The Karate Kid (2010 film)

The Karate Kid is a 2010 martial arts drama film directed by Harald Zwart and produced by Jerry Weintraub, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, James Lassiter, and Ken Stovitz, from a screenplay written by Christopher Murphey, based on a story conceived by Robert Mark Kamen, the writer of the first three Karate Kid films. It serves as the fifth film in The Karate Kid franchise, and stars Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan in the lead roles, with Taraji P. Henson, Wenwen Han, Zhenwei Wang, Luke Carberry, Zhensu Wu, Zhiheng Wang, and Yu Rongguang in supporting roles.

The film originally served as a loose remake set in different continuity and following a similar narrative as the original movie, but with the setting moved to China, and the martial art changed (despite the film's title) from karate to kung fu. It wasn't until the 2024 announcement of a new movie sequel that's in development for a 2025 release with Chan reprising his role, alongside Ralph Macchio reprising his own from the first three films and the television series Cobra Kai, that officially made this film is set in the same fictional universe and thus the second standalone sequel following The Next Karate Kid (1994).

The story follows 12-year-old Dre Parker (Smith) from Detroit, Michigan, who moves to Beijing, China with his widowed mother Sherry (Henson) and runs afoul of the neighborhood bully Cheng (Zhenwei Wang). He makes an unlikely ally in the form of an ageing maintenance man, Mr. Han (Chan), a kung fu master who teaches him the secrets of self-defence.

Principal photography of the film, which is an international co-production between China, Hong Kong and the United States, took place in Beijing, China, and filming began in July 2009 and ended on October 16. James Horner composed and conducted the film's score. Produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Overbrook Entertainment, JW Productions, and China Film Group, The Karate Kid was released theatrically worldwide on June 11, 2010, by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film earned $359 million on a $40 million budget.

Plot
12-year-old Dre Parker and his widowed mother Sherry move from Detroit to Beijing after she gets a job transfer at a car factory. There, Dre meets Meiying, a young violinist who reciprocates his attention. However, Cheng, a rebellious 15-year-old kung fu prodigy whose family is close to Meiying's, keeps them apart by constantly attacking, teasing, and antagonizing Dre. As revenge, Dre throws a bucket of dirty water over Cheng and his gang after a school field trip to the Forbidden City. Enraged, they chase, corner, and brutally beat Dre at an alley. Mr. Han, a maintenance man whom Dre knew previously after doing repairs in his apartment, intervenes and fends off the bullies, revealing himself to be a kung fu master.

Han heals Dre's injuries using the ancient Chinese medicine methods of fire cupping. He explains that Cheng and his friends are not inherently bad, but are taught to be merciless to their enemies by their teacher, Master Li. Intrigued, Dre asks if Han could teach him kung fu. At first, Han refuses, but eventually accompanies him to Li's Fighting Dragons studio to make peace. Li harshly rebuffs the peace offer and challenges Dre to a fight with Cheng. Han instead counters that Dre competes against all of Li's students at the upcoming kung fu tournament. He requests that his students leave Dre alone to train until then. Li begrudgingly accepts as long as Dre shows up at the tournament.

Han begins to teach Dre kung fu by emphasizing movements that apply to life in general. He conveys that serenity and maturity, not punches and power, are the keys to mastering kung fu. Han makes Dre repeatedly take off and pick up his jacket. Through this, Dre develops muscle memory. Han takes him to a Taoist temple in the Wudang Mountains, where Dre witnesses a woman making a cobra reflect her movements and later drinks the water from a Taoist well. After many weeks of training, Han gives Dre a day off. Dre goes to see Meiying, persuading her to cut school for a day of fun. This makes her nearly late for a violin audition, which was initially supposed to be next day but was moved up, and her parents thus deem Dre a bad influence, forbidding Meiying from ever seeing him again.

Dre then heads to see Han, but finds him drunk and depressed, smashing a car he was working on. Han explains that he crashed the same car years ago, killing his wife Zhang and 10-year-old son Gong Gong. Every year, he destroys the car on the anniversary of the accident and spends the rest of the year fixing it to punish himself. Dre decides to train harder and help his teacher overcome his trauma. Han assists Dre in writing and reciting a note of apology in Mandarin to Meiying and her father, who accepts Dre's apology. In return, he said that Meiying promised to attend the tournament to support Dre and that their family never breaks their promises.

At the tournament, the under-confident Dre starts defeating all of his opponents. Enraged, Li orders Liang, one of his more sympathetic students and the least vicious of Dre's tormentors, to injure Dre in the semifinals. Liang reluctantly does so by delivering a series of crippling blows to Dre's leg. He gets disqualified as a result, and Dre advances to the finals against Cheng. Dre pleads with Han to heal his leg via the fire cupping method. Realizing this is more about overcoming Dre's fear than anything else, Han complies.

