* April 2, 2010, 3:00 PM ET
‘The Karate Kid’ or ‘The Kung Fu Kid’?
By Dean Napolitano
That’s the debate among movie fans over the remake of the 1984 film, “The Karate Kid.”
Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith star in the new version, also called “The Karate Kid,” which opens in the U.S. on June 11 and other global markets this summer. The trouble, however, is that Chan is a master of kung fu, a Chinese martial art, not karate, which originates from Japan. That fact has spawned a cottage industry of sorts, with numerous Web sites devoted to online discussions over the movie’s title.
The original, which starred Ralph Macchio and Noriyuki “Pat” Morita, tells the story of Mr. Miyagi, a Japanese handyman, who teaches teenager Daniel LaRusso karate in order to confront bullies. In the process, Miyagi becomes the boy’s mentor and father figure. Morita earned an Oscar nomination for best supporting actor for his performance, and the movie spawned three sequels.
The remake takes a 12-year-old kid and his mother from Detroit and transports them into a new life in China. There, too, the young Smith (son of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith, both of whom are among the movie’s producers) is teased and bullied by other kids before being taken under the wing of Chan’s Mr. Han character and taught kung fu.
The new movie’s detractors insist that the title of the remake should be “The Kung Fu Kid,” while fans eagerly awaiting the release don’t take issue with the name. Others just seem confused about the difference between Chinese kung fu and Japanese karate. (Kung fu and karate employ distinctly different movement techniques and each are steeped in their own cultural histories.)
On his official Web site, Chan himself refers to the movie as “The Kung Fu Kid” in postings last year during the filming. More recently, however, he acknowledged that the title is “The Karate Kid” but says the title in China will be “Kung Fu Kid.”
The movie’s official Web site explains it this way: Jaden Smith’s character, Dre Parker, knows some karate before arriving in China where he subsequently learns kung fu from Mr. Han.
But as one person wrote on Facebook: “We get that he knows a little Karate, but he learns Kung-fu from a Kung-fu teacher, fights against people who know Kung-fu in a Kung-fu tournament, in the land of…yep, you guessed it — Kung Fu! It’s like Batman being called Dog man, because he used to own a dog when he was younger.”
Still other online fans ask: Why mess with a proven brand name if you don’t have to?