The Karate Kid

The Karate Kid was one of the nice surprises of 1984 -- an exciting, sweet-tempered, heart-warming story with one of the most interesting friendships in a long time. Read full review

A duet between Daniel and Miyagi, a boy without a father and a father without a son. The duet is the soul of the film, but it also has heart. The paths to enlightenment are many; The Karate Kid is surely one of these. [22 June 1984, p.23]

John G. Avildsen is back in the Rocky ring with The Karate Kid. More precisely, it is a Rocky for kids. Morita is simply terrific, bringing the appropriate authority and wisdom to the part. Read full review

Macchio and Morita not only deliver outstanding individual performances, but also show a remarkable chemistry with one another, and Martin Kove's performance as Kreese remains an effectively chilling foil to the film's leads. Read full review

Though shamelessly manipulative, it is undeniably effective. It offers some genuine moments of warmth, humor and excitement. Of course it all leads up to a big tournament where Fair Play has a showdown with Dirty Tricks. Guess who wins. This is the kind of movie where you find yourself cheering even though you know you're being hoodwinked. Read full review

A pleasing but overlong version of the Rocky story told through the character of a put-upon young high school student who learns karate from an old Japanese master to vanquish the local school bullies. There is no reason this simple story should run 2 hours and 10 minutes. Such a running time strains the good will generated by a cast full of likable performances. [22 June 1984, p.12]

The Karate Kid might have been more endurable, maybe even endearing, if its runtime had been trimmed of a solid 30 minutes. Read full review

Ralph Macchio's transformation from high school geek to butt-kicking tough guy, thanks to a little help from Chinese sage Mr. Miyagi (Noriyuki 'Pat' Morita) and his homespun Oriental wisdom, is entertaining enough. Read full review

When karate is not being treated as the latest excuse for an Impossible Dream success story, and when the film is able to find more in Daniel's martial-arts career than pure Rocky-esque competitiveness, The Karate Kid exhibits warmth and friendly, predictable humor, its greatest assets. Read full review

The Karate Kid can't really brushoff the conventional showdown it's incited, so the movie adds the obligatory action payoff to its less expected and more substantial rewards. The filmmakers can't help overbalancing on melodramatic excess from time to time, but their mistakes never obliterate the civilized wisdom of Miyagi's outlook: "Have balance, everything be better." [22 June 1984, p.B1]

As in the Rocky films, Avildsen's only directorial strategy is to delay the final confrontation for so long that all the audience's pent-up frustration explodes with it. It's primitive, predatory stuff. Read full review

I suppose if you haven't seen Rocky or its many imitators, The Karate Kid might have its modest charms; there's a good bit of man-to-boy philosophizing in it, on the order of "To thine own self be true," and that's harmless enough. But there's a measure of laziness in this whole idea that is dismaying, that borders on cynicism. One wonders what went through the minds of the filmmakers as they prepared to make a film that has been made so many times before. By the look of The Karate Kid, some quick-play box-office may have been the highest aspiration. [26 June 1984, p.B3]

In a way it's silly to review a movie like this; it's like reviewing a case of acne. John G. Avildsen, the checkered-career director who made Rocky, has made this one a kind of Pebbly -- a Rocky for teenychoppers, about a semi-wimpy kid named Daniel (Ralph Macchio) who's constantly being clobbered by the creeps in his high school until he's taught karate by his janitor, Mr. Miyagi (Noriyuki [Pat] Morita). [25 June 1984, p.69]

The Karate Kid is too long and lyrical, with several tedious scenes between Macchio and Morita as youth and experience. Avildsen is sometimes unsure whether he wants to be tough or forgiving, and the film has a big build-up for the fight scene, but an ending so abrupt it downplays the outcome. [22 June 1984]

In short, The Karate Kid presents the smallest imaginable variations on three well-tested formulas for movie success. Robert Mark Kamen's script is developed with maddening predictability, and John G. Avildsen's direction is literal and ambling. Films like this are what the PG rating is supposed to be all about. Read full review

This is actually director Avildsen's first hit since Rocky, and it has the same mixture of calculation and apparent naïveté. It borrows its formula from both East and West with good humour, and is completely free of intelligence, discrimination and originality. No wonder it's a hit. Read full review