Sigh. If only the ability to perform innocuous hum-drum actions very quickly actually translated into the ability to beat up children. At least then I could be assured of an actual application for the DVD organization muscle memory I’ve developed over the years.
Anyway I won’t comment on this too much because the jokes are all too easy (see above) and I am at the very least proud of them for at least trying to do something new with everyone’s favourite flu-movie that isn’t Ferris Bueller. A couple thoughts occur however:
- Does Jackie Chan’s appearance as Mr. Miyagi signal a transition away from a kung fu cartoon typecast into a mysterious/strange old Asian man typecast? As career moves for an aging Chinese actor goes he could really make worse ones. He’s gone from being eligible for half the American roles available for Asian actors to… being eligible for the other half.
- This movie is set in China and Karate is a Japanese martial art. Also Jaden Smith-San’s mentor who was from Osaka in the original is now being played by China’s chief American export from the nineties Jackie Chan. Is anyone else getting an uncomfortable kind of Sino-Japanese war counter-revenge-narrative vibe off of this? If Miyagi’s nationality goes unaltered we now have the story of a Japanese man teaching an American kid to beat up Chinese kids. If the film had a Japanese director it would make me think the Japanese were taking cultural revenge on the Chinese for all the revenge that has been taken on them in post-revolution Chinese film.
- I have just IMDB’ed the director and it turns out he’s American. Which makes sense. I take back the above but still think it’s funny.
As you were.