The final match starts. On Li's orders, Cheng attacks Dre's injured leg. This causes Dre to lose balance. Dre struggles but manages to get up and uses the snake stance he saw at the temple. The move is successful, and Dre catches Cheng with a kick to the head, defeating him. Dre wins the tournament, earning the respect of Cheng and his classmates. Cheng, instead of the presenter, gives Dre the trophy, and all the Fighting Dragon students bow down to Han, accepting him as their new master, leaving Li defeated.

Cast

 * Jaden Smith as Dre Parker . Based on Daniel LaRusso.
 * Jackie Chan as Mr. Han, a Chinese maintenance man and Kung Fu master who becomes Dre's mentor. Based on Mr. Miyagi.
 * Taraji P. Henson as Sherry Parker, Dre's mother. Based on Lucille LaRusso.
 * Wenwen Han (韩雯雯) as Meiying, a violinist and Dre Parker's love interest. Based on Ali Mills.
 * Zhenwei Wang as Cheng Based on Johnny Lawrence.
 * Yu Rongguang as Master Li (李师傅 Lǐ-shīfu). Main antagonist in this film. Based on John Kreese.
 * Luke Carberry as Harry, a boy who befriends Dre. Based on Freddy Fernandez.
 * Shijia Lü (吕世佳) as Liang, a friend and classmate of Cheng's. Based on Bobby Brown.
 * Ji Wang (王 姬) as Mrs. Po, the principal of Dre's new school.
 * Zhensu Wu (武振素) as Meiying's father. Based on Mr. Mills.
 * Zhiheng Wang (王志恒) as Meiying's mother. Based on Mrs. Mills.
 * Yi Zhao (赵 毅) as Zhuang, a friend and classmate of Cheng's. Based on Dutch.
 * Zhang Bo (张 博) as Song (宋), a friend and classmate of Cheng's. Based on Tommy.
 * Cameron Hillman as Mark
 * Ghye Samuel Brown as Oz (奥兹)

Development
A remake of the original Karate Kid entered the development in the late 2008. Variety reported at the time that the new film, to be produced by Will Smith, "has been refashioned as a star vehicle for Jaden Smith" and that it would "borrow elements from the original plot, wherein a bullied youth learns to stand up for himself with the help of an eccentric mentor". Jackie Chan told a Los Angeles Chinatown concert crowd in 2009 that he was leaving for Beijing to film the remake as Jaden Smith's teacher.

Despite maintaining the original title, the 2010 remake does not feature karate, which is from Okinawa (Japan), but focuses on the main character learning kung fu in China. Chan told interviewers that film cast members generally referred to the film as The Kung Fu Kid, and he believed the film would only be called The Karate Kid in America, and The Kung Fu Kid in China. This theory held true in the People's Republic of China, where the film is titled The Kung Fu Dream. In Japan and South Korea, the film is titled Best Kid after the local title of the 1984 film in both countries.

Sony had considered changing the title of the film, but Jerry Weintraub, one of the producers, rejected the idea. Weintraub was also the producer of the original Karate Kid.

Filming
The Chinese government granted the filmmakers access to the Forbidden City, the Great Wall of China, and the Wudang Mountains. On some occasions, the filmmakers had to negotiate with residents who were not accustomed to filming activity. The film began filming in July 2009 and ended on October 16, 2009.

Music
Icelandic composer Atli Örvarsson was originally hired to score the film, but he was replaced by American composer James Horner. The Karate Kid marked Horner's return to scoring after his work on the 2009 film Avatar. The score was released on June 15, 2010.

Justin Bieber and Jaden Smith recorded the film's official theme song, "Never Say Never", written by Adam Messinger, Bieber, Travis Garland, Omarr Rambert, and others, and produced by The Messengers (Adam Messinger and Nasri Atweh). The music video was released on May 31, 2010.

The film started with "Do You Remember" by Jay Sean featuring Sean Paul and Lil Jon. "Remember the Name" by Fort Minor was used in the trailer to promote the movie. Parts of the song, "Back in Black" by AC/DC and "Higher Ground" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, were also used in the film. The song "Hip Song" by Rain is used for promotion in the Asian countries and it appeared in the trailer. The music video was released on May 22, 2010. "Bang Bang" by K'naan featuring Adam Levine and "Say" by John Mayer are also featured in the movie. It also features Lady Gaga's "Poker Face", Flo Rida's "Low" and Gorillaz' "Dirty Harry" (being performed in Chinese). An abbreviated form of Frédéric Chopin's Nocturne No. 20 is featured, arranged for strings, in Meiying's violin audition scene, along with Sergei Rachmaninoff's piano transcription of "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Release
The film premiered May 26, 2010, in Chicago, with appearances by Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith, and a brief surprise appearance from Will Smith.

