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1. Last week I re-watched Karate Kid, in preparation for finally checking out Cobra Kai. The original Karate Kid is a stone-cold classic: it gets an A.
I was told that Cobra Kai season 3 is full of references to the second movie, so I re-watched it last night before proceeding.
I was told that Cobra Kai season 3 is full of references to the second movie, so I re-watched it last night before proceeding.
2. I started studying Japanese about 20 years ago, and I probably hadn't seen this movie for close to 10 years before that. How does it hold up?
Karate Kid 2 was not bad. Nowhere near as good as the classic first one, but a respectable B I guess.
Karate Kid 2 was not bad. Nowhere near as good as the classic first one, but a respectable B I guess.
3. Clearly a silly choice to have 98% of the dialogue in English, but it was a kids movie and I guess Hollywood wouldn't believe kids can read subtitles.
The tiny bit of Japanese dialogue they have is terrible, which is less forgivable.
The tiny bit of Japanese dialogue they have is terrible, which is less forgivable.
4. Still, even though the setting is very clearly a recreation of Okinawa and the film's Okinawa it feels inexplicably like it's set at least 50 years before the film's 1985 setting, there is at least some gestures toward authenticity-which is at least above par for the period.
5. And speaking of Okinawa, maybe my favorite thing about this movie is that it contains several lines that strongly imply that Okinawa is its own country, presumably kind of near Japan, but contains not a single statement that indicates that Okinawa is part of Japan.
6. This is actually something I noticed in the first one too: that nobody ever talks about Japan, only Okinawa.
Karate Kid (1+2 collectively) is definitely responsible for me thinking that Okinawa and Japan were different countries when I was a kid.
Karate Kid (1+2 collectively) is definitely responsible for me thinking that Okinawa and Japan were different countries when I was a kid.
7. I don't know exactly when I learned that this wasn't the case, but it might have been when I studied karate in middle school, at a dojo that taught gōjū-ryū (剛柔流), the historical analogue to miyagi-do. (note: I was terrible; this is not bragging)
8. That dojo was an affiliate of Jundokan International, the primary school of goju-ryu karate, still based in Naha, Okinawa, Japan. The head of Jundokan Montclair (I grew up in Montclair, New Jersey) was Ron Gaeta, whose day job was as a cop in the nearby town of Wayne.
9. Gaeta Sensei was like a hybrid of Sensei Kreese and Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid series: tough on the good students but forgiving of the bad ones. So, he beat the shit out of my friend Steve, who eventually earned a black belt, but ignored me, a nerd who was bad at karate.
10. Gaeta had been trained by the founder and head of Jundokan International, Chinen Teruo (知念輝夫), who had learned gōjū-ryū at the dojo of Miyagi Chōjun (宮城長順), who had created the style, and whom Mr. Miyagi of the films is named after.
11. Chinen had been taught another style of Okinawan karate by his father, but began training at the Miyagi dojo because his family lived literally on the same block, but Miyagi was then already elderly so Chinen mainly studied with Miyagi's senior pupil, Eiichi Miyazato.
12. One day, Chinen Sensei came to visit our local Jundokan on one of his tours of affiliates around the world.
I remember thinking, this friendly, small, old man radiates strong "I could kill everyone in the room without breaking a sweat" vibes.
I remember thinking, this friendly, small, old man radiates strong "I could kill everyone in the room without breaking a sweat" vibes.
13. In fact, Chinen Sensei was not yet an old man. Born in 1941, he would have been 52 or 53—basically the same age as Pat Morita when he shot the first Karate Kid.
Both looked far older to me than they were, but I was a kid. But Chinen Sensei sure did remind me of Mr. Miyagi.
Both looked far older to me than they were, but I was a kid. But Chinen Sensei sure did remind me of Mr. Miyagi.
14. And this makes a lot of sense. Robert Mark Karen, screenwriter of Karate Kid, trained in Gōjū-ryū, with a former student of Miyagi Chojun. Karen began training around 1950, so Chinen was clearly not his teacher, but did they share a karate sensei? https://www.si.com/media/2018/05/01/karate-kid-movie-oral-history-cobra-kai
