| The Karate Kid | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 149 reviews)
Sales Rank: 21370
Category: DVD
Actors: Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Elisabeth Shue, Martin Kove, Randee Heller
Director: John G. Avildsen
Publisher: Sony Pictures
Studio: Sony Pictures
Brand: Sony
Label: Sony Pictures
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), French (Dubbed)
Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 127 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
DVD Layers: 1
DVD Sides: 1
Picture Format: Pan & Scan
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: COLD04069D
ISBN: 0800179501
UPC: 043396040694
EAN: 9780800179502
ASIN: 0800179501
Release Date: April 14, 1998
Theatrical Release Date: June 22, 1984
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 This entertaining movie offers wonderful life lessons for young people! December 9, 2007
The Karate Kid, starring Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Martin Kove
I had watched this entertaining movie during the late eighties or probably the early nineties when it was first released to the movie theatres.
Subsequently, I had watched it several times on cable television, as well from videos.
I had recently watched it again from a DVD, as I thought it offered wonderful life lessons.
First of all, it had a very straight-forward story.
A young boy, Danny (Ralph Macchio) & his mother had relocated from the East to Los Angeles. In search of new friends, he bumped into a bunch of ruffians from a local martial arts school.
Naturally, there was also this beautiful lady (played by Elizabeth Shue), whose deliberate presence in the movie seemed to complicate matters for him.
During one painful encounter with the ruffians, he was beaten up, but luckily was eventually rescued by an elderly handyman, Miyagi (Pat Morita), working in his apartment complex. Miyagi seemed to be well versed in unarmed combat.
Intrigued, Danny wanted to learn martial arts from Miyagi, even though he discovered than the old man was more adept in clipping bonsai trees & catching flies with chopsticks.
Miyagi reluctantly took Danny on & immediately delegated him to carry out a host of domestic chores, like sanding the floor decks, cleaning/polishing the cars & painting the fences. Unwittingly, they sparked off some sort of a father-son relationship.
These apparently inconsequential activities certainly reminded me of those compulsory routines, like sweeping floors, chopping wood & carrying water, that were often carried out by young disciplines of the Shaolin Temple in ancient China.
Danny was obviously very disappointed.
The story continued with Danny's quest to take part in the local martial arts tournament.
What I like about this movie is the valuable lessons it offers to young people in search of their personal vision.
In this case, Danny wanted to become a martial arts champion.
For an instructor, Miyagi was obviously an unorthodox master. He taught Danny, to his chagrin, how to envision success by asking him to trim a bonsai tree.
The old man said: "Just trim the tree!"
Danny replied, "What if I don't do it right?"
The old man told him: " Close your eyes, picture a tree, & then, as soon as you have the tree, think of nothing else. Open your eyes & trim the bonsai tree to match the picture."
Once again, Danny replied: "How do I know it is going to be right?"
The old man responded gleefully: "If it comes from inside you, it is right!"
It began to dawn on Danny that the real secret to martial arts laid in the mind & the heart, & not in the fists.
Once he realised the lessons he had learned from Miyagi - the hard way -, Danny became empowered & went on to beat the hell out of his seemingly stronger opponent in the martial arts tournament.
The fight sequences, especially the ending segment, in the movie were beautifully as well spectacularly choreographed, but the principal message of the movie was very clear:
The compelling vision of where you want to go & the vivid image of achievement come from deep inside you!
Watching this movie, November 15, 2007
I admit I really love this movie. When I was in middle or high school, my mother insisted that I watch this movie because I was bullied at one time and I learned like Daniel to stand up for myself with some confidence and coordination. also, I learned how to make friends because at one time, I had a problem making friends, too.
