No idea why this popped into my head, but it has and I turn to the Dope for help.
Mr. Miyagi told Daniel that if he did the Crane technique, “No can defense.” or something which I took to mean that it can’t be defended against.
Sure it knocked Johnny on his ass and proved that Danny was the BEST! AROUND!
So fast forward to the sequel (or maybe the 3rd?) Danny tries it again and fails. So, did his technique suck? Which means that Johnny sucks worse? Or was the other guy magic?
In Japanese they call the last few, secret, moves that a person can learn before becoming a master “O-gi”. While it takes skill to perform these secret moves, and they are very powerful, the principal reason why there wouldn’t be a defense against them is because they’re a “secret technique.” Obviously, it helps if you kill your opponent after using secret moves on them, and it particularly helps if you don’t do it in front of hundreds of spectators and let them all live long enough to give away the secret two movies later.
It should also be noted that o-gi principally exist in fiction. Complicated/fancy moves are unfeasible in real life.
Well since it attack later failed, there is indeed a defense.
Any martial artist, Eastern or Western will tall you there is no such thing as an unstoppable attack, and no such thing as an impenetrable defense.
As you say one failed. The movie presents the Cobra system as a flawed training, so I would say that Johnny gets the blame. He learned from the "bad" master, and so only Daniel's pure heart, and superior car waxing techniques could prevail.
The movies are really not about any skill on the part of any of the combatants, but about other semi mystical elements. Daniel doesn't win because he is a skilled martial artist, but because the force is with him, or something like that.If you’re talking about Karate Kid Part III, Daniel’s victory over Mike Barnes was absolutely ludicrous and unrealistic.
Barnes was obviously a hardened veteran of karate tournaments and had his fighting skill honed to a fine edge - enough to have a feature article in a martial arts magazine as “Karate’s Bad Boy” (as shown in the scene where Terry Silver first reads of him, in his limousine.) From the look of him, Barnes also clearly worked out in a dedicated and focused way. He had a rock-solid physique and razor-sharp reflexes. Add to this the fact that he had also presumably participated in many street fights, being a notorious “bad boy,” and you have one tough customer on your hands.
Daniel, by the third movie, was pudgy, whiny, weak and totally out of shape. He got his ass kicked over and over again by Barnes and his pals, Snake and Dennis, even before the tournament. He curled up into the fetal position at the slightest hint of pain.
The ending was completely realistic to begin with as they would not have allowed the reigning champion to skip every match except the final one. That’s not how tournaments work, and they clearly just did it like that for the movie so that they wouldn’t have to show Daniel fighting in all the other matches of the tournament.
Barnes absolutely destroyed Daniel in the final match - his karate technique and physical strength were utterly unmatched by anything Daniel could muster. Therefore, the ridiculous ending where Daniel confuses Barnes by using some Kata forms and then strikes him on the back, winning the point, is basically a Deus Ex Machina. It’d be totally impossible to win this way against someone like Mike Barnes.
Side note: The actor who played Snake, Terry Silver’s houseboy and training partner to Mike Barnes (“if you want to be a bad boy in L.A., Snake’s the boy to be bad with.” “You know it!”) is Jonathan Avildsen, son of the movie’s director. His acting career has been sporadic, but the younger Avildsen has actually made a name for himself in the world of graffiti writing. His tag “JA” can be seen all over NYC. There’s more information about him linked on that page.
It’s a good question.
The move in questions fails in Karate Kid 2 : The Rechoppening when he’s fighting the bad guy at the public festival. Like the first one, Miyagi gives Daniel-san a knowing nod as he moves into crane posture.
Now, I assume that since Miyagi knew the other combatants’s teacher, the combatant must know defense to the crane. Still, you’d think that Miyagi would know this, and instead of giving Daniel the “nod”, he should have been shaking his head, and waving his arms.
Still, when toy drum done correctly, no can defense.
I think he’s talking about the second movie, Daniel’s victory over Chozen. I always thought that Daniel didn’t do it right, he was too confident, and got sloppy. He thought he was invincible, and he wasn’t.
I always thought it was because the move required you to stand in an off-balance position for about two seconds, and hope the person you’re fighting doesn’t move in the amount of time it takes you to finish the move.