In the Mainland China version of the film, scenes of bullying were shortened by the censors, and a kissing scene is removed. John Horn of the Los Angeles Times said that the editing ultimately resulted in "two slightly different movies".

Home media
The Karate Kid was released on DVD and Blu-ray on October 5, 2010, by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and it was released on Mastered in 4K Blu-ray on May 14, 2013.

Critical response
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 66% based on 211 reviews, and an average rating of 6.17/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "It may not be as powerful as the 1984 edition, but the 2010 Karate Kid delivers a surprisingly satisfying update on the original". Metacritic, another review aggregator, assigned the film a weighted average score of 61 out of 100 based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, the highest of the franchise.

Ann Hornaday described Jaden Smith as a "revelation", who "proves that he's no mere beneficiary of dynastic largesse. Somber, self-contained and somehow believable as a kid for whom things don't come easily, he never conveys the sense that he's desperate to be liked. Which is precisely why The Karate Kid winds up being so likable itself". Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it a positive review, rating the film three and a half out of four stars, and calling it "a lovely and well-made film that stands on its own feet". Claudia Puig of USA Today and Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly each rated the film a 'B', stating "the chemistry between Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan grounds the movie, imbuing it with sincerity and poignance" and that the film is "fun and believable".

Simon Abrams of Slant Magazine gave the film one and a half stars and noted that "the characters just aren't old enough to be convincing in their hormone-driven need to prove themselves" and "this age gap is also a huge problem when it comes to the range that these kids bring to the project" and noted the portrayal of the child antagonist Cheng includes an "overblown and overused grimace, which looks like it might have originally belonged to Dolph Lundgren, looks especially silly on a kid that hasn't learned how to shave yet". Finally, Abrams noted: "What's most upsetting is Dre's budding romance with Meiying. These kids have yet to hit puberty and already they're swooning for each other".

Box office
The film was released on June 11, 2010, by Columbia Pictures to 3,663 theaters across the United States. The Karate Kid topped the box office on its opening day, grossing $18.8 million, and in its opening weekend, grossing $56 million in North America, beating The A-Team, which grossed an estimated $9.6 million on the same opening day, and $26 million in its opening weekend. It closed on September 18, after 101 days of release, grossing $176 million in the US and Canada along with an additional $182 million overseas for a worldwide total of $359 million, on a moderate budget of $40 million.

Awards and nominations
People's Choice Awards 2011 2011 Kids' Choice Awards 2011 MTV Video Music Aid Japan 2011 MTV Movie Awards 32nd Young Artist Awards 2010 Teen Choice Awards
 * Favorite Family Movie (Nominated)
 * Favorite On-Screen Team – Jaden Smith & Jackie Chan (Nominated)
 * Favorite Action Star – Jackie Chan (Won)
 * Favorite Movie (Won)
 * Favorite Buttkicker (Jackie Chan) (Won)
 * Favorite Movie Actor (Jaden Smith) (Nominated)
 * Best Song from a Movie ("Never Say Never" by Justin Bieber featuring Jaden Smith) (Nominated)
 * Biggest Badass Star (Jaden Smith) (Nominated)
 * Best Leading Young Actor in a Feature Film (Jaden Smith) (Won)
 * Choice Summer: Movie (Nominated)

Additional films
Shortly after the film's release, a sequel was announced to be in development, with Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan and Taraji P. Henson all reprising their roles. Breck Eisner was initially set to direct, but by June 2014, the film had gained new writers and lost Eisner as the director. In April 2017, Eisner returned as director, but in October, Chan stated that the initial script for the film did not work well.

In August 2023, it was reported that Jackie Chan would be reprising his role from the 2010 film in a new "Karate Kid" film. By November of the same year, Chan officially joined the cast alongside Ralph Macchio in their respective roles as Mr. Han and Daniel LaRusso. The studio announced a world-wide open casting call for an actor to star as the movie's iteration of the titular character. Jonathan Entwistle will serve as director from a script written by Rob Lieber, where the plot will involve a teen from China moving to the east coast and beginning to study martial arts. Karen Rosenfelt will produce the film, with principal photography scheduled to commence in spring 2024. Originally scheduled to be released on June 7, 2024, the film was delayed to December 13, 2024, in part as a result of the 2023 writers and actors strikes.