And it works. The new KK is the perfect example, as it made box office gold when released earlier this year.
The difficulty for any film that is a remake of a previous film or TV show, especially one that holds a reverential place in the collective American heart is that since you're familiar with the source material, you go in with certain expectations of how the film should make you feel. You also can't help but compare the remake with the original. It's inevitable.
For me, the new one just doesn't stack up to the original. Now before you start saying "but Alan, you grew up with the 84 KK; of course you're biased," hear me out. I actually have reasons for why I'm not a fan of this one.
My first and biggest issue with this movie is that it is not karate they use - it's kung fu. Now some may think this is no big deal, but the name of the dang movie is The Karate Kid. Why would there not be karate in it??? It makes it feel like the filmmakers are just capitalizing off the franchise's name (which they are, as I stated earlier), which is just unfortunate. The Karate Kid, yet there's no karate. I shake my head.
My second major issue with KK is the length. At 2 hours and 15 minutes, this film is about 20-25 minutes too long. I find it ironic that a film that has Jackie Chan's Han trying to teach Jaden Smith's Dre about focus has surprisingly little focus throughout. There is a lot of extra material in this movie that has nothing to do with the central focus of the movie - Dre preparing for the kung fu tournament while learning how to deal with the issues in his life. It almost seems like the filmmakers decided that since they were filming this in China they should also teach us about Chinese culture. I'm not opposed to learning about Chinese culture, but that's not why I'm watching this film. I want to watch Dre mature.
(Random Aside: on the DVD on which I watched KK, hardly any of the Mandarin was translated via subtitles into English. I don't know if this was intentional by the filmmakers to make us feel lost and confused like Dre or a flaw in my DVD copy. If it was intentional, then the filmmakers were successful in sucking all the dramatic tension out of some crucial scenes, like when Han visits Cheng's dojo, because I couldn't understand what they were saying, which was supremely annoying. If it was a flaw in my DVD copy, then ignore this paragraph)
And KK's dragging pace kills any momentum it tries to build while heading for the climatic tournament. In the 84 KK, the film's pace, like a drum cadence, keeps getting slowly but progressively faster until you hit the end and are on the edge of your seat for the tournament. In this one, the constant detours prevent us from getting that feeling. There are a few moments during Dre's training that make you think "yeah, we're getting to it now". Nope. We follow up those scenes with Dre going with Mei Ying for an afternoon on the town, and then to see her audition, and then to see her dad so he'll let her watch him in the tournament. Major Buzzkill reporting for duty.
My last issue is something I heard a reviewer from the now gone film review TV show At the Movies say as a point of contention with KK. The ages of the main folks in the 84 KK save Mr. Miyagi were high schoolers, which means somewhat adultish. In this film, they're all 12-13 middle schoolers. There's something odd and unsettling about watching kids of that age beat each other up, and while I like Jaden Smith, it is just a little icky to watch him kiss a girl, no matter how sweetly the film handles it.
There are some good points in this movie. Jaden Smith is engaging and charismatic - you can see a lot of his dad in his acting. Jackie Chan is solid stepping into the Mr. Miyagi role of Han, and I always love Taraji P. Henson. But even with their solid performances, you can't help but feel they're not quite as good as their 84 counterparts, and some of the scenes they harken to (hang the jacket evokes wax on, wax off and Jackie Chan does a variation of the strange Mr. Miyagi-is-drunk scene) don't pack the same emotional punch as its predecessor.
Ultimately, if you want the emotional strength, courage, wit, charm, and inspiration that KK is supposed to have, watch the original (the 84 KK is ranked on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 most inspirational movies. Check it out for that reason alone). This KK feels like what it is - a slick, updated, inferior "update".
