Onpaper, The Karate Kid Part II should have worked. It features thesame cast members as the original and is written and directed by thesame people, Robert Mark Kamen and John G. Avildson respectively. Thecinematography for both films was shot by 70s and 80s stalwart, JamesCrabe. Even the score was composed by the same person, Bill Conti. Sowhat makes it such a poor film in comparison to the original?
Sep 02, 2020 At least in Karate Kid 3, we can fill in some lame reasoning, like he spent two years in Okinawa stuffing his face with Japanese cheese snacks.
Miyagi is a fictional Okinawan karate master played by Japanese American actor Pat Morita in The Karate Kid saga.Mr. Miyagi mentors the characters Daniel LaRusso and Julie Pierce in the films. Morita earned an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance in The Karate Kid. As written in Japanese characters in The Karate Kid Part II, his name is 宮城成義.
Inboth films, new kid in town Daniel LaRusso provokes the ire of thelocal bully. Under the tutelage of mentor Mr Miyagi, helearns a secret karate move that will defeat his enemies, bestow onhim the adulation of a small community, and win the girl of hisdreams. Like most sequels in the 80s, The Karate Kid Part II followsa generic sequel blueprint, rehashing the exact same story as theoriginal with slightly elevated stakes. This certainly reduces itsvalue as a film in its own right, but shouldn't necessarily make it'bad'. It's when we start comparing the two films that the sequel'sfailings truly become clear. The film-makers actively force us to dothis in the opening minutes of Part II, in which we are treated to aflashback summary of the first film. By the time Daniel's flyingcrane kick makes its appearance, we are reminded of the excitement wefelt at the climax of the last film and are primed and ready for thenext instalment. The sequel, inevitably, fails to reach these sameheights.
Usingstory elements originally written for the end of The Karate Kid, thesequel begins at the conclusion of the All Valley Karate Tournament.Straight away, things don't seem right, and I'm not referring to thefact that Mr Miyagi is awkwardly loitering by a shower room filledwith naked teenage boys.
Directed by John G. After the sudden death of Dre's old Kung Fu Instructor, Mr. Han, young Kung Fu Champion, Dre Parker must learn The Dark Stepstones of how to become a good Instructor and teach his old fellow enemies a little more than respect. Aug 28, 2020 'The beauty of the 'Karate Kid' film and why it stood the test of time is that he had no business winning anything,' Macchio told Asbury Park Press, a part of the USA TODAY Network in 2017. Aug 26, 2020 Cobra Kai: The Karate Kid Saga Continues will work with an original two-fold story that covers duelling perspectives. Made in collaboration with.
Daniel'smum and newly acquired girlfriend are suspiciously absent, with athrowaway line from Mr Miyagi to explain the reason why they're notthere. Immediately, our suspension of disbelief and immersion in themovie is dissolved, and we are left wondering:
did Elisabeth Shue ask for too much money to reprise her role?
with Cocktail and A Night on the Town (AKA Adventures in Babysitting) just around the corner, was her star rising so quickly that she was in a position to turn down a lucrative sequel?
Later,we learn that Ali not only dumped Daniel for an older guy, but hassmashed his beloved car; and on Prom Night! Daniel finds this crazybehaviour baffling and is suitably upset – for about 5 minutes.Then it's as if she never existed.
InThe Karate Kid, Ali appears to be a positive female character.Despite being a wealthy 'valley girl', she is intelligent,compassionate, polite and friendly. She doesn't care that Daniellives in Reseda and ignores her friend's snide comments about him.She tolerates Daniel's mood swings and is quick to forgive hisunwarranted accusations. Ali is the ideal 'love interest', but due tothe gap of 6 months between tournament and prom, we never see her asthe 'girlfriend'. Instead, we are left with a soured image of Ali. Weinvested time and emotion into this character, only to have herdisappear off-screen and be told that she wasn't worthy of our timeor emotion to begin with. This kind of lazy storytelling leaves us, the audience, feeling cheated. The true reason for her absence becomesclear soon enough. Ali could never be cast as the girlfriend;instead, she needed to be removed in order to make way for Daniel'snext love interest, Kumiko.
These movies only contain female characters that fallinto one of two categories – 'the Mother' and 'the Love Interest'; archetypes as old as The New Testament (back when they wereknown as 'the Madonna' and 'the Whore'). When we come to thisrealisation while watching a film, when we can see the cogs andwheels turning behind the scenes, it's very difficult not to becomecynical – and this colours our film experience, whether we areentirely aware of it or not.
Theopening scene of Part II is one of the most memorable, yet dumbest,scenes in the movie. Kreese is berating his Cobra Kai students forlosing the tournament. He destroys Johnny's second place trophy, then proceeds to strangle him while surrounded byonlookers.
