Wax on, tune out

• Source: Global Times
• [14:30 June 30 2010]
• Comments

Jaden Smith (left) as Dre and Jackie Chan as Mr Han. Photo: IC

By Nick Muzyczka

There is a laid-back, non-intrusive, Sunday-afternoon-on-the-couch feel to this effort from Harald Zwart, a director most famous for his relatively unfunny and poorly received Pink Panther 2, a remake of the earlier series of films starring Peter Sellers.

The original The Karate Kid movie, directed by John G. Avildsen, appeared on screens in 1984 and came to be thought of as a classic coming-of-age tale. Zwart's version keeps the general story line intact, though some vaguely disorganized changes have been made.

The "action" now takes place in Beijing, for reasons that aren't exactly clear. Audiences are introduced to a young American boy, Dre Parker, played by Jaden Smith (son of Hollywood darlings Will Smith and Jada Pinkett- Smith), who has just arrived in Beijing with his mother Sherry (Taraji Penda Henson).

She is an overworked manager at a factory, while young Dre spends his time doing youthful things like playing basketball, flirting with girls and being bullied at school.

Unfortunately for Dre, his adversaries at school are a team of budding kung fu experts (the title of this movie is not exactly accurate), who seem to take great offense at his efforts at cultural integration, or more precisely, his efforts to impress classmate Meiying (Han Wenwen).

Jackie Chan takes on the role of Mr Han, the handyman-kung-fu-master who instructs Dre in the art of "real kung fu" in the lead up to the movie's climax: a sensational UFC-style, no-holds-barred tournament, where 12-year-old boys inflict great pain on each other in front of a highly excited crowd of parents.

The whole film unravels against a thoroughly romanticized Beijing landscape. Everywhere is old-style houses, beautiful wooden carvings, traditional street scenes, lanterns and scorpions on skewers. While Beijing has a deserved reputation for offering some of the finest examples of historical China, this movie paints a picture of the city that borders on the ridiculous. No one who has been to Beijing could possibly take this amalgam of stereotypes seriously.