Remember the 1984 movie Karate Kid with Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita? Well, it's going to have a remake, featuring Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith (Will Smith's son). From Monsters and Critics:
Jaden Smith's character moves to Beijing with his mother, where he encounters a bully situation similar to Macchio's in his new locale. Smith's character will be named Dre instead of Daniel, and take lessons from Chinese martial arts master Mr. Han, played by Jackie Chan.
Whereas Daniel Larusso and his mother only faced a regional move across the United States in the the first film, the producers say the script will integrate language barriers and an international collision of world views into the bully-victim-turned-martial-artist tale.
Now, take a look at the trailer and tell me, shouldn't that be "kung fu" kid instead?
Ah, now the China twist makes sense.
I just don't understand why they would do a remake of this movie, and even go so far as to totally change the ethnicity of the main character...its weird. IMO. Also, this would turn heads and raise tempers if it was a white kid replacing what used to be an Asian or Black kid. *sigh* Double Standard Society.
If you're gonna be picky though, it should be "The Wu Shu Kid" — ?? wushu is "martial art". Kung fu ?? gongfu means "skillful achievement". You can have kungfu in wushu, or in calligraphy, or in making pedantic blog comments.
:)
This appears to be predicated on the notion that Chinese fights involve kung fu. Nothing could be further from the truth. Watch Beijing Bicycle for a completely authentic rendition of how Beijing street fights go down--it's all slap-fighting until someone picks up a loose brick.
And yes, they really should've renamed the movie to fit the region they're in.
Just tragic no matter what angle you look at it.
Step 1: Plan a Remake
Step 2: Change the lead character to appease the black community while completely upending the whole premise of the original series.
Side-note: Change everything about the movie while you're at it to seem original, but keep the basic plot and title, despite neither of them making sense anymore.
Step 3: Cast Riley Freeman as said main character.
Step 4: ????
Step 5: PROFIT!!!
Ugh, movie directors have run out of new ideas and are just rehashing old things that people love into horrible monsters, like the Chipmunks or Garfield, or the Honeymooners.
I agree with the bomb Hollywood comment above. Or at least the movie ban. There should be a strike on movies until new, original plots are come up with. Anything older than twenty years is off limits to film makers.
It looks like it would be a good movie without the Karate Kid branding, but it'll be just like Eragon, a decent movie that suffers because it doesn't live up to its namesake.
Jackie uses the money he makes from his Hollywood films to finance his preferred movies back home in China. He's said before he doesn't really 'get' the hollywood films.