Karate Kid - movie review

Sometimes one goes to the movies just to be entertained. I thought going to see the movie Karate Kid I would be doing that. Entertaining myself for a few hours rather than watching TV or reading. Well it was more than that. It was entertaining, but the message of the bully can be overcome through discipline, hard work and dedication and never giving up truly is relative today with all the bullying that goes on in schools and some communities. Plus its a life lesson for us who want to achieve things in life.
I especially enjoyed young Jayden Smith who definitely shows the skills of his father Will and mother Jada - he was delightful. But the scene stealer is Jackie Chan. Some of the shots of him walking along as the older, defeated man, shuffling along with stiff joints etc, your heart goes out to him and when his story comes out you understand, and then you watch the transformation of him as well as his young student of Kung Fu Drey. I thought he did wonderfully well in the part and was well picked as the older maintenance man.
The scenery of when they visit the monastery climbing steps which go forever and seeing the monks of the temple in their different practices I found fascinating, especially the lady with the cobra and how the lesson that the cobra was following her dance, not the other way around. Also seeing the Great Wall of China in the movie was inspiring, but also is the one part which had my brain doing a double take. As I have mentioned before, I love how a movie is edited, well they made a mistake here. When they went to the monastery it was explained why and you saw them on the train on the way there and back but all of a sudden the Great Wall of China appears with Drey doing his Kung Fu practices and then a shot of him back in the backyard doing his exercises and then back again to the Great Wall. What? I thought, there was no explanation of the great wall, there was no reason for it, except for us to see it (mistake) it took you away from the continuity of the movie, especially throwing a scene in between the other scenes of practice. Other than that momentarily craziness on part of the editors, the movie was cute, it was fun, sad, and I found myself clapping at the fight scenes, which were very well done.....yes, it was worth the couple of hours to go see.
I enjoyed the original Karate Kid and Karate Kid II and this one I enjoyed too.
3 1/2 out of 5.
Norma Cowie
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Email: norma@normacowie.com