Cast Jackie Chan
Jaden Smith
Taraji P. Henson
Wenwen Han
Rongguang Yu
Zhenwei Wang
Screenwriter
Michael Soccio
Director
Harald Zwart
Running Time
140 minutes
12-year-old Dre Parker could've been the most popular kid in Detroit, but his mother's latest career move has landed him in China. Dre immediately falls for his classmate Mei Ying—and the feeling is mutual—but cultural differences make such a friendship impossible. Even worse, Dre's feelings make an enemy of the class bully, Cheng. In the land of kung fu, Dre knows only a little karate, and Cheng puts “the karate kid” on the floor with ease. With no friends in a strange land, Dre has no one to turn except maintenance man Mr. Han, who is secretly a master of kung fu. As Han teaches Dre that kung fu is not about punches and parries, but maturity and calm, Dre realizes that facing down the bullies will be the fight of his life. (Sony Pictures)
I was surprised by how good this was. It outstrips the original in almost every way except maybe "wax on, wax off" beats "jacket on, jacket off" because it's visually clearer how that works. It was surprisingly violent and some of that must have been cgi aided but I didn't spot it although the final blow seemed odd because surely they weren't close enough for that to have really connected.
