I haven’t seen the new Karate Kid, but how do they reconcile with the fact that Jackie Chan practices kung fu and not karate?
I think he just teaches Kung Fu and it is a Kung Fu tournament and they ignore the Karate part except the title.
Jackie Chan is a treasure. While the quality of his movies vary, he throws himself (sometimes literally) into his role each time. One of the few actors I’ll go out of my way to watch in a movie simply because they’re in it.
Having just seen the new movie, they explain that Mr Miyagi and Han (Jackie Chan) are both descendants of the same martial arts instructor, and that they’re “two branches of the same tree” which apparently is true, Karate is descended from Kung Fu.
Speaking of which
KARATE KID LEGENDS (2025)
A fun movie but unless you’re a big fan of the originals you won’t get that much out of it. Very short (94 minutes) it’s roughly a retreading of the original plot (kid with single mom moves to a new city for business reasons, kid finds a new love but also draws the ire of her ex-boyfriend and his evil dojo, and then there’s a tournament at the end) but loses some of the nuances due to being a full 30 minutes shorter than the original.
Very good fight scenes but also the bad guys don’t get that much explanation at all, in contrast to the original fully explained why Cobra Kai is the way it is, in this one they just know you understand there’s just evil karate dojos out there.
What I do appreciate is the film does link everything, there’s direct references to scenes from Karate Kid 1, 2, 2010, and even Cobra Kai, so yes this is a fully extended universe now. Sorry no mention of Hillary Swank though.
Bringing solo effort to new highs.
Fifty years or more since I saw the theatre release in the cinema.
The Prime Video feed is very good.
I hope he isn’t one of those “don’t meet your hero” type guys. I love Jackie Chan movies. I think he had a child he completely abandoned before she was born.
Anyway, I dunno.
Slow burn but growing on me
The Way Way Back (2013)
Features a lot of recognizable faces including Steve Carrell as the most unlikeable stepdad in history.**
This is the coming of age tale about a painfully awkward fourteen year old boy whose life is transformed by a water park managed my Sam Rockwell. Is it tropey? Yes, very 80s. Boy is forced to spend summer with Mom instead of cool Dad in California (you know where that’s going.) Boy is very interested in girl who is Not Like Other Girls because - get this - she reads books. Teenage boys being idiots, yes, and even one very uncomfortable, very 80s scene of adult men (and the camera) sexualizing teenage girls.
Damned if I didn’t like it. It was overall a very funny and charming film with a lot of heart.
One of the interesting things about it is that you get a sense that each character has their own complicated life going on, and as a viewer you’re only seeing glimpses of it. This adds a level of realism, especially from a kid’s POV.
I’m giving it a B.
**You just want to smack his smug fucking face.
prozac nation. i’ve been on a christina ricci kick at the moment so thank the lord for 123movies. its good, i love a good miserable film.
Try FMovies as well
Thanks for reminding me of this movie. I remember seeing it when it first came to streaming and I really liked it. And it’s on Prime so … watching it now.
Hacksaw Ridge 2016 Andrew Garfield
True story about Medal of Honor recipient Desmond Doss who served as a Medic without carrying a rifle. Doss was a Seventh-day Adventist, he refused to use a weapon of any kind. Doss further distinguished himself in the Battle of Okinawa by saving an estimated 75 men
Mel Gibson did a fine job directing this inspirational film.
There were other conscientious objectors in WWII. Hugh Beaumont was also one and a medic. Wiki doesn’t say if he carried a weapon.
Sergeant York in WWI initially entered the service as a conscientious objector. He changed his mind just before his unit’s deployment to Europe. He received the Medal of Honor for killing soldiers in a German machine gun nest until the unit of 132 men surrendered.
I keep hoping the Sergeant York story will be remade. The film from 1941 is very dated.
I highly recommend Hacksaw Ridge.
Me too and the book is terrific as well.
The movie is very well cast and you get engaged in the crazy struggle to bring more to safety…and he was just a little guy too.
Highly highly recommended.
I just watched Captain America: Brave New World, and it was decent action and adventure I guess, but seemed ultimately inconsequential to the wider MCU. It felt more like they were fulfilling a promise to Anthony Mackie that they’d give him a movie more than anything else.
Well done on the VFX team making Red Hulk look like Harrison Ford, though.
I just watched “Wicked”. I was really disappointed. I was bored.
Indeed. I found the last 20 minutes of action somewhat entertaining, but I was bored for most of it. It was bottom-tier for me among last year’s Best Picture nominees.
I agree that the end was the best part.
I was very disappointed with how the movie was shot, it’s erroneous portrayal of how the Army works and the history.
Mel Gibson is capable of showing realistic warfare. He did it in We Were Soldiers. Here the action was cartoonish.
All of the pre-combat stuff was fake. Things like going to war with your Drill Sergeant only happen in Hollywood. The story with his father was distorted and made up.
Probably what bothered me the most was the film actually downplayed his actions and bravery. By the time he got to Okinawa the men in his unit knew very well how brave he was. They had already been through the Battle of Guam and the Battle of Leyte. Doss had already been awarded 2 Bronze Stars for valor and had two Purple Hearts. Despite the unrealistic action they still didn’t show all of the incredible things he did in Okinawa. They also compressed about 3 weeks of combat into two days.
I read this the other day.
He was a Methodist pastor, one who really believed and thought Christian Pacifism is the way to go. Online, it claims he would not normally carry a gun as a medic if he was a non-combat medic. He might have had one to use for self-defense if he was in battle.
Hacksaw Ridge guy rejected all weapons, even in the battle, but ended up showing he was about the bravest gosh darn mother flipper in the entire operation.
I still get moved even thinking about his Hacksaw Ridge operation of running back in and out to get the guys. I don’t think I could ever do what he did. We are lucky so many lived because his story is too insane to be true if the other guys didn’t 100% confirm it.