Kung Fu Kid?

For the first time in several years (I'm not sure how many; maybe as few as five, perhaps as many as eleven (Phantom Menace was definitely in that category)), I actually caught a movie on opening day. I seem to have chosen Karate Kid to break the string.

I wish I'd watched the original more recently; I haven't seen it in something like twenty years. It would have been nice to be able to do a closer comparison. Of course, having Jackie Chan as the "old wise one" meant that his mastery was a little clearer.

As expected, seeing Jackie Chan in that role was a bit weird, but he did a very good job with it.

I very much liked the beginning. The scene with Jaden looking over all the marks made on the doorway over the years did a fantastic job of showing what his life had been in a remarkably compressed fashion.

Unfortunately, I think that was possibly the high point. Jaden Smith did a pretty good job as the kid. I have only one or two minor complaints about his acting. Thinking about it, he did do a very good job in the most important scene in the movie, where he explained why he wanted to fight in the final match, despite being hurt.

Also unfortunately, there were a couple of problems with that final fight. For one, I didn't understand why Cheng didn't keep hitting him when he knocked Dre down. He did that in the earlier matches, and there didn't seem to be any stigma attached to it, so why didn't he do it in this one that meant so much more to him?

And that final move? I just don't buy it; that would take way too much strength for someone that young. Maybe if he'd had both legs available. Maybe.

Another thing; that visit to ... Dragon Mountain, was it? That was neat, but I really think that needed more explanation. It just seemed... I'm not sure... Random, maybe. Why was it so important to Mr Han? That needed more than one sentence.

And I think they should have found a way to explain the shao-Dre. Han blew it off as 'little Dre', but I suspect it's more of an endearment than just a nickname.

All in all, I thought it was an ok movie. I'm a bit surprised the IMDB has it rated so low (about 5.1/10 at the moment), but that's probably pretty fair overall.

Oh, and I've flown on Air China before. I don't picture them putting a blanket on a sleeping kid. Nor do I picture it being that quiet. When I took them, it was sheer chaos. I've never been on such a noisy flight on any other airline. Maybe I was just unlucky, but I doubt it.