The Karate Kid Re-make is being dubbed the The Kung-Fu Kid
Such a staple of my child hood, the whooping crane move, a pissed-off dragon dojo master, caressing his chin and looking at the bully of the film, Johnny, saying, “Sweep the Leg!”
The Karate Kid was a film that you just loved. The nerdy/awkward, Italian New Yorker who learns karate from his superintendent, an ex martial artist named Mr. Miyagi. Ohhh…how I loved the concept. Now 20 or 30 years later, like most staple films, we are getting a re-make.
We reported what seems like eons ago, that Jaden Smith, the son of “box-office hero”, Will Smith, would be the main character in the re-make. Then we reported that Jackie Chan would be playing the role of the Mr. Miyagi character. It just seemed like too much to handle and then something wonderful happened - The film’s title will not be The Karate Kid. Now being dubbed The Kung-Fu Kid, this re-make now seems like a conceptual revistation designed not to smear the gloriousness that was The Karate Kid series of the 1980s/90s.
According to First Showing,
“They don’t want to call it Karate Kid any more,” Chan said. “They want to call it The Kung Fu Kid.” He quickly changed topics and unfortunately didn’t add any more about as to why this change was being made. Our guess is that since this remake is a Chinese co-production and being shot in Beijing, it’s much more relevant today to use kung fu as opposed to karate (which isn’t as popular as it was back in the 80’s) and also more appropriate considering karate actually has its historical roots in kung fu. As in, story updates and Chinese influence caused them to change the title to be more culturally relevant and accurate.”
Like i mentioned before this is good news. It separates itself as a complete re-make and to me it just looks like a new film with the same concept. Now I officially have no reason to see the film not that I was planning on seeing it in the first place. I also agree with Mr. Billington, that Kung-Fu is more popular today than karate, which was immensely popular back in the 80s.
I wonder if they should have done a film called, The UFC Kid? I mean UFC is really popular right?
