The Karate Kid

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The Karate Kid
DVD cover
Directed by John G. Avildsen
Written by Robert Mark Kamen
Starring Ralph Macchio
Pat Morita
Elisabeth Shue
Martin Kove
William Zabka
Produced by Jerry Weintraub
R.J. Louis (executive producer)
Bud S. Smith (associate producer)
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date June 22, 1984
Runtime 126 min.
Language English
Budget N/A
IMDb page

The Karate Kid, a 1984 John G. Avildsen film, is a youth-oriented karate version of the hit boxing movie Rocky (also directed by Avildsen).

Contents

Plot summary

The Karate Kid is about a teenage boy, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), who moves with his mother from Newark, New Jersey to Reseda, California, in the San Fernando Valley district of L.A.. The handyman of their apartment building is a kindly and humble Okinawan immigrant named Mr. Kesuke Miyagi (Pat Morita).

The last night of summer, Daniel and his new friends, including Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue), are at the beach, when Ali's ex-boyfriend Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) and his friends, pull up on motorbikes. Johnny and Ali begin arguing, and Ali blasts a radio. Angered, Johnny throws the radio to the ground. Daniel moves to pick it up, and ignores Johnny's warning not to get involved. Soon Daniel and Johnny fight, but Daniel loses. Unwittingly, Daniel has made an enemy of one of Cobra Kai karate dojo's best students. The Cobra Kai dojo is an arguably over-the-top portrayal of a sadistic, macho, and prideful form of martial arts, perhaps a symbolic representation of the "dark side" of martial arts.

Johnny and his cronies torment Daniel as much as they can. When Daniel retaliates with a prank at a Halloween dance (where Johnny is seen rolling what appears to be a marijuana cigarette laced with PCP), he is pursued by Johnny and his friends, who proceed to beat him until he can barely stand. Just then, Mr. Miyagi intervenes and rescues Daniel in a surprising display of karate (stunt work by Fumio Demura). Daniel, upon learning this, asks Mr. Miyagi to be his teacher (sensei).

With some persuasion, Miyagi agrees to accompany Daniel to confront the sensei of the Cobra Kai dojo and insist that he tell his students to stop their harassment of Daniel. However, the sensei, John Kreese (Martin Kove), is a vicious fighter (later revealed in the sequels as a Vietnam Veteran) who regularly barks out condemnations of mercy or restraint. To settle the matter, Miyagi announces Daniel will enter a Valley-wide tournament where Cobra Kai students can fight Daniel on equal terms. Miyagi also requests that Johnny and his friends stop bullying Daniel in the interim while the boy is trained. Kreese assents and orders his students to leave Daniel alone, but threatens that if Daniel does not appear at the tournament, the harassment will resume and Miyagi himself will be targeted as well.

Mr. Miyagi becomes Daniel's surrogate father, but Daniel is impatient and sometimes puzzled by Miyagi's teaching methods and behavior. For instance, instead of standard instruction, Miyagi initially has Daniel spend the day performing laborious chores (most famously, waxing the car) which he insists must be done with specific hand and arm movements ("Wax on, wax off"). Eventually, Daniel angrily confronts Miyagi about this labor and Miyagi shows him that in doing those chores with those movements, Daniel has in fact been subconsciously learning his defensive blocks, the vital first step in karate training. As the training continues, Miyagi instructs Daniel in such techniques such as the famous arms-spread-like-wings one legged kick to the chin called the Crane Kick. As the story and the training move on, Daniel learns from Miyagi not only karate, but also about life, and the role of such values as balance. This reflects the belief that martial arts training is about training of the spirit as much as the body.

At the tournament, Daniel is still an underdog. Miyagi has trained him well, however; in a final scene made in true Avildsen fashion, an injured Daniel, barely able to stand, beats his final opponent, none other than Johnny, by using the Crane Kick. At the end of the movie, Johnny acknowledges Daniel respectfully while Miyagi looks on approvingly.

Impact

The Karate Kid spawned an entire franchise of related items and memorabilia, such as action figures, head bands, posters, t-shirts, etc. It also had three sequels, and it launched the career of Macchio, who would turn into a teen idol featured on the covers of magazines such as Tiger Beat. It enhanced the careers of both Elisabeth Shue and Morita (previously mostly known for his role in Happy Days as the owner of Arnold's, the hamburger hangout), who made several other movies including the three sequels. It has also been credited with renewing youth interest in martial arts, with an emphasis on personal discipline rather than the often gratuitous and cinematic violence that martial arts films are known for. The characters of Daniel and his mother are also noteworthy as positive media portrayals of Italian Americans.

Film mistakes

  • On an amusing note, in the scene where Daniel attempts to catch a fly with chopsticks, a string tied to the fly can clearly be seen as it goes from one side to the other.
  • There is also an error in the scene where Daniel and his mother arrive at Ali's house. Daniel's mother pulls up to the curb in a 1968 Chevrolet Chevelle station wagon, placing the car's automatic transmission into park, and turns off the car. As they prepare to leave, however, the station wagon does not start, and Mrs. Russo instructs Ali to "pop the clutch" as Daniel and his mother push the car. Amazingly, the station wagon has both an automatic transmission and a clutch pedal. (Chevrolets equipped with a Powerglide transmission would incorporate a rear oil pump when push-starting; the rear oil pump was phased out after 1966, or if the station wagon in the film had a rebuilt Powerglide with an earlier version.)
  • In the scene on the beach near the start of the film there is also a mistake. When Daniel begins to argue with Johnny, Johnny thrusts Ali's stereo towards Daniel, causing him to fall to the ground. As Johnny pushes it towards Daniel, the speakers are directed at Daniel's chest. However, as Daniel falls backwards, the speakers are inexplicably pointing in the opposite direction.

Sequels

Trivia

  • Because of his boyish looks, Ralph Macchio was able to convincingly play a high school student although he was actually 21 years old during the filming of The Karate Kid. However, at 28, Macchio is hardly convincing playing a Daniel in Karate Kid III that is only supposed to be one year older than in the original.
  • The Karate Kid III is the only Macchio-led Karate Kid edition in which Daniel fails to keep his love interest through the movie's end. At the onset of Karate Kid II and III, Daniel must explain the conspicuous absence of his girlfriend from the previous movie. Ali Elisabeth Shue wrecks Daniel's car at Prom and professes her love a UCLA football player. Kumiko, whose cultural differences make her an even less likely longterm match for Larusso than Ali, more predictably finds a career opportunity in dance.
  • The role of Sensei Kreese was originally written for Chuck Norris. Norris turned down the part since he would not consider having his name associated with a villainous character.

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The Karate Kid part of The Karate Kid Series
The Karate Kid | The Karate Kid, Part II | The Karate Kid, Part III | The Next Karate Kid
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