The Karate Kid, Part II at least tried. In the end it may have been pretty much beholden to the Karate Kid formula (already codified by Rocky, also by director John G. Avildsen), but it did at least test the limits of what that formula could do. New stories and themes were toyed with, even if the movie did ultimately cow to replaying events from the first movie in a Japanese setting.Despite the same cast and crew returning yet again to the Karate Kid well, The Karate Kid, Part III makes no efforts whatsoever to distinguish itself from the first movie. This is the worst case scenario I’d feared for the first sequel. They have simply remade the story from the first movie, with the same characters, conflicts, and even the same settings. The only changes made, on a surface level, are ways to justify how these are the same things happening a year later. Otherwise, Part III is basically The Karate Kid, minus all the heart, warmth and discovery. In other words, the only thing it still has to offer is a cinematic coronary for fans of a very particular breed of 80s cheese.
Much like Part II, Part III opens with a replay of the footage Part II replayed at its opening, all with cheap “Asiany” music. Most of this footage is being seen for the third time in as many movies. There is a reemphasis this time, on the Cobra Kai elements…Uh oh. That was the worst thing about the first film, so it doesn’t augur well for this thing to harp upon that. The only footage from Part II (and pretty much the only real attention paid to that movie) is to replay in full the parking lot sequence that opened that film. You know, the scene where Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita, old footage showing how much he’s fallen) trounces John Kreese (Martin Kove, no worse than before, which was pretty bad). All this following the victory of Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Maccio, a man nearing his thirties playing a kid under eighteen) at the All Valley Karate Championships.
The new footage rejoins John Kreese roughly six months and one mediocre sequel later, mourning his pathetic existence in his now-defunct Cobra Kai dojo. It seems Kreese’s karate business dried up following his student’s second place finishing at the tournament, because surely no one ever cared about Kreese’s underhanded karate techniques prior to that. As a result, Kreese does the most blandly villainous thing he can think of – plot revenge against Daniel, a kid who was simply defending himself against Kreese’s stupid aggression in the first place. But since Martin Kove isn’t available for an entire movie (and is rather sad in the audience’s eyes now), primary villain duties shall go to Kreese’s old army buddy Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith, in his first role in a lackluster career that ended with Timecop 2). Silver is a terrible cartoon of a bad guy, making Soto from Part II seem like a fleshed out human being. Basically, Silver is a millionaire businessman made wealthy from dumping toxic waste (a weird 80s hang-up), and who – gasp – listens to classical music. The dastard! He also lives in Frank Lloyd Wright’s lovely Ennis-Brown house near Griffith, which I only bring up due to my unrelated architectural nerdery.
It turns out, in a bit of retconning justifying Silver’s involvement, that Silver is in fact the primary owner of the old Cobra Kai dojo. Thus he is perfectly willing to fully give up his evil villainous business practices to plot an elaborate, multi-month revenge against a seventeen-year-old kid. Kreese, for his part, shall sit out the majority of this movie in “Tahiti,” or at least a vaguely tropical movie set. Silver sees Kreese off at LAX at the exact same minute that Daniel and Miyagi return from their middlebrow adventures in Okinawa. There is no conflict or anything that stems from this. It is simply a cheap directorial shorthand that indicates Avildsen, much like everyone else involved, is operating well below his peak.
First order of business with Miyagi and Daniel – cutting away unwanted plot threads from the first movie. For one thing, Miyagi’s old apartment building is being demolished, so now Miyagi is free to follow whatever new story they devise for him. And for Daniel’s mother, already a bizarre nonentity in his life, well, she’s too busy attending to her dying “Uncle Louie” to have anything to do with her minor son’s life. By the way, Louie’s death rattles are played for laughs here, a far cry from Miyagi’s dying father from the previous film. And what about Kumiko, Daniel’s new Japanese girlfriend? She’s decided off screen to stay in Japan, so that’s a big middle finger to the few people who actually care about how romance subplots carry over from film to film.
Lengthy scenes chronicle Miyagi and Daniel back at home, where Miyagi talks of retirement while tending to a bonsai tree. In regards to the series’ central characters of Daniel and Miyagi, they are now pale caricatures of what they were before. All the mystery and interest surrounding Mr. Miyagi is long gone, so he is reduced to being essentially an anthropomorphic fortune cookie. So much for the first movie demolishing Japanese stereotypes. And Daniel, per Macchio’s performance, is now suddenly the sort of “fuhgedaboutit” Jersey boy archetype that I don’t think actually exists in real life. I’ll just go ahead and say it now – both of these guys were nominated for a Golden Raspberry award for their performances. You know, the anti-Oscars, whose judgment just as questionable and self-serving as the real Academy. Oh yeah, this whole movie was nominated for five Raspberries, losing Worst Picture to the legendary Star Trek V, which I’ll have to look at eventually.
