If you’re going to re-do something, do it differently…

[almostwitty]

I’ve often thought that if you’re going to go to the bother of remaking a film or a song, you should at least do it a bit differently. Like the Pet Shop Boys doing Always On My Mind, or … the Pet Shop Boys doing Where The Streets Have No Name.

Anyway, we now have the new trailer for The Karate Kid, starring Jackie Chan and Will Smith’s son Jaden Smith.

Spoilers - read the rest of this entry on almostwitty.com ...

Mirrored from almost witty.

Comments

[anivair.livejournal.com]

I just developed a problem with this film.

It's called the karate kid.

Everything I saw him so was Kung Fu.

that's sort of like remaking the Bad News Bears, but making them a hockey team (I know, you'd call it the Mighty Ducks, but that's sort of my point).

[madmosh-uk.livejournal.com]

I gather the international release *will* be called "Kung Fu Kid" - I read it somewhere. Given that the original film featured standard Taekwondo rather than karate (though did at least have a Japanese mentor) it wasn't exactly accurate anyway.

I saw the trailer yesterday and it doesn't look quite as awful as I expected. Not a complete remake, another of those flipping "re-imaginings". The scene with the fly and the chopsticks... priceless, and a joke only those familiar with the original would get.

[almostwitty]

It'd make more sense for the worldwide release to be called The Karate Kid (in terms of movie recognition) and for it to be called The Kung Fu Kid in Asia, where that sort of thing would be noticed...

[madmosh-uk.livejournal.com]

Check the comments on *any* web page showing the trailer. I've not seen a single one where people haven't picked up on the fact that it's not karate. Of course, every single one of those people could be Asian :)

[almostwitty]

well, featuring The Great Wall is a bit of a clue. Plus, just watching it you can tell that ain't the same fighting style from the 1984 film.

Which was made 25 years ago. Yowzers.

[madmosh-uk.livejournal.com]

Definitely a different fighting style. I mean using coats instead of paintbrushes? Radically different ;)

Having said that, "The Kung Fu Kid" does sound like a sidestep from "The Karate Kid". Like a branching off rather than a remake. I'd be surprised if anyone being told about "Kung Fu Kid" didn't instantly think that it sounded a little bit like that thing from the 80's. It also makes it sound less like a remake and more like it has at least a smidgin of originality.

Which, let's face it, it doesn't!

[almostwitty]

But then neither did the original Karate Kid. It's Rocky with karate.

[madmosh-uk.livejournal.com]

Haha! The 80s was the beginning of cinema running out of ideas. They really started whacking the sequels out then, didn't they?

Still bothers me that virtually every big film these days is a sequel, remake or adaptation from other media. And even the "new" stuff rarely has any new ideas within it.

[almostwitty]

Avatar isn't ;)

[anivair.livejournal.com]

It certainly is. It's Dune in hte forest. it's Dances with wolves meets Fern Gully. It's also good, but original it is not.

[almostwitty]

Original in the sense it's not a direct adaptation from another source.

C'mon, is there a piece of work that can't be distilled down into the seven/eight basic plots?

[anivair.livejournal.com]

Well, true, of course, but it needn't be so very much like Dune exactly. The unobtanium must flow.

[almostwitty]

There's no cool bit where a character fires a sonic gun made out of their fingers while going "Haaaa ZUM!". Ergo it's not Dune. ;)

[madmosh-uk.livejournal.com]

Nope, it's The Wedding Crashers with blue people.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

More like Rocky 2. Because he wins.

If Rocky had never thrown a punch before he started training in that movie.

Actually, it's nothing like rocky.

[almostwitty]

It is too! Elderly mentor guides and nurtures young man to become the fighter that rules them all!

[anivair.livejournal.com]

Now that I think about it, Karate Kid is really the ultimate 80's montage movie.

[almostwitty]

Noooo! You didn't use the M... word... that means I have to dig this out

[actionreplay.livejournal.com]

Well, I used to do karate and that was kung fu!

[anivair.livejournal.com]

Some of hte original was karate. the crane kick was definately TKD, as was some of the competition, but a lot of his blocks and attacks were pretty general MMA sorts. But this stuff is very clearly Kung Fu. And I'd be much happier with it if it were called somehting else.

[http://users.livejournal.com/rinny_/]

Not to sure what to make of this yet, The Karate Kid was yet another classic film that really didnt need remaking IMO tho the bit at the end with the fly swat did make me LOL

[mseuphrates.livejournal.com]

Me too. :) Totally.

[mseuphrates.livejournal.com]

Okay, I generally hate re-makes on principal. This? Looks pretty awesome. Wow.

[almostwitty]

But trailers are meant to make films look awesome. ;)

[twisted-times.livejournal.com]

That's the very Art of trailer-making.

[actionreplay.livejournal.com]

This looks like it could be reasonably good, as kung fu flicks go...