The Karate Kid, 1984 (Ralph Macchio/Noriyuki “Pat” Morita) Columbia Pictures
“Man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything.”
Let’s speculate that Rocky was made for a different generation than my own. It’s still a movie anybody can love and appreciate, but if a similar movie (with a similar theme) could be made with a younger cast at a time when kids of my generation were coming of age (the “Brat Pack” years), it might bridge that gap in crossover appeal between parents and their children. My mother loved this movie, as did I, but we also enjoyed Rocky.
The Karate Kid was the Rocky of our generation, just as WarGames was the Dr. Strangelove of our generation. It’s not a coincidence that both Rocky and The Karate Kid were directed by John G. Avildsen with a similarly stirring score by Bill Conti. I had bullies when I was a kid. They weren’t the bizarre super-bullies of this movie, with their kicks and their spins. I love the idea of a group of these karate-jerks all swarming on little Ralph Macchio for no other reason than to demonstrate their dominance. I can’t believe they have personal grudges against Johnny Cade.
He and his mother (Randee Heller) have just arrived in sunny California from Newark and are looking to start a new life, but Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso routinely gets his ass handed to him by the karate-jerks, led by Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) under the tutelage of the evil Emperor Palpatine-type John Kreese (Martin Kove). Later, Daniel is hog piled yet again until his apartment complex super, Mr. Miyagi, shows up and kicks all of their asses single-handedly.
Impressed, Daniel asks Miyagi to train him in martial arts. Miyagi builds up Daniel’s discipline by making him do rote chores, such as sanding his deck, waxing his car, and painting his fences. After a while, Daniel starts to think he’s being exploited, until Miyagi (ingenious, really) demonstrates that Daniel has actually been conditioning himself to fight using the same methods he would use to sand the floor, wax-on-wax-off, and “paint the fence.”
After a couple of necessary ’80s montages, Daniel becomes a “Rocky machine!” But this isn’t Rocky. This is an ’80s movie, and it was required for the lead character to win, to always win, to take no prisoners, to never surrender. He even gets the girl (Elisabeth Shue) who is way out of his league. I remember my mother was positively scandalized by their kissing scene. She was pointing at the screen and saying, “They’re kissing like adults! They’re not kissing like awkward teens!” I learned a little bit about authenticity in film from this outburst.
Another phenomena of ’80s filmmaking was the elemental force of coincidence. This is when a character undergoes a metamorphosis that will require him/her to use a newly-adopted power against the antagonist that has been terrorizing that character over the last hour and a half of the movie’s running time. Miyagi trains Daniel in karate and Daniel uses what he has learned in the karate championship against the bullies trained by Emperor Palpatine! Now that’s a coincidence. In the end, all the fruit lines up for Daniel. He gets the trifecta: the girl, the championship, and sweet, sweet revenge. This is emblematic of the “Me” generation. Still, it’s a very satisfying ending for a wonderful movie.
