyagi tells him "Lesson not just karate only. Lesson for whole life. Whole life have a balance. Everything be better. Understand?".  And Daniel, touched, says "You're the best friend I ever had" and Miyagi smiles and says "You pretty ok, too!".  And as Daniel drives off, Miyagi wishes him luck and shouts "Banzai!! Daniel-san!  BANZAI!!".    

Elisabeth Shue is also pretty good (and pretty!) as Daniel's love interest, Ali, as she plays her as a nice girl, who falls for Daniel, but at the same time she has to contend with her jealous ex-boyfriend, Johnny, Daniel's nemesis who stands between the fledgling relationship.  Elisabeth and Ralph also both share a nice on-screen chemistry together in their scenes and their fledgling romance is a nice one that works well as the film progresses.  

To save time I won't mention many of Elisabeth's scenes but I will mention the one where Ali tells Daniel about Johnny being her ex.  So Ali says "Remember that guy you had trouble with on the beach?" and Daniel says "Yeah, King Karate?" and Ali says "He's my ex-boyfriend" and Daniel says "Oh that's good to know..." but all of a sudden he starts to talk to himself "What? Yeah you're right".  And Ali asks "What are you doing?" and Daniel says "Its this little voice in my head telling I've got to be nuts to be talking to you!".  And Ali says "It doesn't matter anyway, because its over" and Daniel asks "How over?" and Ali walks away saying "Weeks!" and Daniel follows her anxiously asking "One week, five weeks?!  How many weeks is "weeks".   

Martin Kove is great as the main antagonist of the film, Kreese, the ruthless Cobrai Kai karate instructor, and he too get's plenty of classic lines, one such line is a classic where he says to his students during class "Pain does not exist in this dojo!" "fear does not exist in this dojo!". 

Kove's main highlight is the scene where Daniel and Mr Miyagi pay Kreese a visit and Miyagi asks Kreese to have Johnny leave Daniel alone and Kreese says "This is a karate dojo, not a knitting class! Now get your boy on the mat or we'll have a problem!".  And when Miyagi asks Kreese the favour of leaving Daniel alone to train, Kreese almost laughs and says "You're pushy little bastard, aren't you?!  But I like that!".  And Kreese then addresses his class and says "Alright then!  No one is to touch the prima donna until the tournament!  Is that understood?!" and the whole class shouts "YES, SENSEI!!".  But then Kreese goes on to warn Miyagi of Daniel "but if he doesn't show, then its open season on him and you!".

And of course there is the scene later on during the climactic fight between Daniel and Johnny where he says to Johnny "sweep the leg!" referring to Daniel's injured leg and Johnny looks shocked and Kreese says "You got a problem with that?!" and Johnny says "No, sensei".  John G Avildsen also amusingly gave Kreese a unique piece of direction throughout the film, which was never to smile, and Kove manages to do that really well and instead he proves a few smug smirks. 

Which brings me onto William Zabka as Johnny, who isn't bad in his role as Daniel's nemesis, although ultimately due to his bleach blonde hairdo he doesn't always looks that threatening or convincing as a baddie.

However Zabka notably took a real interest in the martial arts after the film was made and he kept it up, and throughout you can see how effective he is in the practice of the martial arts.  Zabka's best scene is probably in the sequence where at the school prom (dressed in a ghoul outfit) Danny plays a practical joke on him, dousing him in water from a hosepipe fed into his toilet cubicle, to which Johnny soon chases and catches up with Daniel.

So after Johnny catches up with Daniel, he grabs him and shouts "You couldn't leave well alone, could you, you little twerp!  Well now you're gonna pay!".  And when Johnny beats Daniel up further, one of his gang protests saying Daniel's had enough and Johnny says "I SAY WHEN HE'S HAD ENOUGH!" and he looks to Daniel and says "No mercy, man!  No mercy!" and he moves to kick him but all of a suddeny Miyagi shows and whops their asses!     

And Zabka's last scene where Johnny fights against Daniel is also pretty good, even though again he wears a pretty cheesy angry look as he prepares to fight him.  Zabka also has a great little moment where during his final fight scene with Daniel, he has a timeout where he goes to his corner and Kreese says to him to "sweep the leg" i.e. Daniel's injured leg (during a previous round in the tournament) and Kreese angrily says "you have a problem with that?!" and Johnny looks shocked and says "No sensei".  Its a great moment as Johnny realises how for Kreese this is more a personal victory over Daniel and Miyagi than a victory for Johnny. 

And finally I will quickly mention Randee Heller as Daniel's mother, who puts in a rather corny and excessively cheery performance, who has the rather mortifying task of picking up Daniel and Ali for their date and dropping them off, only later on arriving just in time to embarrass Daniel in front of Johnny and his friends to slag him off for being picked up by his mommy.

