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Review • When a child star is cute and has a few instinctual acting moves, that's probably enough to get him by. Jaden Smith, who stars in the new remake of The Karate Kid, scores on both counts, but he also has something that's rare to see in a child actor. He's got presence. As Dre Parker, a pensive and fatherless 12-year-old from Detroit whose mother (Taraji P. Henson) gets transferred to the forbidding city of Beijing (the extreme move isn't really explained — I mean, couldn't she have been sent off to, you know, Denver?), Smith holds the screen while doing next to nothing, just standing there, silent and inquisitive, trying to figure out an angle on the situation that's closing in on him.
Smith, of course, is the son of Hollywood royalty (his parents are Will Smith and JadaPinkett Smith), and you don't have to look hard to see traces, especially, of his father — the cool glare of appraisal, the quickness of his fury. With his nifty cornrows (a junior rapper's 'do that marks how much he's grown up since The Pursuit of Happyness), Smith looks like an intensely aware goldfish. As Dre, he gets knocked down by bullies and drawn to the sweet sparkle of a teen violinist, but whomever he shares the screen with, he combines a kid's directness with an adult's way of holding himself in check. Though it's not too varied a performance, Smith, like his father, acts with an emotional ease that's almost gymnastic.
A remake of the 1984 go-for-it classic, the newKarate Kid is longer than the original film (it's 140 minutes) and a couple of shades more downbeat, with Dre as a lonely Odd Kid Out in the bustling bureaucratic China that is his new home. Jackie Chan has a corresponding melancholy as the maintenance man who teaches Dre the art of kung fu. (Yes, they should have called it The Kung Fu Kid — but you don't mess with brand titles like this one.) All in all, The Karate Kid is a more somber, less playful movie than the original, but at heart it's the same old irresistible candy corn.
I did, for a while, miss the sly, poker-faced humor that Pat Morita brought to the role of Mr. Miyagi. When Chan's Mr. Han begins Dre's training by ordering him to hang his jacket on a hook, then throw it on the floor, pick it up, and do it all again and again, it's a variation on the wax-on, wax-off gimmickry of the first film. Morita, though, let us know that he was enjoying the slightly sadistic joke of the Zen discipline he was enforcing. Chan, in a scruffy goatee, plays Han as very serious, almost morose, in his mission. He makes the guru-mentor slightly damaged goods; Han needs this kid as much as the kid needs him. Their earnestness grows on you, though. The bond these two share is sincere and touching.
The movie builds, of course, to the big kung fu tournament, in which Dre finally faces down a bully who has been trained to fight with ''no mercy.'' It's a piece of inspirational hokum that works nicely, though I do wish the film had been a bit more ingenious about shoehorning in the famous Ralph Macchio ''crane'' stance. That said, The Karate Kid is fun, and believable, on the most important level: It convinces us that Jaden Smith has what it takes to fight his way to the top.
Plot • 12-year-old Dre Parker could've been the most popular kid in Detroit, but his mother's latest career move has landed him in China. Dre immediately falls for his classmate Mei Ying - and the feeling is mutual - but cultural differences make such a friendship impossible. Even worse, Dre's feelings make an enemy of the class bully, Cheng. In the land of kung fu, Dre knows only a little karate, and Cheng puts "the karate kid" on the floor with ease. With no friends in a strange land, Dre has nowhere to turn but maintenance man Mr. Han, who is secretly a master of kung fu. As Han teaches Dre that kung fu is not about punches and parries, but maturity and calm, Dre realizes that facing down the bullies will be the fight of his life. Written by Columbia Pictures
Awardsandnominations • J-14 Teen IconAwards 2010[29] • IconicMovie (Nominated) • IconicMovieActor – Jaden Smith (Nominated) • People'sChoiceAwards 2011[30] • FavoriteFamilyMovie (Nominated) • FavoriteOn-ScreenTeam – Jaden Smith & Jackie Chan (Nominated) • FavoriteAction Star – Jackie Chan (Won) • 2011 Kids' ChoiceAwards[31] • FavoriteMovie (Won) • FavoriteButtkicker (Jackie Chan) (Won) • FavoriteMovieActor (Jaden Smith) (Nominated) • 2011 MTV VideoMusicAidJapan[32] • Best Songfrom a Movie ("NeverSayNever" byJustinBieberfeaturingJaden Smith) (Nominated) • 2011 MTV MovieAwards[33] • BiggestBadass Star (Jaden Smith) (Nominated) • 32nd Young ArtistAwards[34] • Best Leading Young Actor in a FeatureFilm (Jaden Smith) (Won) • 2010 Teen ChoiceAwards[35] • Choice Summer: Movie (Nominated)
Castandcharacters . • Jaden Smith...Dre Parker • Jackie Chan...Mr. Han • TarajiP. Henson...Sherry Parker • WenwenHan...Meiying • RongguangYu...MasterLiZhensu Wu...Meiying'sDadZhiheng • Wang...Meiying'sMom • ZhenweiWang...ChengJaredMinns...Dre's Detroit FriendShijiaLü...LiangYi • Zhao...ZhuangBoZhang...SongLukeCarberry...HarryCameronHillman...MarkGhye Samuel • Brown...OzRockyShi...UrDangJiWang...Mrs. Po • Harry Van Gorkum...MusicInstructor • Tess Liu...HistoryTeacherXinhuaGuo...TournamentDoctorJijunZhai...Mat 4 RefereeShun Li...Mat 5 • RefereeYanyanWu...Mrs. XieTaoJi...AnnouncerChenJing...Manon Plane Speaking • ChineseWentaiLiu...Dudefrom • DetroitGeliangLiang ...PingPongManXu Ming...Bao
Genre • Action • Drama • Family
Writers • Christopher Murphey (screenplay) • Robert Mark Kamen (story)
Director • Harald Zwart
Setting • Themoviewasfilmed in Japan .
Targetaudience • Themoviewasmade for people in all ages , butthetarget is theyoungests boys and girls.
Realese date • Brazil- 27 August2010UK-28 July2010