Daniel gets it into his head that what Mr. Miyagi really needs to do is to open a bonsai tree shop. Oh…kay. This is apparently Miyagi’s lifelong dream, which is why we’re only hearing anything about it now in the third movie. Daniel goes ahead and buys a rotten old structure to serve as the shop, without once consulting Miyagi. Bonsai shall become the central metaphor in this movie, with lengthy Miyagian platitudes equating Daniel with a tree – platitudes that he isn’t supposed to understand until the final act, naturally. And everyone pronounces “bonsai” in a way I’ve never heard before, which is probably more my problem than theirs.
Meanwhile, our hammy villain Silver is one tenth of the way into enacting his over-complicated revenge against a boy he’s never met. Step one, selecting a ratty old truck. Step two is to select a young punk to be the primary antagonist against Daniel, because each movie needs one of these. The kid this time is one Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan), “Karate’s Badboy (sic).” He is essentially the Clubber Lang to the Apollo Creed that was The Karate Kid’s Johnny. And much like Rocky III, this is pretty much an excuse to artificially up the stakes without changing the nature of the story.
The agreement Silver comes to with Barnes is this: If Barnes defeats Daniel in the upcoming All Valley Karate Championship, Silver will give him a 50% stake in his planned Cobra Kai franchise. A single line of dialogue suggests Barnes shall live with Silver in the Ennis-Brown house…Another movie could make this set up interesting. We could explore these two as the dark side of Daniel and Miyagi, an obvious choice, or they could at least go the gay route or something. Oh wait…family film.
Daniel and Miyagi cultivate bonsai specimens along the California coast, affording some cinematography that aims for “beautiful” but instead just hits “Thomas Kincaid.” Miyagi provides chief exposition, revealing that he once brought a true bonsai tree to the States when he fled Okinawa (Miyagi did a lot of important things during that one bolt-in-the-night). This tree is now hidden in the wilds of the California coast, in a place called the Devil’s Cauldron. We have a brief scene of Daniel and Miyagi training their karate kata at the beach, which is simply a shot-for-shot remake of the same stuff from The Karate Kid. Yes, this is the kind of sequel that simply echoes earlier things without doing its own work. It cheapens the original, and lessens the impact of these once-great moments.
Working in the bonsai shop-to-be, Daniel announces his interest to compete in the upcoming tournament. (This movie, made 5 years after the first, is supposed to take place less than a year later. Uh oh.) Miyagi is against this, feeling tournament competition lessens the true meaning of karate – Again, in the first film this would come across as a genuine attempt to accurately portray real karate, but here it just comes across as a plot point. Apparently if Daniel does compete in the championship, as the defending champ he will only have to fight in the final match. This is completely in opposition to what we saw in The Karate Kid, where defending champ Johnny had to rise through the ranks just like Daniel did. But I guess it streamlines the climactic tournament sequence this time out, a godsend to lazy filmmakers.
Daniel heads across to the local pottery shop, as a pretence to get bonsai pots. It’s really a chance for Daniel to meet Jessica Andrews (Robyn Lively), who would be his token love interest for this entry, except she reveals pretty much right away that she has a boyfriend back in Ohio, and shall be returning there soon. So instead Jessica’s purpose in this movie is lessened even further. She is simply Daniel’s friend, and a blatant chance to squeeze a girl demographic into the movie. Because women love bland nonentities as their avatars. Nonetheless, Daniel sets up a date with Jessica. A non-romantic date.
Back at home following a shower, Daniel goofs off non-onanastically while the wicked Silver creeps around the garage like a cat burglar. Some multi-millionaire businessman, eh? He discovers the next plot token evidence for his vaguely-defined revenge. Then, in a really stupid gag, he hides in a chimney as Miyagi convinces Daniel to burn his tournament application in the fireplace. Again, some multi-millionaire businessman, eh?
These Karate Kid movies always take awhile for their plots to get going. The inciting incident this time occurs during Daniel’s “date” with Jessica. While showing her the bonsai shop, Barnes storms in to terrorize him, accompanied by generic thug Snake (played by director Avildsen’s son Jonathan). Barnes demands that Daniel face him in the tournament. Daniel refuses, so the bad guys smash up the shop a little, as is their wont.
