[Movie] The Karate Kid: Jackie Chan Reviews

I have been rewatching some of Jackie Chan's movies recently, and another of his movies which stayed with me was The Karate Kid. The last two of his movies I saw, he was jumping through buildings, performing a lot of moves that didn't look easy, fighting groups of people at the same time, and always making me laugh watching some of his scenes. But watching The Karate Kid, what I noticed wasn't that active man I used to watch.

Mr Han was very careful in this movie; in fact, he wasn't jumpy or loud. He was caring and quiet; he was slightly fighting through pain, which made me pay a lot of attention to the movie because he felt different.

This movie follows a very young boy, Dre, who moved to China from the US with his mother, and he was trying to adjust and fit into a new culture, environment and society he found himself in. He got bullied by a group of friends several times, and he got to realise that fighting them back will only make him an easy target and comfortable to beat because he doesn't know how to fight. He was just a fragile young boy. But everything changed for him when he met Mr Han, the man who usually does their building maintenance, and he agreed to teach and train him.

Unlike other teachers who will only teach how to fight, Mr Han did more than that; he also taught Dre discipline, which made me like the movie. Even the first discipline looks for fun, but it was a discipline most kids would ignore by just throwing their jackets anywhere in the house. Mr Han taught Dre the "jacket on, jacket off" training, which initially looked like a punishment for Dre after he complained. But Mr Han made him know that all the small moves he was putting him through were preparing him for something bigger and relieving his muscles.

And immediately as an adult watching the movie, one thing came to my mind, which is that most times, we complain too much about a small task without knowing that those small tasks are building us for something we will later need in life.

Even though Mr Han was not flying and fighting around like he used to do in other movies, he still stood out for me in this. Because he didn't make the movie a fighting one alone, he made it deeper than a bullying story. While he had his old car that he was involved in an accident with packed in his garage, while he was also moving through each day with the guilt over the death of his son and wife, still putting Dre on by training him gave him a reason to feel alive again and reconnect with life.
One thing I always admire about his movies is that he always shows everything, just like he didn't make his pain disappear magically, which I could still see through.

I also like Dre's beautiful transformation. How he changed from that young teenage boy who was constantly moody, angry, all by himself and wanting to prove himself into a more disciplined and confident boy! I don't just like that about him; I also like how fearless he became without letting fear control his life again, unlike in the past.

For all movies I watch, there are always scenes I like more than the others, and for this one, it was all those quiet training scenes between Dre and Mr Han because they meant more than the actual fighting in the final tournament after Dre was rejected but Mr Han continued to personally train him, and he won the fight at last.

Though some of the scenes were easily predictable, especially the bullying scenes and giving the title The Karate Kid when it was obvious that Mr Han taught Dre Kung Fu, that kinda looks funny to me.

But anyway, apart from that, it was a very good watch for me. And Mr Han reminded me that teaching someone should be about skills alone. Sometimes or every time, teaching them discipline is also important, and it can even rebuild the teacher's life, just like what happened to Mr Han.

I would give The Karate Kid a 9/10.

Screenwriter: Christopher Murphey, Robert Mark Kamen

Director: Harald Zwart

Stars: Jackie Chan

Genres: martial arts, action, drama, and coming-of-age

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to review this movie, and I appreciate you all for reading. See you all in my next review.

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_{Other images are screenshots from my movie player}

Rating: 90/100