Directed by Harald Zwart. Starring Jackie Chan, Jaden Smith, Taraji P Henson, Han Wen Wen, Wang Zhenwei 12A cert, gen release, 140 min
Though beautifully shot on location in China, The Karate Kidis a silly, miscast remake of a movie that was corny even in 1984, writes DONALD CLARKE
YOU'D THINK that, of all films, a remake of The Karate Kidwould offer little to disconcert the sensitive viewer. After all, the 1984 film worked to a template that offers limited scope for wild innovation.
You remember. Upon moving to a new school, this unfortunate kid gets repeatedly bullied by a bunch of bigger boys. He learns martial arts from an eccentric master and, after overcoming various splintered, rickety hurdles, exacts revenge at a climactic tournament. John G Avildsen, also director of Rocky, really should have become an icon of the recycling movement.
With all that in mind, it comes as a surprise to relate that the new Karate Kidis as strange as any film to emerge from the Hollywood mainstream this century.
Imagine, if you are able, that, in 1984, a major studio released a movie explaining that American industry – the car business in particular – was weak and decadent and that the nation should embrace its takeover by the ruthlessly efficient, culturally superior Japanese. It would never have happened. But, somehow or other, the Chinese co-producers of this unlikely project have persuaded Will Smith and his family to collaborate in propagandising the economic advance of Japan’s neighbour across the water.
The film begins with shots of a decaying Detroit. (“The bandit capitalist empire grovels before the might of Chinese collective integrity,” a voiceover doesn’t actually say.) Mrs Parker (Taraji P Henson), a worker in an unspecified division of the automobile industry, elects to accept the inevitable and take a job in Beijing.
Initially, Dre (Jaden Smith), her intolerably cheeky son, finds life in China difficult but, with the expected help of a peculiar janitor (Jackie Chan), he comes to accept the country as he learns its ways of fighting.
Clocking in at a staggering 140 minutes (only eight minutes shorter than Inception), The Karate Kidcomprises 30 minutes of martial- arts action augmented by nearly two hours of travelogue footage. Dre and his new friend take a trip to the mountains. The young chap has a stroll around the Forbidden City. He plays table tennis in the park. All the while, a steady, near-subliminal message is being muttered to the American public. Submit, submit, submit.We are just like you, only less frivolous and more respectful to our elders.
To be fair, though indifferently directed by the undistinguished Harald Zwart, Meet Your New Mastersis rather beautifully shot. Roger Pratt, veteran of pictures such as Mona Lisa, Braziland High Hopes, brings a seductive, smoky aura to the images that helps the hours pass reasonably painlessly.
Indeed, the film is so slickly fashioned that it’s easy to overlook the outrageous miscasting at its heart. We have, of course, no complaints about the appearance of Jackie Chan. The awareness that, for so long, Chan came across as an irrepressible, indestructible imp adds genuine poignancy to his dignified drift into (still fearsomely robust) late middle-age.
But, with the best (ahem) will in the world, it is hard to muster any serious enthusiasm for Jaden Smith's toe-curling performance. Anybody who saw Jaden pottering after his dad, one Mr W Smith, in The Pursuit of Happynesswill confirm that the little guy has talent. But he is patently far, far too callow for the role.
Ralph Macchio was all of 23 when – playing, admittedly, well below his age – he took advice from Pat Morita in the first picture. Born as recently as 1998, Jaden is so slight and delicate that, without receiving a bite from a radioactive spider, he is never likely to convince as a fit opponent for the film’s big-fisted bullies. The least said about his gruesome romance with a young Chinese violinist the sooner it will be stripped from our traumatised memories.
Casting the boy in the film looks indulgent, inefficient and sentimental. You wouldn’t catch titans of Chinese industry making that mistake. Is there, perhaps, an accidental metaphor in here somewhere?
