REVIEW: The Karate Kid

A SERIOUS CHAN

The eighties’ hit The Karate Kid gets a new version, simply to give Will Smith’s talented son Jaden a starring role. Sad to see Kung Fu star Jackie Chan as the kid’s teacher, who gets one fight scene to himself, in which he beats up a bunch of aggressive kids.

All these years Chan was not known as an actor, so here he plays the mysterious Mr Han with a tragic air and a past, which gives the Harald Zwart film a gravity it does not need. After all it has a very basic underdog bites back plot, in which a kid learns karate to teach the school bully a lesson. What’s interesting is that the kid happens to be black in a land he doesn’t like; he doesn’t even speak the language, which makes him even more of a lost outsider.

In this version, Dre (Smith) moves to China, where his mother (Taraji P. Henson) has been transferred ( you never see her at work, so you don’t know what she does!) The lonely Dre befriends a Chinese girl (Wenwen Hein) that leads to his being targeted by the gang of karate kicking bullies.

Mr Han (Chan), the silent maintenance man turns out to be a martial arts expert, who takes the boy under his wing, and trains him for a tournament. The film is totally predictable, which, in this case, is not such a bad thing. You know the star kid will win and can go home happy.