So I actually debased myself and finally watched the trailer for this movie. And I can accurately say that not only is the movie being set in China, Dre’s master is a Chinese man, but the martial art he learns is in fact, a Chinese martial art (which one I don’t know exactly, I’m not quite as familiar with Chinese Martial arts as I am with Japanese martial arts). I know this because I saw part of the training montage and recognized one of the moves as not only being a move from either Kung Fu or another Chinese martial art, but it is most definitely, 100% not Karate.
Now it is official. Not only do the setting and characters have nothing to do with Karate, but now we’ve confirmed that the martial art is in fact not Karate. So…again, why not call it the Kung-Fu Kid? This movie already has nothing to do with the originals, why do they insist on continuing this farce?
Well, the obvious answer is because if they don’t call it the Karate Kid then it will bomb worse than it already will. Because now all they have going for themselves is brand name recognition.
Here’s a thought, before I watch this movie, I’ll watch the original Karate Kid, then I’ll do a comparison, Daniel vs. Dre, Karate vs. …not Karate. (PS: While I have no real loyalty to the Karate Kid as a fan, I do have some loyalty to Karate, seeing as ho it’s my martial art of choice, so it’ll mostly just be a martial arts fan-boy rant.)