I may actually see this. Love Jackie Chan; and the scenery is gorgeous!
When I heard about it, my knee-jerk reaction was a resounding WTF?!?! NOOOOOO!!! But then I saw the trailer and thought about it a bit. I’m not a fan of remakes. Not at all. But they’re always going to happen, generation after generation. (A teacher once told me when I was in film school that there are only something like 180 possible different movie plots, and the rest are just variations of them. Can’t find a cite, but I can believe it).
Yes, they took an iconic movie from my childhood, mashed it up, changed the players, relocated it, and replaced some of my favorite lines, but to me, that’s part of the reason I’m coming around.
Fact is, it’s now a different movie.
And, unlike some bastardly remakes, it’s different enough that, name notwithstanding, I can actually view it for what it is, a brand new film. If they tried to remake the original scene for scene, the characters would still be different, no matter how hard they tried, as would much of the intangible, irreplaceable charm that gave it a permanent home in my heart. This one looks entertaining, humorous, well-made, and, because it looks so different, can stand on its own merit.
The only gripe I have is the name. Like many of you, I can’t see how you can call a movie about Kung Fu The Karate Kid. Call it The Kung Fu Kid, and you get the same result. The older generation still gets the idea, and the younger kids get an iconic movie of their own, without having to defend and compare it to those who loved the original for the next decade.
Though I did enjoy the throwbacks (the flyswatter scene cracked me up).
IMHO, They should call this movie
“The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air II: Little Trouble in Big China”
I will go see it, just to see Lil Bow Wow get punched and because I love Jackie Chan. Otherwise, I will stick with the original.
I think many people forget that remaking movies has a long and quite impressive pedigree. In fact, many of the “great classic films” were actually remakes themselves. Nothing wrong with it as long as the remaking itself is good. Styles change, actors change, and even if the overall production isn’t as good a new look can bring an old film to new prominence.
Too Late to edit my own stuff…I meant Will Smith’s kid, not Lil Bow Wow…Brain fart…sorry.
I felt like they should have added some gray to Jackie Chan’s hair. Maybe if they’re planning a romance between him and the mom it makes sense for him to be youngish, but without that he just lacks the gravitas that an older man would.
I wonder if that’s Michelle Yeoh at 1:08-1:09. She’s always good.
Agreed on Jackie Chan.
And the reason for remakes is that no one in Hollywood has any creative talent these days.
Man, I don’t know about this. Remaking Karate Kid? Why won’t Hollywood stop this? It was bad enough they butchered one of my favorite classics (The Longest Yard; Burt Reynolds was absolutely *perfect *for that role. Now they’re taking out another 80s classic?
Somewhere Bill Simmons is throwing up in his mouth - I expect he’s probably morphing into the Unabomber as we speak, out in some cabin somewhere writing a 10,000 word manifesto on how sports movies used to be good…
Seriously - of the movies that did NOT need to be remade - this was at the top of the list…
See, now if they had just called the movie The Kung Fu Kid or used ministryman’s even more excellent Little Trouble In Big China, I’d have bought tix on fandango already.
But the truth is, they are marketing it as a remake, hoping to use the good rep of the previous film to draw people in to see this version. Marketing + no imagination = steaming pile of shit.
Sucks too, 'cause I loves me some Jackie Chan. I’ll prolly have to wait until my friends with kids buy this on BR to see it. I don’t, as a rule, give money to remakes.
That’s an absurd sweeping statement. That’s as absurd as saying that there’s not one Republican with an ounce of ethics and moral sense.
Oh wait, wrong analogy…
Seriously though, NO ONE? Not one writer, director, actor, costume designer, artist, cinematographer, art director, sound effects person, editor, producer, makeup artist, [any number of other people who work in Hollywood in a myriad of occupations], or any of the retired people in any of those fields or any of the apprentices working their way up or ANYBODY AT ALL? NO ONE??
Jesus, where do you get your penchant for insane hyperbole?
I read that it’s only going to be called “Karate Kid” in the US. Everywhere else, especially Asia, it will be “Kung Fu Kid”.
I can’t think of The Karate Kid without thinking of Neil Patrick Harris’ take on it.
It’s sad that they apparently thought we’d all be too dumb to realize that a movie called “The Kung-Fu Kid” would be a sequel/remake to “The Karate Kid”.
The kid looks too young to me.
I always thought it was kind of funny that Daniel gets his ass kicked in all three movies. It’s like he forgets all his training. 
But, he always wins the big battle at the end of each movie.
Could they make Karate Kid 4 today? I’m not sure pairing an older man and a young teen girl would get by the pedo police. These days an older guy needs to stay far away from any kid, unless he wants to get branded. It’s kind of sad, but that’s the world we live in today.
The answers to your questions/statements, in order, are: because it’s a (relatively) sure bet, no, and no.
Sorry for the double post but I wanted to respond to this and missed the edit window:
Nah, it’s because Hollywood is a business, just like any other business. In fact, for as much as it gets criticized for its formulaic approach and all the remakes and sequels it invests in, it’s still one of the riskiest businesses, if not the riskiest business you can possibly get into.
Say you had ~$65 million dollars to invest. That’s a lot of cheddar, obviously. Now you have plenty of options. You can put it in mutual funds, you can buy bonds… or you can take it down to Vegas and bet it all on a spin of the roulette wheel. When someone makes a movie, especially an original movie, they are basically putting it on the roulette wheel. It’s therefore not at all surprising that they want to make every effort possible to mitigate that risk. A sequel to a successful film is a good bet. A remake of a popular film is a good bet. It doesn’t matter if the film is terrible, it’s going to get asses in the seats.
I think a lot of people forget that a remake isn’t necessarily because a filmmaker has something new to say, but rather because they have someone new to say it to. That is, a whole generation has come along since the original was made. People who saw that movie as kids have kids. I don’t know about anyone else’s kids but mine rarely bother with anything that looks “old”. I’ve had limited sucess with a few films, but I’m always happy to see a good kid’s remake come along because once my boys see it, it gives me an opportunity to present the original to a much more receptive audience.
The original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is one of their favorites now, but they wouldn’t give it time to develop until they’d seen the (dissapointing, IMO) remake and were familiar with the story.
Well, when your mom and dad own the production company, I’m guessing they write the script to suit you.
And at only 11 years old, yeah, he’s too young for the role.
He’s called the karate KID not the Karate Teen
Ah! I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong with the trailer, but something’s wrong with it. I grew up with The Karate Kid, you can’t just “re-make” it, the magic of the story, the spark. I mean, it would be almost as ridiculous as if someone proposed to re-make the A-team. Anyways, add Drago from the Rocky series, and now we might have something…