June 13, 2010 -- The remake of the 1984 hit, Karate Kid film, works pretty well despite some plot changes and an all-new cast, headlined by Jaden Smith (Will Smith's kid) and kung fu superstar Jackie Chan. In this new version of the film, the setting is China, rather than southern California, and the featured martial art is kung fu, or wushu, which is Chinese in origin, not karate, which is Japanese in origin. The kid, Dre Parker, not only has a new school in a new state to contend with, he has a whole new country, culture and language to contend with. He wants to go back home, but his mother, Sherry Parker (Taraji P. Henson of “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”) tells him “there's nothing for us back in Detroit.” China is the future, America is the past, is the sad subtext here.

Dre gets on the wrong side of some local toughs who beat him up every chance they get until he is rescued by the hotel maintenance man, Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) who deals with the toughs in tough, ingenious, entertaining, and humiliating ways. Han agrees to teach Dre kung fu in order to give him a reprieve from the toughs, a reprieve that only lasts until the kung fu tournament in a few months. Despite vast cultural differences, Dre and fellow student Meiying (Wenwen Han) become romantically involved for a time. The rest of the film is taken up with training sequences and the tournament, except for a few scenic side trips, one to The Great Wall, another to The Forbidden City, another to Tiananmen Square and another to the magical region of Wudang Mountain where Dre picks up on the snakey Cobra Method of kung fu. The cobra scenes were shot in the mountaintop temple where kung fu originated.

There is no “wax on, wax off” scene here, but the training sequences are similar to the original film, and so is the car repair motif, which has a slightly different twist to it. I liked the way that Dre snaps Mr. Han out of his despair by gently returning him to his role of training master. The relationship between master and student is a little different in this film than it was in the original. It is more like two adults, than man and child. The film is too long at over two hours and it spends too much time on all elements of the film. It does carry a strong emotional kick, however, thanks to some good performances by all the main characters. This film rates a B.

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