Technically, this new version should be called The Kung Fu Kid, since there is no karate on display, but rather, in keeping with the new setting, the ancient art of kung fu. But, since the title The Karate Kid has familiarity and cachet, it’s not surprising that they kept it despite the obvious disparity between title and on-screen action. The main character this time around is a 12-year-old tyke from Detroit named Dre Parker (Jaden Smith, whose parents Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith co-produced the film). Dre’s mother (Taraji P. Henson) has been relocated by her company to Beijing, and he must grudgingly go with her (an opening shot of Dre’s growth as marked by lines on a wall note that his father died three years earlier). A stranger in a truly strange world, Dre immediately finds it hard to fit in, partially because of his own reluctance to embrace the culture, but mainly because he gets on the wrong side of Cheng (Zhenwei Wang), the school bully who feels he has claim to Meiying (Wenwen Han), the pretty, soft-spoken violin prodigy who catches Dre’s eye. Given their age, we have to write it off as puppy love, although the violence inflicted on Dre by Cheng and his middle-school minions is rough stuff, fueled by their sadistic kung fu instructor Master Li (Rongguang Yu), whose “no mercy” ethos flies in the face of kung fu’s essentially peaceful nature.

Enter Mr. Han, played in a great bit of effective stunt casting by Jackie Chan, whose career headlining comical kung-fu films is now reaching into its fourth decade (he’s 56 years old and is made to look every day of it). This is a different kind of role for Chan, as it requires him to play someone who is aged and alone and, most importantly, sad. When Mr. Han walks, it is with a stooped over gait that suggests not so much physical difficulty as emotional weight, so it is all the more exhilarating when he suddenly displays a fierce command of kung fu in defending Dre from the bullies. Of course, the big moment is staged like a typical Jackie Chan action sequence, with its clever use of inanimate objects and clothing as sources of defense, which simultaneously delivers exactly what we’re wanting, but also detracts from Chan’s otherwise excellent performance because it tears him out of the character he’s embodied so well and reminds us that we’re watching Jackie Chan the comical martial artist.

That small misstep aside, The Karate Kid works quite well as it follows the general course of its predecessor, right down to the climactic tournament in which Dre fights his way to the top against all odds, proving both his own mettle and also providing a kind of redemption for Mr. Han, whose losses are healed by helping a bullied kid find his inner strength. Aside from a somewhat flaccid middle section, director Harald Zwart keeps the slightly overlong film moving along briskly, and he mostly keeps out of the material’s way except when punching up transitions with unnecessarily eye-grabbing match cuts and dissolves. Setting the film in China provides for a visually impressive backdrop, even if it also encourages the filmmakers to go for some unlikely, but picturesque setpieces, such as Dre training atop the Great Wall of China. Yet, even when it doesn’t quite work, The Karate Kid is as warm and affirming as its predecessor, and the manner in which it stakes its own claim to the material is just enough to make it feel like something more than just opportunism.

Copyright ©2010 James Kendrick

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