Duration: 2 hours 6m. Actor: Pat Morita. directed by: John G. Avildsen. writer: Robert Mark Kamen. Scores: 163115 votes. countries: USA

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A minor spoiler or two herein. When I saw this at the theater upon release I knew that what I'd just seen was essentially a less gritty and considerably lighter rerun of "Rocky" for a younger set, substituting karate for boxing and the sunny environs of 'the Valley' for Philly's urban decay but otherwise constructed of the same kinds of elements. That familiar story though, already familiar enough in its essentials when "Rocky" came out, is one that movie audiences apparently have yet to tire of. It works for me, anyway. I loved this film when it came out and I still watch it with a great deal of affection. As is true of many movies from the '70s and '80s, part of the appeal for me and probably for many others has to do with nostalgia. In my case, at the time of the film's release I was just a couple of years or so older than the film's characters, had long been silently infatuated with a girl who looked more than vaguely reminiscent of Elisabeth Shue (if the Shue fits. and a few years before had suffered a disastrous introduction to martial arts under the sadistic tutelage of a karate teacher who made Martin Kove's scarily sociopathic bad seed look like Mary Poppins. One of the story elements in "The Karate Kid" relates to the fact that the teacher. of martial arts or anything else. can make all the difference. The casting of Pat Morita and Martin Kove as skilled karateka with diametrically-opposed philosophies also works both as a cultural commentary (brash, materialistic, goal-oriented West versus the more multifaceted, humble, centered East) and as an embodiment of the yin-yang principle of opposites. For my part, I can certainly testify that Martin Kove's nasty meat-axe of a character is, unfortunately, nowhere near as over-the-top as many might think. Luckily, Mr Miyagi's character (that Pat Morita does an exquisite job with) is also not at all far-fetched in terms of his teacherly attributes. A lot's changed since "The Karate Kid" came out. Elisabeth Shue has gone on to critical raves for later roles (I have no idea where her semi-lookalike is these days) and I ended up living not only in the US but, for several years, not too far from where the action in "Karate Kid" unfolds. I've also been training in Chinese martial arts (commonly known as 'kung fu' since 1986. and, no, as far as I'm aware this movie was no influence on that, though my earlier negative experience with the Sensei Kreese clone kept me from getting back on that particular horse for long enough. As my experience with and knowledge of martial arts grew I saw that this film has one flaw of particular note regarding martial arts training: Daniel's learning enough within a few months to effect a tournament win is unrealistic and only reinforces the con-job claims of some 'instant masters' that they can turn anyone into a lethal weapon within such-and-such a timespan. Then again, compression of time was necessary for the narrative and. besides. early in the film Daniel claims to have learned some karate at a New Jersey YMCA. I'll give them that one, in the interest of dramatic license. On the bright side, the philosophies expressed and implied within "The Karate Kid, including those that point out the hidden value of techniques for which martial application is not obvious ( wax on, wax off. are generally consistent with those that form part of the morality base of traditional Asian martial arts. They're also philosophies that more youth. particularly in the US. could do well to adopt, embody, and live by. If this film still gets young people into martial arts (as long as the teacher's a good one, more Miyagi than Kreese) so much the better for them, for their families, and for society. This is one of a few films that I can painlessly watch again and again and I think that it's held its own very well over the years. It's hardly a deep movie (neither is it completely shallow) but sometimes that's a good thing. By the way, I'm still just beginning to cope with the discovery that the blond leader of the Cobra Kai group of teens was William Zabka. I'd always thought that he was Vince Van Patten, who I could swear looked exactly the same back in the '70s. Then again, it seems like everyone on TV and in the movies back then had that California blond beach god or goddess thing going on...

One of the darkest, bleakest films I have seen in a long time. All the characters struggle against a system that has perpetuated falsehoods. Macchio is convincing as Daniel, but the real star of the show is despair. Dysfunctional families live in decaying shacks, without money or food. Violent dogs are barking everywhere. Disagreements are settled by fistfights. I have seen people drink themselves evil. I have seen young people fall apart because of those around them.) From an artistic standpoint, there were some plot elements and character developments I didn't think were totally needed. They do however drive the story, which seemed to be their purpose, so I can accept them.

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