Accompanied by the generic “Asiany” music, Daniel and Miyagi pose in their yard when Silver arrives, playing as a decent man. He claims that Kreese is “dead” (cardiac arrest), and he has come as Kreese’s friend to apologize to Miyagi on Kreese’s behalf. Here is where Silver uses what little he’s learned about Miyagi to very little purpose, rendering his earlier actions a little redundant. Then Silver leaves, his evil seed planted like an evil little bonsai tree.
Okay, this plot is going nowhere, so let’s just replay the scene where Barnes and his thugs threaten Daniel and Jessica in the bonsai shop. This time they are a little more aggressive, threatening to mutilate Jessica for no good goddamn reason. Daniel relents, so he earns a beating. And anytime Daniel is in trouble, someone apparently lights the Miyagi Signal in the sky, since Miyagi is suddenly there to save his buttock. Even though the central plot thread concerns Miyagi’s pacifism, these movies keep finding easier and easier excuses for him to beat up teenagers. As we’ve all wanted to do at one point or another. This stupid scene continues to simply be loud, as Barnes et al screech off in a convertible.
Brief dialogue suggests, by the way, that for whatever reason the police cannot get involved with this storyline. Because otherwise, you know, there’d be no movie.
Well, Miyagi’s shop is now busted, and he’s apparently broke, so Daniel sees to it that he shall save Miyagi. How? By digging up his special Japanese bonsai tree on the coast, without any permission or consultation, in order to sell it! Daniel, once so sensitive and thoughtful, is now the plot’s tool. Daniel and Jessica head off to Miyagi’s Devil’s Cauldron, a steep, craggy coastal sinkhole. The slope’s slopes, if I can make a pun that’s both awful and racist. They climb down to the cherished tree, with a little “suspense” where it seems Jessica might fall to her death. Of course it’s her, the girl, who’s in danger, even though she’s the one with the rock climbing experience. And then Barnes makes another welcome appearance, pulling up the couple’s ropes. He offers to save them if Daniel signing the tournament application. (An in-film contradiction: Earlier, Daniel needed Miyagi’s signature to compete in the tournament, when he was eager to fight, but now apparently only Daniel’s signature is needed. Sure.) To make a lengthy scene short, Barnes rescues the couple, and Daniel signs the app. Then Barnes kills the bonsai tree for good measure.
Daniel rushes the poor tree to Miyagi, who sets about mending it back to health. Learning of the tournament, Miyagi refuses to train Daniel this time – I don’t have the energy to determine the specifics of why he differs from The Karate Kid, where Miyagi was happy to provide training. By the way, Silver’s revenge scheme is dependent upon Miyagi’s refusal here, so isn’t it convenient that’s exactly what Miyagi does?
Training alone, Daniel runs into Darth Vader, er, Terry Silver, who rops further evil seeds to set himself up as the kid’s sensei. At one point Silver “fights” Barnes when he once again shows up to harass Daniel. Soon Daniel is all set to train with Silver in the old Cobra Kai dojo. This is the one moment where the movie threatens to do something unique with the series story, allying Daniel with the Kai. But look at that running time left. There’s not nearly enough time to treat this idea properly, especially when we still need to witness Daniel reconcile with Miyagi and fight in the tournament.
Anyway, the content of Daniel’s tutelage under Silver, the patented “Quick Silver” regiment, simply boils down to this – cheap moves. Daniel is taught to fight dirty, a pretext that gets him to endlessly pound on a hard wooden dummy. This is to slowly destroy Daniel’s body, a scheme which rather backfires since Miyagi just goes right ahead and uses his balms to heal Daniel every night anyway. Throughout this portion of the story, Daniel has predictable arguments with Miyagi. It’s hard to give these scenes much credence, for the characters are just acting as the plot demands, and distinctly not behaving as they would have in the original.
Let’s just skip ahead to the next major development. Daniel accompanies Jessica on another of their non-dates, this time to a very 80s dance club. This movie is surprisingly lacking in montages to cheesy 80s ballads, so instead the requisite cheesy theme song is diagetic, performed by a middle-aged club band. While Daniel dances, Silver pays off some random jerk to start a fight. Daniel beats him using Violence, breaking the jerk’s nose in the process. Give in to the Dark Side, my son! All according to whatever plan Silver has, which at this point apparently involves causing Daniel to run back to Miyagi seeking forgiveness.
