Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith Trade Kung Fu for the 1984 Film’s Karate

Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.

A Detroit Kid in Beijing: The Karate Kid Rebuilds the 1984 Story Around Kung Fu

The Karate Kid arrived in 2010 as the fifth film in the franchise and a full remake of the 1984 original, with the setting moved from California to China and the martial art switched from karate to kung fu. Harald Zwart directed from a screenplay by Christopher Murphey, working from a story by Robert Mark Kamen. It runs 140 minutes and stars Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan.

The tagline promised “A challenge he never imagined. A teacher he never expected.” That is a fair summary of what the film delivers, and also of where it plays it safe.

Dre Parker, Sherry, and the Move to Beijing

Dre Parker is 12 years old and could have been the most popular kid in Detroit. His mother’s career move puts him in China instead. Sherry Parker, played by Taraji P. Henson, takes a job transfer at a car factory, and the two of them start over in Beijing.

Dre falls for his classmate Meiying, a young violinist played by Wenwen Han. The cultural differences make the friendship hard from the start. Worse, his feelings put him in the path of Cheng, a rebellious 14-year-old kung fu prodigy whose family is close to Meiying’s. Zhenwei Wang plays Cheng, and the film gives him the Johnny Lawrence role without much of the swagger that made that character stick.

Cheng attacks, teases and antagonizes Dre. After a field trip to the Forbidden City, Dre throws a bucket of dirty water over Cheng and his gang as revenge. They chase him and beat him badly. Maintenance man Mr. Han steps in and fends off the bullies, revealing himself as a kung fu master.

Mr. Han, Master Li, and the Fighting Dragons

Jackie Chan plays Mr. Han. He heals Dre’s injuries with fire cupping, a Chinese medicine method, and then explains that Cheng and his friends are not bad by nature. They are taught to be merciless by their teacher, Master Li, played by Yu Rongguang.

Dre asks Han to teach him kung fu. Han goes with him to Li’s Fighting Dragons studio to make peace. Li refuses the offer. From there, Han trains Dre by emphasizing movements that apply to life in general. Serenity and maturity, not punches and power, are the keys. Han has Dre repeatedly take off and pick up his jacket to build muscle memory.

Han takes Dre to a Taoist temple. Dre drinks water from a Taoist well and watches a woman make a cobra reflect her movements. After weeks of training, Han gives Dre a day off. Dre talks Meiying into skipping school with him. Her parents find out, decide Dre is a bad influence, and forbid her from seeing him again.

Dre then finds Han drunk and depressed, smashing a Volkswagen Scirocco he was working on. Han crashed it years earlier, killing his wife and his 10-year-old son. He spends his time punishing himself.

What the 2010 Karate Kid Gets Right

The film grossed $359.1 million worldwide on a $40 million budget, making it the highest-grossing entry in the series. It premiered at the Mann Village Theater in Westwood, California on June 7, 2010, opened in the United States on June 11 through Sony Pictures Releasing and its Columbia Pictures label, and reached China on June 22 and Hong Kong on August 5 through EDKO. Principal photography ran in Beijing from July to October 2009.

The box office is the real story here, and it is not a mystery. The 1984 film is a known quantity, and this one sells the same goods with a bigger map. The move to China is the smartest choice in the script. It turns a culture-clash subplot into the whole frame of the movie, and it gives the training scenes a reason to exist beyond repetition.

Chan is the other reason it works. He plays Han as a man worn down rather than wise, and the drunk scene at the Volkswagen is the one moment the film lets him carry real weight. The fire cupping and the Taoist well give the training a texture the 1984 version never had.

Smith is a harder sell. He is 12 and the film asks him to hold a 140-minute movie, which he does unevenly. The romance with Meiying is thin, and the film never gives Wenwen Han enough to do beyond being the reason Dre and Cheng fight.

The Remake Problem and the Score

The film is a remake, and it knows it. The narrative follows the 1984 film closely. Mr. Han is Mr. Miyagi. Dre is Daniel LaRusso. Cheng is Johnny Lawrence. Master Li is John Kreese. The supporting cast maps across almost one for one, down to Harry as the Freddy Fernandez figure and Liang as the Bobby Brown stand-in.

That fidelity is the film’s ceiling. It hits the beats you expect in the order you expect them, and the Beijing setting does more work than the screenplay does. The jacket drill is a good scene. It is also the same scene you have already seen.

Here is what the 2010 Karate Kid actually is, ranked by what it contributes:

1. Jackie Chan’s Mr. Han, the only performance with a private life behind it.
2. The Beijing location, which makes the culture clash concrete instead of decorative.
3. The training methods, fire cupping and the Taoist well chief among them.
4. Jaden Smith’s Dre, serviceable but not yet a lead who can carry the quiet parts.
5. The Meiying romance, which the film keeps promising and never pays off.

The published critical score is 6.1/10, with a Metacritic mark of 61/100. That lands about right. The Karate Kid is a competent rebuild with one great performance and a setting that does more than the script. It is not the 1984 film, and it is not trying to be. It is a $359.1 million argument that the franchise still had legs, made by people who understood the assignment and did not push past it.

Key facts

• Release: June 11, 2010 (US), June 22 (China), August 5 (Hong Kong)
• Runtime: 140 minutes
• Budget: $40 million
• Worldwide gross: $359.1 million
• Score: 6.1/10 (Metacritic 61/100)
• Director: Harald Zwart

Jackie Chan · Jaden Smith · Karate Kid 2010 · Kung Fu · movie review · remakes