Movie Notes: The Karate Kid

September 21st, 2007

= 5 stars

Starring Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Elisabeth Shue
Directed by John G. Avildsen

You might think I’m a bit odd for giving this one five stars, but I have fond memories this coming-of-age with a mysterious mentor, and there are some personal connections that are completely biased.

Anybody who grew up in the eighties certainly remembers this tale of a Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), a wussy, Italian kid who moves to Los Angeles with his mom and gets the crap kicked out of him by a bunch of blonde karate students. Lucky for Daniel, the quiet, mysterious apartment handyman is Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), a bonsai-cultivating lifelong karate master. He takes Daniel under his wing, not unlike a surrogate father, and trains him in the mysterious breathe-in, breathe-out ways of karate.

The Karate Kid is basically Rocky combined with a teen flick and some odd-guru stuff. There are many distinctive aspects to it that I had forgotten, such as the “crane kick”, Mr. Miyagi’s hand-rubbing healing technique (as inexplicable as the “Spock pinch”), all that “wax on, wax off” stuff, and even the evil “sweep the leg” line. Yeah, there’s evil, and I hope it’s not too corny for me to mention that Mr. Miyagi is kind of Yoda-esque to the clueless Daniel.

As a kid, I probably more related to the teenage Daniel, who deals with the typical stresses of pre-manhood: bullies, a first love out of his league, being the new kid at school, and finding courage within. However, as a grown up I found the situation of Mr. Miyagi more compelling. He’s from Okinawa (where my father’s family emigrated from) and has a gruff yet compassionate demeanor that reminds me of my own grandfather.

There’s one particular scene that I found especially poignant today, that barely registered when I was a kid. Mr. Miyagi gets loaded and we learn that he was a soldier in World War II, but on the American side. His wife and unborn son died in the Manzanar Japanese internment camp. This bit of obscure, slightly oblique back story adds weight to Mr. Miyagi’s life, and I found it interesting that he has lived his post-war life seemingly alone, quietly tending to his trees while holding this decades-old pain inside.

The rest of the film is a lighter pleasure, from the mid-eighties movie trivialities (people really did wear cable sweaters and bandannas on their heads — and hey, is that a Bananarama song?) to the dumbfounded look on Daniel’s face when he learns the practical purpose behind all that “sand the floor” stuff.

Pat Morita and Ralph Macchio are perfectly cast, but the other actors fill their roles quite well — Elizabeth Shue as Ali is a neat Valley Girl, and the sadistic veteran karate instructor (John Kreese) is a great, campy action flick reject. Even Daniel’s mom is charmingly over-optimistic and there’s some amusing comedy in how her beater car keeps dying, in particular when Daniel comes to pick up Ali for a mini-golf date — her parents watch in horror at these Jersey losers living in Reseda.

I enjoyed The Karate Kid so much that I’m going to check out the sequels. While I remember the second one being pretty good the third and fourth installments are supposedly totally terrible, possibly in that so-bad-it’s-good kind of way.

IMDB: The Karate Kid
Wikipedia: The Karate Kid
Rotten Tomatoes: The Karate Kid 88%