Karate Kid

Karate Kid. No, not the one from the 80's with Ralph Machio and Pat Morita and Elizabeth Shue. This is the remake - no, sequel - no, movie with the same name with different characters in a different city 25 years later? Yep. That's it.

In this "version" of Karate Kid, Dre Parker (the kid) is played by Will Smith's son Jaden Smith. Mr. Miagi is now Mr. Han and he's played by Jackie Chan.

In this 2010 version, Dre and his mother leave Detroit and head to China. Not speaking Chinese well at all, Dre has trouble fitting in. However, he befriends Meiying (Wenwen Han), the cute Chinese girl at his private school. The problem is - there's a bully who doesn't want him around and he doesn't want him to talk to her.

After being beat up a few times, Dre falls under the tutelage of Mr. Han to learn true Kung Fu. And Mr. Han vows to have him fight the bad kids in a tournament. And the bad kids are taught by an instructor who wants his kids to play dirty. Does this sound familiar? It should. Nearly the entire storyline from the original movie is sub-planted in China and reshot using modern high definition film.

If you've never seen the original Karate Kid from 1984 then you're in luck. This 2010 version can stand on its own. I'm not saying it's better. Nor am I saying its worse. It's okay. For those of you stuck in the 80's you probably won't like it because you'll be comparing the two movies the entire time. But don't do that. It's not worth your energy.

Karate Kid has an all-star cast with such headliners as Rongguang Yu, Zhensu Wu, Zhiheng Wang, Zhenwei Wang, and Yi Zhao.

Karate Kid 2010 is 2 hours and 20 minutes in length, so it's a bit long. It is rated PG for martial arts violence, some mild language and bullying. Bullying? Seriously? Yes, it appears that is now one of the attributes used to rate movies.

My kids enjoyed Karate Kid. It was okay for me, too. I will give Karate Kid 3 stars.