The Karate Kid DVD: Review By carl

The Karate Kid was one of the films that I grew up with as a kid because as someone who had experience with bullying I was able to relate to the plight of Daniel Laruso. For me the film was always about the wish fulfillment because at that age I would have given anything to give the bullies a taste of their own medicine. As an adult I am now able to see the bully's for what they were and yet watching the Karate Kid still manages to remind me of how it felt to be a kid chased down by the local bully's without really being able to do anything. The ending was still able to elate me and should still bring satisfaction to the hearts of bullied children everywhere.

How sad then that the films plot fails after even the slightest of criticisms. Being a serious childrens movie that deals with the subject of karate has meant that the writers have had to include a message about violence. The way they did this was by showing Daniel training for the Karate tournament by washing cars and painting fences, all the while Mr. Miyagi stands by telling him that karate is for defense and not attack. This is certainly a noble enough attempt but sadly it also means that the plot becomes ridiculous once you become an adult. I mean we're expected to believe that a kid, who's only experience with karate is a few picture books, paints a few fences, with no idea why he's doing it until a 10 second explanation at the end, is suddenly able to become a karate champion. Still you know what... I wouldn't have had it any other way.

The film's style retains an undeniable charm that enables it to compete with a lot of the other underdog movies of the time. This is all really down to Mr Miyagi though. The rest of the cast are all really there to build around this one character and the film would have been just as good with other actors in their roles. Still the character of Mr Miyagi is played

wonderfully by Noriyuki Morita who has had relatively few important roles outside of the karate kids. In this film he gave it his all though and made Mr. Miyagi one of the most memorable characters of my childhood. He has the characters Yoda like sarcasm down to a tee and was even able to make all of the training look moderately believable. This films strengths really do come down to him because, despite the ludicrous plot, hearing Mr Miyagi repeating the phrase "Wax on, wax off." always manages to raise a smile in me.

Ouch. Trailers for The Karate Kid 1 and 2, and selected filmography for the director and 3 main stars but that's it. They couldn't even provide the full filmography's just including enough to fill one page. Except for Elizabeth Shue who get's an extra half page. I have seen a few featurette's on the Karate Kid before and they could have included those at the very least.

Some nice video quality. Not earth shatteringly good but still better than the visuals of a lot of films from 20 years ago. The worst part about this disc is it is only presened in a "formatted to fit your screen" 4:3 aspect ratio. Where's the widescreen version?

The sound is clear enough, and the soundtrack comes through nicely.

The Karate Kid is still a very good film even now, but it sadly has been treated to a sub standard disk.