Miyagi accepts Daniel’s apology, responding with scripted platitudes that bring the “Daniel is a bonsai tree” metaphor to the fore. The injured bonsai tree, we see, is now going to survive, because it “have strong root, just like you, Daniel-san.”
So Daniel, in another example of plot-induced stupidity, decides to go confront Silver right now, alone in the Cobra Kai dojo at midnight. Clever kid, eh? At this point the evil, evil Silver opts to reveal his ultimate deception to Daniel, for as elaborate revenge schemes go, he’s no Count of Monte Cristo. Barnes arrives, acting as Silver’s student, and now Kreese is here too, since Martin Kove was suddenly available for a little more shooting. These three men then start beating Daniel, macho men that they are, little realizing that doing so simply summons Miyagi. ‘Cause that’s not an overused plot mechanic. And here’s passive, non-violent Miyagi now, thrashing these men within an inch of their cumulative lives. Miyagi easily beats Silver, making Daniel’s later confrontation against the least of these guys (Barnes) extremely anticlimactic. And now, out of the blue, Miyagi finally announces that he shall train Daniel. I no longer have the wherewithal to question the character motivation for that, so I’ll chalk it up to formula.
But there’s hardly any time left in this movie, so Miyagi’s training montage is limited to a few shots of him and Daniel practicing their kata on the beach surrounded by seagulls, those winged rats of the sea. Peaceful music plays as Barnes trains violently in the Cobra Kai dojo. They were going for one of those calm music/creepy image juxtaposition things here, but it just seems like they left in someone’s mistake.
Tournament time! The exact same stuff we saw in The Karate Kid, presented with far less verve or energy. Suddenly it’s already the final match, which Barnes has easily ascended to – it’s a good thing Barnes made it here, seeing as it’s another essential step in Silver’s foolish revenge. As a prelude to the fight, Silver delivers a speech to the over-enthusiastic crowd. We learn Silver is president of “Dinotox Industries,” which I’m glad to know. Meanwhile, peddlers hand out “No Mercy” T-shirts with the Cobra Kai logo, further cementing the incredible force Daniel shall have to defeat here.
Now it’s time to Silver’s ingenious plan to play out. That plan? Have Barnes defeat Daniel in the tournament…That’s it?! How’d this guy ever get to be financially successful? Actually, there’s a little more. Barnes will also injure Daniel as much as humanly possible, for the All Valley Karate Championships retains the world’s most incompetent sports officials outside of the MLB. So that’s exactly what Barnes does, endlessly smacking Daniel about until the Sudden Death round – another new rule in the tournament this year, thrown in awkwardly for this specific plot to work.
This is the stage where Daniel would normally get some final encouragement from Miyagi, then break out this movie’s brand new Special Move in order to win. The only problem is that this movie has totally forgotten to include a Special Move. So, post encouragement, Daniel just goes right ahead and – beats Barnes by caveat. He wins solely because the movie says he has to win, with little to no justification given. It’s amazing how much they’ve screwed up the Karate Kid formula here. And in order to echo Rocky yet again, the final shot is a freeze frame of Daniel embracing Miyagi. Presumably Silver’s Cobra Kai franchise will not come to fruition, but who’s to know for sure…Whatever.
Cheesy final credits song – “Listen to Your Heart”
This movie was pretty poorly received, and even audiences could tell there was little purpose to continuing this franchise. On top of poor reviews, The Karate Kid, Part III made only a third of what The Karate Kid made, and a fourth of The Karate Kid, Part II. Combine that with the movie’s Raspberry nominations, and it’s clear sentiment had strayed from the series.
Not every movie, regardless of quality, deserves to become a franchise. Franchises can be founded on different ideas, formulas and principles, with varying degrees of longevity. In the case of The Karate Kid, the sequels have cemented a formula for Daniel-san and Miyagi. The obvious problem here, and a major stumbling block for enjoying Part III, is that actors age. Macchio was already fairly old when the first Karate Kid came out, and five years later he’s still expected to play the exact same age. Making matters worse, the actor playing Silver is actually younger than Macchio. Yet he’s supposed to be a contemporary Kreese’s. These problems exacerbate the longer one dwells on them, and half of these problems were avoidable. Despite the same director, writer, etc., I get the sense that no one really cared about this movie. It just sort of happened.
And whatever did become of Miyagi’s bonsai business?
Related posts:
• No. 1 The Karate Kid (1984)
• No. 2 The Karate Kid, Part II (1986)
• No. 4 The Next Karate Kid (1994)
• No. 5 The Karate Kid (2010)
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