Credit: Amazon.com
Directed by
John G. Avildsen
Cast
Ralph Macchio …. Daniel LaRusso
Pat Morita …. Mr. Kesuke Miyagi
Yuji Okumoto …. Chozen
Danny Kamekona …. Sato
Tamlyn Tomita …. Kumiko
Nobu McCarthy …. Yukie
Charlie Tanimoto …. Miyagi’s father
The Movie
Combining the genres of the Sports film, a Martial Arts picture, and a Teen comedy, The Karate Kid was the surprise hit of 1984. The film had all the trappings of a teenage story about coming of age; the new kid in school, his trouble fitting in, his flirtations with a popular girl, and his struggle with the school bully. As LaRusso, the new kid with a widowed mother, Ralph Macchio was quite good. Things turn around for LaRusso when he begins to be mentored by Mr. Miyagi, played by Pat Morita. In the end, LaRusso stands victorious at the local Karate Tournament, gets the girl of his dreams, and has a new father figure in his life.
The second installment of the franchise begins with a recap of the previous film’s ending. As Daniel-san vanquishes the school bully and stands as champion of the All- Valley Karate Tournament, all seems right with the world. As per usual, the title card reading “Six Months Later” brings all of Daniel’s good fortune crashing down. The girl of his dreams has left him, and his mother has taken a job in another city, taking Daniel away from his mentor and friend. Just as things are looking up a bit with Miyagi deciding to let Daniel stay with him, the Karate master is called away to his home in Okinawa.
Miyagi’s father is deathly ill and Miyagi must go to make peace with him before dying. Miyagi, as it turns out, had left his native village 45 years before. He had fallen in love with a woman who was betrothed to his best friend. His formed friend, Sato (Danny Kamekona), challenged Miyagi to a duel to the death over the loss of face. Instead of killing his friend, Miyagi fled to America. Now his return is ominous as Sato’s grudge may still require a fatal encounter.
Daniel decides to travel with his sensei to the Orient to learn more about his surrogate father. As they arrive in Miyagi’s village, things are worse then they had assumed. Sato, whose family was quite wealthy when Miyagi left the island, has purchased the entire village and rules the area with an iron fist. Sato’s pupil and nephew Chozen (Yuji Okumoto) has personally taken it upon himself to treat all of the villagers with disrespect, cheating them at every turn.
Daniel and Miyagi only seem to worsen the situation as Sato’s anger is taken out on the villagers. Baiting Miyagi at every turn, Chozen even forces Daniel to get in the middle of the situation as he harasses Miyagi’s student to make the old man fight. Even as Daniel finds a new love in Kumiko (Tamlyn Tomita) and Miyagi finds and old one in Yukie (Nobu McCarthy), and impending doom lingers as Sato’s threats get worse and worse.
The climax of the film comes as Miyagi is forced to schedule a duel with Sato against the backdrop of a tsunami hitting the island. This encounter also leads to Daniel’s own duel with Chozen for the life of Kumiko. Did I mention this was a teen comedy?
Surprisingly enough, The Karate Kid Part II is a really decent movie. Martial Arts films coming out of the U.S. in the 1980’s were pretty poor, and the KK series is a pretty nice alternative to your typical Chuck Norris action movie. The films pale in comparison choreography wise to anything Hong Kong was producing at the time, but for these films it’s quite serviceable.
Whereas the first film was more of a Rocky style film, this sequel has more in common with traditional Asian cinema such as Samurai and Kung Fu films. While the film does have typical Teen movie elements mixed throughout with Daniel’s courtship of Yumiko and problems with yet more bullies, the film never gets into “we’ve got to save our local hot dog stand or hangout” conventions that the genre typically dips into. On top of that, movies like American Pie don’t typically end with two combatants fighting to the death in an ancient temple.
Helping the film immensely is Pat Morita’s Mr. Miyagi. Here he is in fine form as his signature role is full of both grace and humor. As far as 80’s pop culture icons go, Miyagi’s role as mentor is not on the same level as Yoda, but close. Morita is the soul of these pictures and brings a real seriousness to the proceeding that is really refreshing. Ralph Macchio is also very likable as Daniel, and is good enough that he is very believable in his action scenes. Danny Kamekona and Yuji Okumoto both get to ham it up a bit as the film’s villains but neither makes a fool of themselves.
Overall, the film is really enjoyable with themes of love and honor mixed in to give the film some depth. I know this one has a reputation of being the lesser of the first two films in this series, but it acquits itself very nicely. Its at least much better then the third picture in this series.
Score: 8.0
The DVD:
The Video
Do you remember seeing this film on cable when you were a kid? The DVD transfer isn’t much better than that. The film is presented for the first time on DVD in 1.85:1, so that’s at least a bit of improvement.
Score: 7.5
The Audio
The rousing Dolby 2.0 surround audio track is utterly mediocre as well. It’s fine, but just don’t expect THX-quality sound here.
Score: 7/10
SPECIAL FEATURES: Original Making-Of Featurette- The Sequel, Trailers
Behind-the-Scenes Making-Of Featurette: With an explosive, yet poetic title to the Featurette, The Sequel adds many incisive comments about the production including “The first movie was great, so we decided there had to be another one,” and “Because the audience demanded it, we had to bring the whole cast back”. The five minute mini documentary was probably just a promotional feature for HBO or Showtime when it was broadcast in the 80’s. It’s pretty superficial stuff and nothing substantial here really about the production.
Trailers,Trailers,Trailers: There are a handful of trailers on the disc for, you guessed it, The Karate Kid Series. Also, there are tailers for Godzilla 2000, which also has Asians in it, and a Starship Troopers which seems to have no clear relation to The Karate Kid.
Score: 4/10
The Inside Pulse
For a pretty good movie, the DVD is kind of lousy. I’m sure there isn’t a lot of demand for a Special Edition of Karate Kid II but it would have been nice to have a commentary or maybe even a video for those that love Peter Cetera’s Glory of Love theme song.
