_{Too easy.}

Did you like the Karate Kid remake? Did you like Kung Fu Panda? Then you’re going to love the Karate Kid sequel. Why? Because you’re obviously ten-years old and you’ll like anything they put in front of you. I’ll tell you who "they" are when you’re older.

But you’ll also like the Karate Kid sequel because the screenwriters for Kung Fu Panda, Cyrus Voris and Ethan Reiff, have been hired to write the script. Of course, by the time the film comes out in 2013, you’ll have already hit puberty, which means maybe you’ll have grown out of children’s movies. But if you’re anything like me, you’ll retreat back to your childhood once Cindy Johnson rejects you in front of the entire biology class and makes you the laughing stock of the whole school. (Empire)

The Karate Kid raked in 56 million dollars at the domestic box office this weekend, pretty much guaranteeing that Hollywood is about to go apesh*t with family-friendly 80s remakes. No one’s certain if it’s Jaden Smith‘s charisma, Jackie Chan’s broken English, or the subject matter that attracted audiences, but one thing’s for certain: Jackie Chan seriously hates karate kids. You’d assume he’d have more patience with them considering he’s a master of the art form they’re learning, but no, he just wants to jam his foot in their faces. Don’t take my word for it though.

Watch the manipulative/cleverly edited video below.

(/Film)

The Karate Kid
PG, 140min., 2010
Cast: Jaden Smith, Taraji P. Henson, Rongguang Yu, and Jackie Chan
Directed by Harald Zwart
Screenplay by Christopher Murphy based upon the 1980s movie of the same name.
 
The Karate Kid is as epic as a kid’s movie can come, yet falls into the same pitfalls of most prequels/sequels/remakes.
 
As the overlong prologue begins, we meet 12-year-old Dre Parker of Detroit (Jaden Smith, a rail thin swagger type like his parents, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith) who with his Mom (the great and underused actress Taraji P. Henson) move to Beijing, China. Once they arrive, Dre makes new enemies with a bullying martial arts gang, gets beaten to a pulp on the school’s  playground, meets his first girlfriend, and learns the art of Kung-Fu by way of the local hermit Mr. Han (Jackie Chan in surprisingly great dramatic role).

More after the jump…

Ironically nobody got the memo about changing the title of the movie, since Smith is learning kung-fu, an ancient Chinese martial art and karate is a Japanese one.
 
The story is the same as the 1984 classic, only brighter, more expensive, and more exotic with the Great Walls of mainland China replacing the beaches of Southern California, where the kids are younger and more innocent, but five times deadlier than before, and some of the action scenes are quite tense and believable.
 
While most of the movie is pure bubble gum and gears towards kids 13 and under (the movies theme song is sung by Jaden Smith and the ever annoying Justin Bieber), the now grown adults who remember the original might get a sly kick out of seeing a series of nods to it. The best is the new Cobra Kai leader being played by Rongguang Yu of Iron Monkey fame.
 
Chan’s performance as Mr. Han holds the movie together. Through all of its sweeping shots of China and kid training montages, he gives a quiet and powerful performance that in one moment really tugs at your heart – it’s always tough to see a favorite action hero cry.  This may come as a surprise to many stateside audiences as we’ve seen him do more of his comedic action stick, but in the Hong Kong cinema he has played all types of characters. Chan is an actor who shows that he can be as dramatic as he is glowingly funny.
 
If this movie was a little more serious and adult-themed like the original, Chan would be looking at a possible nomination like Pat Morita before him.
 
The Karate Kid works for those kids who couldn’t get into Kick-Ass because of it’s R-rating, but for the rest of audience – unless you have a soft spot for Chan – you’ll be knocked into another seen-it-before remake.
 
Grade: C
 

Ralph "The Original Karate Kid" Macchio is 48-years-old and he looks like he’s 12, or Scott Baio at 12. Back in 1984, he had girls swooning over his crane kick, and now he’s married and no longer a bad-ass. The guy doesn’t even have a raunchy sex tape with leather clad hookers or politicians. Wax On, F*ck Off, a new documentary that was all the rage at the Hoboken Film Festival, follows Macchio as he tries to restore his reputation and convince people he’s not just another non-burnout pussy.

Check out the trailer for this important fictitious film after the jump.

_{Jaden Smith is better than you at life.}

Sony has released the final trailer for The Karate Kid reboot starring Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. The film, which premieres this weekend, looks pretty good, provided you can overlook two annoying flaws.

I’m sure I’m not the first to point out that the film lacks any actual karate, which is from Japan, and instead focuses on kung-fu, which is from China. It’s like remaking Eight Men Out, but having them play Cricket, or remaking Squirt Woman 2 and having it focus on "water sports." There’s a big difference.

The second barrier to enjoying the film is Jaden Smith. Based on the trailer, he seems like he might be a decent actor. But the fact that a 12-year-old kid will probably nail more women this weekend than I will in my entire life makes it hard for me to concentrate. Instead of focusing on the kung-fu, I just keep tracing the veins in my wrist with the corner of my debit card over and over again.  Weird, huh? (First Showing)

Enjoy the last Karate Kid trailer after the jump.

Somehow Dre-son doesn’t have the same ring to it as Daniel-son. And as you can tell from the above photo of The Karate Kid remake/re"imagining," it doesn’t have the same look either. They must have photoshopped out the Hollywood producers giving each other congratulatory spanks on the ass.

Apparently, Jaden Smith trained every day for four months with the film’s fight coordinator Master Wu, and they filmed a scene atop the Great Wall of China. Most likely his dad Will Smith, the guy from the Bad Boys movies, was with him every step of the way shouting, "Wax on, wax off, Jaden-son!" then giggling uncontrolably into the palm of his hand.

Check out more pics of what’s sure to be another slaughter of my fond childhood memories after the jump.

(via /Film)

Cast: Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan

Synopsis: Dre, a skateboarding video game buff who is forced to move to China after his single mother is forced to transfer to the China for work. Of course, unable to speak Chinese, Dre finds it hard to settle in, and gets beat up by the local bully. Mr. Han (the Mr. Miyagi character), a maintenance man who spots Dre’s black-eye and offers to teach him both martial arts and Chinese, so he can defend against the students of Li Quan Ha’ Fighting dragon school of Kung-Fu.