 The Karate Kid: Text and Subtext November 10, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
THE KARATE KID has been around for more than twenty years, long enough for viewers to pass judgment on a film that resonated on so many levels that one wonders whether it still does. The short answer is yes, that it is as powerfully visual and philosophical now as then. But after all this time, let's see what drew fans to see it several times then and then let's see if there were anything subliminal that drew us in even as it dared us to connect the dots in a hybrid blend of eastern and western thought,
First, the movie was a huge hit because it accomplished what all hits had to. Viewers could relate to the twin leads, Ralph Macchio as Daniel Russo and Pat Morita as Miyagi, the karate teacher. Macchio hit all the right notes as the transplanted Jersey boy trying to fit in with the sub-bleached crowd of southern California. Macchio is your basic nice kid whose skinniness and poverty make him the instant target of the school bullies, most of whom are loathe to admit that deep down they are jealous of his ability to relate to pretty coeds. What is significant is that the bullies are shown in only two environments--their male bonding when they beat on a hapless Macchio and their inability to relate to those same pretty coeds. Pat Morita as Miyagi steals the show as the handyman whose talents include his being the prototypical wise sensei. Morita is both wise, understanding, funny, and sad--sometimes all in the same scene. His best moments are not limited to showing Macchio the rudiments of Karate by painting, polishing, and sanding, although after seeing the wisdom of his techniques I imagine that many students wished their own senseis were equally motivational. What makes Morita's Miyagi the role of a lifetime is his ability to morph from one personality to another in the blink of an eye, and to make us see and believe each unraveling of the chameleon that we see as a transplanted Okinawan who has suffered untold pain all his life, while waiting patiently for the right student to come along who is worthy to receive the benefits of his wisdom, much of which only touches on the martial arts. In Miyagi, we see the whole man who can use his wits to defuse one potentially harmful situation (remember when Miyagi and Daniel go to the lion's den to confront the villainous Karate teacher, well played by Martin Kove?) and can use his fighting skills when wits will not suffice. The audience was sold from the first minute, knowing full well that there had to be an uplifting Rocky-type conclusion, but when we are involved in the lives of leads, we do not care we are being manipulated. But what of the subtext that becomes clear only after repeated viewings?
And this brings me to my second point. As wondrous a role as Morita had, director John Avildsen chose to present Morita as more of the eastern stereotype of the inscrutable Asian than as one who can function on his own unique level. Although it is true it was this very inscrutableless that delineated Miyagi's character and invested it with the necessary cinematic magic to permit the audience to swallow the impossibility of teaching a neophyte enough Karate in a few weeks to win a major tournament. Consider the true man behind the wise and elderly exterior. We see Miyagi as how we want to view exotic Asian men. They can sit in the lotus position and try to snatch flies out of the air with chopsticks. We see him as essentially sexless, having lost his wife and son to birth complications more than forty years ago. We see him as an accomplished bonsai horticulturalist. And we see him as one who can show inner pain only after drinking saki. We did not care then that Miyagi emerged as the true dramatic center because of his Asian culture which gradually invests him with mythic status. But I think it is about time to acknowledge that our fondest memories of THE KARATE KID come about because of Avildsen's decision to present a movie that fed into some deep-rooted western beliefs about the differences between one culture and another. THE KARATE KID is a monster hit but we should understand just why that it is so.
Mentoring at work... October 29, 2007
For me this is one of the great "mentoring" movies of all time. The follow on movies don't have the wonderful impact of the original Karate Kid. Miagi-san is the very best. When Daniel goes to the broken down area of town and enters into Miagi's world you know it's the beginning of transformation. The lessons hidden in the "wax on, wax off" and painting scenes are brilliant. Classic scenes for all time cinema.
BONZAI !!!!!! October 25, 2007
This is one of those movies that's lost a bit with age, specially since they've shown it so many times on TV.
The highlight of this DVD are the featturetes which happily include all of the people involved, even Pat Morita who died shortly after his participation here. My only complaint is that they show Daniel's flying kick over a dozen times as well as the same behind-the-scenes beach rehearsal clip, over and over again. The best part: the movie writer's complaint that whenever anybody learns about his work in this movie, the first thing they invariably utter is "wax on-wax off" (no question there, specially since those words always come up to my mind every time I wax my car !).
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