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The Karate Kid Movie Review

The Karate Kid is a 1984 martial arts family drama directed by John G. Avildsen and starring Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita. It’s a solid and fun flick, but one that is too straightforward.

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“Get him a body bag! Yeah!“

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Recently relocated from NJ to LA, Daniel becomes the target of a gang of Cobra Kai dojo students. When Mr. Miyagi saves him with expert Karate skills, Daniel convinces him to teach him to defend himself, and put his bullies in their place. This was one of the biggest movies of the year in terms of box office and it still has great reviews. It spawned an entire franchise of movies and a couple of shows. Needless to say, it’s a big deal. But I struggle as an adult to fully connect with it.

The best reason to see the movie is for the central friendship and the acting performances. Ralph Macchio was excellent in the main role and quite believable while Pat Morita was very endearing and it’s easy to see why he was nominated for an Oscar as his work on this movie was so good. Both of the actors elevated their lackluster roles quite a bit.

But the characters that they play are so mediocre. Mr. Miyagi is easily likable and memorable, but he’s your typical old and wise Asian man. As for Daniel, I found him to be obnoxiously whiny and annoying at times, which is typical for this era. The other characters are unimportant and forgettable.

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The Karate Kid is very well made across the board. It’s well shot and superbly scored. Its soundtrack is just so much fun and it accompanied most of the transitional scenes so well. They would have been so boring without that music. The martial arts scenes are only okay. I did not love the action here, but it was serviceable. The dialogue is clichéd, but also satisfactory within the context of the story. Whenever the movie focused on the central friendship, it worked. Everything else was subpar. I do get why it’s so iconic, but I never watched it as a child, so I do not hold it so highly as an adult.