Today at Regal 15 in Eugene, #1, 35mm. Very clean presentation.
As a remake this movie has occasional good moments. Jackie Chan and the Smith Kid are very good. The location shooting in China is interesting though most of it has been seen in other movies. Apparently there are no blue sky days in Beijing any more though. All that massive production of crappy goods with no environmental regulation makes for lots of air pollution. Chinese children seem to be busy with school and music lessons and beating up American kids. I guess they left the footage of 10 year olds making Christie projectors for $3/day on the editing room floor. (just kidding about some of that)
Instead of "Wax on, wax off" this time we have "Jacket on, jacket off". I leave you to your own thoughts.
I give it 3 out of 5 stars. It's not the worst remake ever by a longshot.
Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 07-25-2010, 09:34 PM:
I had planned to wait for this movie to be released on Blu-Ray and watch it at home but after several of my friends had told me how good it is, I decided to see it in a theatre after all. Yes, my friends were all correct because I also enjoyed the movie very much. Although it was suppose to be a remake when they used the same title as the original movie, I felt it was totally different except for the basic plot of an old man who possess keen martial arts skill who takes a very young man under his wings and trains him to defeat a school bully at a tournament. Instead of Los Angeles, the story is now set in Beijing, China and a white boy is now black. I actually felt all of the nemesis in this movie to be far more menacing than in the original film including the instructor . I thought young Jayden Smith gave a fine performance as Dre Parker the young man and Jackie Chan was very good as Mr. Han, the roll originally played by Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi. It was refreshing to see Jackie Chan play a serious roll for a change instead of his silly performance in the RUSH HOUR Films
The 35mm presentation was excellent when I saw the movie at Consolidated's Pearlridge 16 but the print quality was terrible and in no way look as good as what I had become accustomed to watching movies on Blu-Ray. The print quality of KARATE KID I saw today was comparable to VHS and this was the only letdown when I saw the movie. In a way I am glad I saw this movie in a theatre because I now plan to purchase the movie on Blu-Ray instead of rentng because I know the movie in Blu-Ray will look great and is a film I plan watch more than once.