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Stills from the new Karate Kid movie

Apparently they have released some still photos of the new Hollywood remake of “The Karate Kid,” which will move the original story to China and replace Mr. Miyagi with Jackie Chan:

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.

View the rest of the stills here.

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34 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - December 12, 2009 at 11:29 am

Categories: Films Tags: Karate Kid

イブちゃん

The Kung-fu Kid?

lq

Please tell me they’re going to change the name. The last thing anyone needs is more confusion of Japanese and Chinese cultures…and whatever debt karate may owe to kung fu, they’re not the same thing now.

Chojiki

Chalk it up to the “average” American ignorance. Remember “Memoirs of a Geisha”? Let’s take an intrinsically Japanese thing “Geishas” and cast them with Chinese. No one will ever know!

Ajapa

All people involved will be a person of African descent ultimately, the source said. It is a secret… a top secret revealed only to the Japan Probe readers! The director hired a Chinese Ninja to assassinate me!
Robert

Well why is there too much of a problem with the chinese actors in memoirs? All japanese american actors are unkowns with the exception of george takei and I think he is too important to play Sayuri. You had to find a japanese actor that was fluent in english for the main audience to understand. Zhang Ziyi is considered one of the most beautiful women in the world. She is also not an unkown due to crouching tiger hidden dragon. But where was the argument for steve martin playing cleusau in the pink panther? He is not french from what I know.
Ajapa

Not so much problem. But the initial focus is on Karate and Kung-fu mix-up which would be intolerable. It’s more like many samurais and ninjas wandering around in the imperial palace of Qing dynasty.
thakingrocka

al pacino isn’t cuban, but people seemed to enjoy scarface. sean connery isn’t spanish or russian, but highlander and red october were relatively well received.
deanS

@thakingrocka- Sean Connery’s Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez is Egyptian by birth ,but he serves as Chief Metallurgist for Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (also King of Spain between 1516-1556).
MC Okii Dokii

Can anyone name a Japanese actor that speaks english and doesn`t have the tendency to overact!?

Aside from Watanabe Ken! Like seriously?! Anyone?

kevin

There is Chinese karate…..and Ken Watanabe was in Sayuri. Why would it matter if they casted Japanese or Chinese actresses in Memoirs of a Geisha anyway? Shit, a lot of European people play Americans in movies(and vise versa), but that’s fine because us white people are all the same right?You’re a tool Chojiki.

The Kung fu kid is already a movie, with that cool little Buddhist monk kid that kicks ass.

http://ddurgee.blogspot.com darg

Seems the makers don’t mind:

http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/03/29/karate-kid-remake-retitled-the-kung-fu-kid/

http://www.japanprobe.com/2009/12/12/stills-from-the-new-karate-kid-movie/#comments 東洋人

As far as i know, ppl who know karate are not bounded to the japanese only if u wanted to talk about logic or reality, whichever u prefer. Just like the old karate kid movie having 3 caucasian kids learning karate from the japanese, it is applicable to this new karate kid movie as well which have the black learning karate from the chinese. If u cant accept the fact that chinese could master karate, then that mean caucasian or black learning karate in the movie is not acceptable as well. I’m totally fine with that as long as they justify how jackie learned his karate in the movie no matter where the setting going to be, wheather it’s in japan or not in japan. Even that jackie is going to cast as a japanese, that’s fine too cause the fact is that chinese, korean and japanese look almost the same, just like caucasian or black around the world. They look almost similar even thay are not from the same country and culture.

fg

Is this like Hollywood’s portrayal of little Obama making friends with the Chinese to fight the bullies, presumably the Middle East?
Obama just made a speech for his Nobel Peace Prize saying there are wars that are morally justified, which was a disappointment for A-bomb survivors.
vonskippy

So apparently there are no more original ideas left to make new movies – they only have sucky old movies to add more suck to and remake them?

ij487i

To be fair, the original Karate Kid wasn’t THAT bad

revil

How high were you when you watched it?!

MC Okii Dokii

So i guess you re not going to watch Battleship: The movie? haha

The whole trend of shitty movies is because the kids of the 80s grew up and have their own kids now. Apparently, THIS is what we SHOULD want. Wholesome, feel good, quarter life crisis, middle of the road shiet, bond with your kid movies.

*when the 90s kids grow up you ll get more Power rangers and Masked Rider movies!!! You ll see!

Everyone should stock up on Kamen Rider memoribilia NOW!!!

http://www.sixmats.com sixmats

Oh man, Hollywood needs new blood badly.
RnR

Of course, with Obama in office, it had to be a Black kid.

Chojiki

To be fair, Will Smith’s kid was announced for the role in early/mid 2008. BEFORE Obama was elected.
Brian

Black kid is fine, but the point of the original Karate Kid was that he was a bullied kid — i.e., he wasn’t cool. This “Dre” fellow doesn’t look or sound to me what I would typically associate with a “nerdy, unpopular, bullied kid”.
http://dimesfornickels.wordpress.com/ William George

It’s a negro conspriacy! Quick! Into the bunker in the woods!

hushpuppies

william George…go bury yourself under a rock…what a jerk.

http://dimesfornickels.wordpress.com/ William George

Why, I’d love to go bury myself under a rock for you, hushpuppies!

But between RnR’s pointless bringing race politics into the discussion, and your inability to comprehend my sarcastic reply to it, I fear that there won’t be enough room under there for the three of us.

jjustinn

That kid is way too young to play a Daniel type character. He is really to young for the whole premise. Look at that picture and try seriously try to convince yourself that it doesn’t look absolutely retarded. Try it. The absurdity builds and builds.
yohoo7

This is funny, the kid looks exactly like Riley from the Boondock tv show. Plus, they have a point, mixing Japanese and Chinese culture like Disney’s Mulan. Who the hell writes this mush, “Let’s make a movie about people from the country called Asia about teaching a weak kid how to fight”.

Buster

Mulan? What was the Japanese Element there?

Jamus

man, they f**ked up real bad!
kimsei

I agree with most people here. Jaden Smith was not the right choice for this role. I am not taking his ethnicity as a point to rule him out. He is just not right for the role. However, I think I will like Jackie Chan in this role. He already looks really funny now. Can’t wait. A comment about the title. Since this is a “Karate Kid” remake, I guess they can’t rename the movie but taking it over to China does raise a lot of questions. But again, we are getting Jackie Chan so mheee. 2cents.

http://ddurgee.blogspot.com darg

I think the only way they could possibly salvage this one is to joke about it in the movie – they already have Jackie, a great comedian in the lead role. Just toss in some over-informed comments by Jaden like “umm… I always thought karate was a Japanese martial art that started in Okinawa?” and Jackie quipping back “you too smart… too much talk, no discipline! Now paint the fence!”

Seriously, going back and watching the original now, the comedy of Pat Morita’s words of wisdom are one of the biggest parts of what makes it still worth seeing.

KoreanSentry

Let’s welcome the Kung Foo Kid with Afro-American accent and Chinese accent. They should have hired better actor than Smith and Chan.
InJM

I wasn’t a fan of the first movie but this looks poor. I can see Jackie Chan playing a Mr. Miyage character but other than that, bleh.
MC Okii Dokii

the movie is being directed by Harold Zwart!

I also did Agent Cody Banks back in 2003 and Pink Panther 2.
(I didnt even know there was a Pink Panther 2!!)

That being said, I think the action scenes will probably be half decent and most of the humour to be cut and dried.
Josh

The movie’d be perfect if they replaced the kid with Steve Urkel. I’d pay to see that.

Stills from the new Karate Kid movie

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