That's right, got yet another Road to, only instead of superheroes it's all about karate. Where as per usual I'm doing cause of the newest Karate Kid movie coming out next year. So let's get to it.
The Karate Kid is marital arts drama movie, where not only is it the first movie of the franchise, but for a fun fact also popularized karate in the U.S. Delphi II Productions and Jerry Weintraub Productions handled producing, while Columbia Pictures was in charged of distribution. The film was written by Robert Mark Kamen and directing was done by John G. Avildsen.
The story is, along with his mother, Daniel LaRusso was moved from New Jersey to Los Angeles. At first, Daniel gets new to the new environment and is living peacefully. This changes when known bully Johnny and his buddies use their karate skills to beat up Daniel. Being feed up with the bullying, Daniel wants to learn karate from Mr. Miyagi.
- Negatives
I've got nothing.
- Mix
The gray area is the music. A lot of the pop songs while fun, do make the movie slightly outdated. However, I'm not gonna diss "You're The Best". If you don't feel like delivering a good crane kick after hearing, then there's something wrong with you. There's also Bill Conti's score. It has a nice blend of west and east music, while also being very heartfelt. It's some of his best work.
- Positives
One point of praise goes to Ralph Macchio & Pat Morita's performances. Ralph captures Daniel perfectly. He brought out the character's nice side, while also showing the chip on Daniel's shoulder. Then there's Pat Morita. He was amazing. When Miyagi is talking about the tragedy that happened in his past, Pat delivers. Delivers so much the Academy agreed because they nominated him for Best Supporting Actor. And to think, Morita almost didn't get the role because of his comedy background. Thankfully they didn't pass up on him.
Then there's our villain, Kreese! Oh, did you think I was gonna say Johnny? Don't get it twisted, Johnny still did some bad things, but Kreese is way worse. He encourages all of the bad behavior, and also tells his students to purposely injury both Daniel and other competitors. So yeah Kreese, a great villain you'll love to hate.
Now for my biggest praise, that being the story. So many great aspects about it, starting with the karate side. It tells us about the philosophy of karate, and also shows us both the good and bad of the marital art, mainly demonstrating the way Miyagi and Kreese go about their teachings. Speaking of Miyagi, there's a good father and son story with him and Daniel. It's properly built up too. First they're totally strangers, then teacher and student, and so forth. That story is truly the heart and soul of the movie. Then there's the bullying storyline. What makes it great is you can relate. Karate or not, you can relate to being bullied and getting to the point where enough is enough and you start defending yourself. And who knows maybe one thing or the other happened. Your bullies stopped picking on you, or in Daniel's case you earned their respect.
Despite the slight criticism, I love The Karate Kid. It's not only an essential 80's movie to watch, but an essential movie in general to watch.
My final rating is, Great.
That's going to do it for me. Due come back on Saturday, Nov 16th, for my review of Red One. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
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