The Karate Kid

Harald Zwart’s 2010 film follows twelve year old Dre, moved to Beijing by his mother’s job and taken on by building caretaker Mr Han once school turns hostile. A hundred and forty minutes is a long commitment for a family picture, and most of it goes to Dre being a foreigner rather than fighting. Shooting took place in Beijing with China Film Group; the crew was granted the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and the Wudang Mountains, used as set pieces that stretch it further. Jackie Chan does not play his usual fight comedy here. The scene he invests in has Han, drunk on the anniversary of the crash that killed his wife and ten year old son, take a sledgehammer to the car he has restored all film. The cut released in China differs. It opened as Gong Fu Meng, the Dre and Meiying kiss was cut, the bullying trimmed so Dre looks more like the one starting fights, and it carries a Han against Master Li fight absent internationally. What is taught is kung fu, not karate. A good fit if most of the running time going to adjustment rather than the tournament does not bother you. Not for anyone waiting on Chan to do acrobatics, since his centre of gravity is that drunken scene.