However Heller does share a good scene with Macchio when Daniel angrily throws his bike in a skip, as he has just been pushed off the road by Johnny and his classmates.  And in the scene Lucille asks Daniel "Can you tell me what's going on and don't tell me about another bike accident?!" and Daniel asks "What do you want to hear mom?" and Lucille says "I want to hear the truth!".  And Daniel refuses to say exactly what is going on but insists he has to take karate lessons and Lucille says "But fighting doesn't solve anything Daniel!" and Daniel says "Well neither does palm trees, mom!" and she says "That's not fair!".  And Daniel says "Like it was fair coming over here without asking me how I felt about it. Right, that was real fair!" and Lucille takes a moment and says " You're right. I should've asked".  

DIRECTOR AND MUSIC 

Getting onto the direction, John G. Avildsen does a fine job here and he keeps the pace moving along nicely, and he does a great job in bringing the characters to life and making them endearing to an audience, also largely thanks Mark Robert Kamen's fine screenplay, which is both funny and charming. Avildsen, having previously directed Rocky, also knows a thing or two about staging fight scenes so its worth mentioning he does an excellent job here at staging the karate fight scenes during the tournament and Daniel's encounters with Johnny's gang.   

As for the music score, Bill Conti provides the music as he did for Avildsen's Rocky and its another fine one from Conti and it features a pleasant theme tune, which isn't as instantly memorable as Rocky but it captures the Eastern theme of the film nicely.  Its also worth noting that the score for the film features pan flute solos by the Romanian musician, Gheorge Zamfir, which feature in the film's main theme itself.

The film however does use a pretty cheesy synth pop song "You're the best" by Joe Esposito, which is one of the film's more cringeworthy aspects and one of the weaker parts of the film's soundtrack.  Regardless of this though and a few other cheesy sounding 80's songs thrown in for good measure, the soundtrack is for the most part fairly good.   

FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!) 

As for Karate Kid flaw wise.... well yes the film has one or two here and there.

And to start off first of all we have Johnny, who doesn't make for a very effective antagonist as he is morely just like a spoilt yuppie brat, with a ridiculous blonde hairdo, who fails to convince in his role as Daniel's nemesis.  And yet the remake of the film years later with Jade Smith and Jackie Chan had a far more vicious young baddie, a young boy named Cheng (played by Zhenwei Wang) who really kicked some serious ass in comparison and really gave off an aura of someone you wouldn't want to mess with. 

You could also say the whole thing of Miyagi's pain suppression technique is a bit daft, particularly in how he can use it to reduce the pain of Daniel's leg injury during the film's final fight scene (sorry SPOILER!!).  Yet after Daniel goes out to fight he is still limping and despite during his fight with Johnny, Johnny injures Daniel's leg again, but somehow Daniel can still find the energy to stand up and fight on!

I also felt that the romance between Daniel and Ali, while it is charming and endearing, the sequence where they go on a date was a bit slow and it drags the pace of the film down a bit, especially during the mid-section of the film where you are more keen to see Daniel to do his karate training.  Not only that though but to get back to Daniel himself, during this sequence you can't but help feel mortified for him when his mother, Lucille turns up at the end of the date to pick him up in front of Ali's high school friends!  

Another daft thing about the film was how Daniel had to pretend he was a black belt to get into the tournament yet Kreese said he thought they could accommodate him for the event in the first place!  If that was the case then surely he wouldn't have to worry about all this regardless.  And not only that Miyagi has no clue about how karate works on a tournament level and the points system involved, which is fair enough I guess, but Daniel never even though to ask about it either!  But then again he is just a young kid after all so I guess he wouldn't have thought that far ahead. 

And lastly the film's final scene (SPOILER!!!) is also a bit cringeworthy with Daniel triumphing in his fight, with Mr Miyagi looking on in pride and how they use that as a freeze frame shot to end the film was also pretty corny and cringeworthy.  And surely they could have finished it in a better way than that, although John G Avildsen seems to like using final freeze frame shots to end his movies, just like he did in Rocky.

Anyway that's it for the flaws!

SUM UP   

So to sum up, The Karate Kid is still a very entertaining, which to this day is still the best of the three films, with Parts II and III (also directed by Avildsen) being still enjoyable but not in the same class as this one.

And years later, the film was remade starring Jackie Chan and Jade Smith (son of Will Smith) except the main difference being it was set in China, and Jackie Chan taught Jade kung-fu instead of karate, and for the most part it is almost a scene for scene remake of the original, but its still a good film as well in its own right.  Is it as good the original here??  Well its close but not quite, although it does have a much more menacing villain in Cheng than the stroppy blonde haired Johnny.

But anyway The Karate Kid is still well worth a look after 32 years and its endearing mix of characters and good karate action are enough to recommend it.  Oh, and as I said while this film isn't strictly a Christmas film if you look at the date of the tournament at the end of the film its on the 19 December just six before Christmas, so in a way it is a Crimble film! 

Right, so that's it for now and all it remains for me to say is to wish you all a Merry Christmas when it comes around and I'll be back on here again soon over the festive period, so until then have a good one!