Keep in mind, these guys are 16 years old, 17 at most.They're in their final year of high school, and chances are, many ofthem will move away to college and leave the Cobra Kai in a matter of months. Yet Kreese, a Vietnam veteran who undoubtedly experiencedhardship and trauma beyond anything that could happen in suburbanCalifornia, is so humiliated by his dojo winning second place that hewilfully commits physical assault against a minor – in public! Andwhen defeated by Mr Miyagi, for a brief moment we're expected tobelieve Miyagi might murder him with a karate chop to the nose.
Again, let's put this in perspective. Daniel was bullied at schoolbecause he didn't know how to mind his own business. He participatedin a local karate tournament and won. These are not traditionallylife or death situations, yet the film-makers want us to believe theyare.
Asthe film progresses and the stakes literally become life or death,our suspension of disbelief is stretched even thinner. The premise ofThe Karate Kid Part II is this:
Atthe age of 18, Miyagi fell in love with Yukie, a girl who wasarranged to marry his best friend, Sato. Miyagi made a publicdeclaration of his love for Yukie. Sato, humiliated, challengedMiyagi to a fight to the death, so Miyagi fled Okinawa, never toreturn. During that time, Yukie remained unmarried and, at someundisclosed point, began to nurse Miyagi's aging father. Forty yearslater, she contacted Miyagi (who apparently lived at the same addresssince first arriving in the US), to inform him of his father'simpending death. Sato learned of this (somehow), and still bearing agrudge, reinstated his challenge to fight Miyagi.
Arewe truly meant to believe that mid 80s Okinawa is such a backwater,lawless place that a renowned businessman like Sato can presumablycommit murder in public because of honour? When a film's plot is thisridiculous, the audience cannot invest in the characters. Yet this isstill not what makes the movie such a cheesy schlockfest.
Sato'snephew is Chozen, replacement bully for Johnny Lawrence. Unlike,Johnny, Chozen is a psychopath with no redeeming qualities. In TheKarate Kid, it made sense that Johnny and his gang would appearfrequently to torment Daniel – they attended the same school andran in the same circles. Yet for no logical reason, Chozen seems tobe everywhere that Daniel goes; whether it's in Miyagi's hometown, orthe 50s style rock 'n' roll dance hall, or in a dive bar in Naha, thecapital city of Okinawa, which Daniel decides to visit on a whim.This is possibly one of the most ridiculous scenes in the film,topped only by the climactic battle between Chozen and Daniel. Danielignores Kumiko's wishes and drags her into the bar, where Americansoldiers are attempting to chop blocks of ice while onlookers bet onthe outcome. Chozen appears and coerces Daniel into chopping six blocks of ice. Kumiko leaves to findMiyagi, who is apparently in the only refrigerator repair store intown. Miyagi arrives and, to Daniel's chagrin, bets all their money onDaniel's success. Then, from out of nowhere, Sato materialises to honourthe bet. Which begs the question: Is Okinawa really this small??
BothSato and Chozen are two-dimensional villains, laughing maniacally andtwirling their metaphorical moustaches at every available moment;which makes Sato's last minute redemption and 180 degree shift incharacter highly implausible, and Chozen's final battle with Daniellaughable.
Theclimax of the movie takes place at the Obon festival, and includesone of the most hilarious villain entrances ever committed to film –Chozen's painfully slow zip line onto the stage. I mentioned in a previous post my dislike of Kevin Costner's zip line use in The Postman. Maybe I just have an issue with zip lines in film. It's adistinct possibility.
Asthe film ends, the ridiculousness intensifies. Daniel employs thesecret block/punch combo learnt from Miyagi's drum toy. It's asecret move so secret, that every single person in Miyagi's hometownsecretly carries the drum toy with them and produces it at theclimax of Daniel and Chozen's battle. This secret karate move wassupposed to carry the same weight as The Karate Kid's crane kick, butinstead becomes an unintentional parody of itself.
The Karate Kid 2017 Filme Completo
TheKarate Kid Part II had the potential to tell an interesting story –to return Daniel to the status of novice in a larger world of martialarts, and to give us a glimpse into the origin story of mysteriousmentor Mr Miyagi. Instead, we are fed weak plot devices and weakercharacter arcs. By the time the third movie rolls around, it comes asno surprise to hear that the burgeoning love between Daniel andKumiko has amounted to nothing. Kumiko, like Ali before her, dumpsDaniel off-screen for a better offer rather than officially becoming'the girlfriend'. The romantic sub-plot of both films reminds us thatromance only exists in the early stages of courtship, and never inthe relationship itself. Even Miyagi, who appeared to find happinessin lost love Yukie, failed to bring her with him to the US. Shedoesn't even garner a mention in the third film. Like a weeklysitcom, the events of each film carry no weight. Consequently, wefeel nothing for the characters, and this, more than anything, is whyThe Karate Kid Part II pales in comparison to the original film.