Sports, martial arts action, adolescence and more in a very accessible cocktail
Looking at eighty is a complicated undertaking. All of us who have consumed enough cinema have in mind What defines a film from that era?, what tone it has and how it moves. Also, being one of the definitive emergences of spectacle cinema accompanied by consumerist fervor in multiplexes, films that are considered icons of the time have proliferated.
These films, become symbols of the era, provoke these ambivalent sensations. While those who grew up with them do not want them to be questioned under any circumstances, others like Quentin Tarantino consider it one of the low points of American cinema. It’s the same a little bit all at onceand perhaps there are few films that exemplify it like ‘Karate Kid, the moment of truth’.
Giving wax
40 years have passed since the premiere of this film that combines adolescence, sport, martial arts action and… social cinema? Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita are the leading combo directed by John G. Avildsen, already experienced in sports cinema with ‘Rocky’, in a film that can be seen streaming today through Movistar+.
Newly arrived to the Los Angeles area with his widowed mother, young Daniel Larusso has trouble adjusting and making new friends. His problems grow with harassment by a group of young karatekas, the cobras, against whom he cannot defend himself. However, he will learn to fight and appreciate the art of karate from the janitor, Mr. Miyagi, who is an expert with unorthodox training methods.
Here we have one of those movies where we can happily go around checking boxes on a list with everything you would expect from a populist film from the eighties. The story of overcoming, the slightly sugary tone so that the problems have a larger dimension than they have, the elimination of edges so that it is clear that we have to go with the protagonist and against the villain (something that was tried to be reconsidered with the successor ‘Cobra Kai’, one of the current television phenomena).
‘Karate Kid’: following the rules
There is no particular problem in going through clichés if you have a certain grace in exposing them. Is this the case with ‘Karate Kid’? Not especially, but the humor point in training It allows us to be quite entertained, and Morita’s intriguing presence helps us not question possible limitations of his character too much.
Nor is it necessary to claim much more from a film that has no greater ambitions, that avoids exploring what could then be considered puddles such as the strange connection with an elderly man from a marginal community. ‘Karate Kid’ clearly seeks an intersection between simple youth film and exciting sports film for following characters more than for action, leaving a good taste in the mouth after leaving the multiplex or before returning the tape to the video store. Beyond that, it has nothing more to offer.
In Espinof | The best sports movies in history
In Espinof | The best movies of 2024
