The Karate Kid

Rating: 7.6/10

Film Class: B

Genre: Action

A Detriot mother and son moves to Beijing because of Mrs Parker's job. Young Dre Parker finds it hard to fit in in a country that doesn't speak his native language and to make matters worse, is bullied by the local students. With the help of his apartment's technician, Jackie Chan, he was able to fend off the bullies... while under the guidance of Jackie Chan trains himself up for a coming Kung Fu tournament to settle the "feud" caused.

Being a 2 hour movie, it adequately covered the important aspects of a good movie such as character development and a decent story plot. I was kept engaged throughout the movie, and the movie didn't feel draggy or lengthy... on the contrary it kept me wanting more. Though the only downside of the movie was the nearly abrupt ending due to the lack of character follow ups, everything else about the movie was a huge thumbs up. This movie exceeded my expectations, as I was ignorantly affected by the general public's ratings.

Good mix of light-hearted humor, bits of romance, a good load of action, a fair deal of emphasis on family ties and friendship, couple of scenic cinematography and most importantly, it touches on the true nature of Kung Fu. Even though it was set in Beijing, unlike most Hollywood movies which veered out of its "home", this movie didn't feel like a cheap production. Though I'm not a huge fan of movies with features adolescence casting, this is an exception.

Possibly one of Jackie Chan's strongest performances in a Hollywood movie, and this movie definitely marks the rise of the young stars, Jaden Smith, Han Wen Wen (his crush) and Wang Zhengwei (the leader of the bullies). My last opinion of it is that this movie shouldn't even bank on the Karate Kid franchise, since its not really the fighting styles of Karate which are featured inside but more of Kung Fu. So don't expect any Karate, (only 1 scene about it, only 10 secs about its mention) expect scaled down Kung Fu (only appropriate since the casts are all still so young!)!!