Welcome to Part Three of our Karate Kid retrospective, looking at all the instalments of the original franchise before the TV series-sequel Cobra Kai hits YouTube Red on May 2nd. This addition: The Karate Kid Part III and The Next Karate Kid.
Boy oh boy, does it get rough now! After the bonafide classic that is the first and the charmingly ridiculous sequel, The Karate Kid franchise takes a turn here with the one-two punch of The Karate Kid Part III and The Next Karate Kid. I’ll unpack both of them here, if only because I may have run out of time before the Cobra Kai release and also because The Next Karate Kid never actually got a theatrical release in the UK, in fact UK audiences didn’t get to see it until it screened on TV in 1999 a whole five years after its release (so, really I’m throwing it a bone). First things first, 1989’s Part III, and my-oh-my Daniel-San, how the mighty fall.
The Karate Kid Part III
Seemingly still set six-months after the first movie, Part III picks up with Cobra Kai sensei John Kreese (Martin Kove), a broken and desperate man who no longer has any students. He heads out to reconnect with an old Vietnam comrade, a wealthy businessman and Cobra Kai co-founder Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith). Together they hatch a plan to take revenge on Daniel and Mr. Miyagi for humiliating Kreese, devising a plan to get Daniel back in the All Valley Tournament by any means necessary.
The setup for Part III is a strange blend of a revenge-driven plot with rehashed elements of the original, delivering a sequel that is groan-inducing and occasionally hilariously bad. Let’s start with the villain’s plot. Carrying on a more cartoonish approach to the antagonists set down in Part II, the film both dies and thrives on Griffith’s as Terry Silver. The character is so far removed from the grounded approach of the original, but he is also the only reasons why this film is worth seeing at all. His performance is hilarious, delivering a performance that wouldn’t be out of place in a pantomime; all evil cackles, scheming and wide-eyed craziness.
Silver’s plan is also insane. There is quite literally a scene where he requests to clear his schedule ‘for revenge’. This wealthy leading businessman (he runs a Toxic Waste dumping business called Dynatox, just in case you didn’t know he was evil) drops everything he’s doing in order to toy with a teenage boy and an old man because Kreese saved his life countless times in ‘Nam. He does so by hiring a promising karate hot head, Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan), to antagonise and challenge Daniel, which forces a wedge between Daniel and Miyagi, leading to Daniel to seek a new teacher in the form of Silver himself, who deceptively tricks Daniel and Miyagi in to thinking he’s man they can trust. It’s needlessly convoluted and it seems at times that the intention is to actually kill Daniel. It is so far away from the relate-able conflicts and challenges from the original that crushing disappointment quickly turns into bemusement, leading you to laugh quite easily at the drama on screen.
Even the Miyagi and Daniel relationship suffers this time out. Daniel is terribly portrayed here, both in Macchio’s performance and the writing (and the fact that Macchio, while still youthful looking, just can’t pass for 17 at this stage). His performance is erratic and ranges from being incredibly excited to being dreary and angsty from one scene to the next. He’s a hard character to root for this time out, as he is basically an asshole to Miyagi for most of the runtime, despite the subplot of helping him set up a Bonsai Tree store. He even makes his master cry! Pat Morita is as dependable as ever, but this is a film which stretches Miyagi’s non-violent approach to its most contradictory limits.
It is a disappointing end to the original trilogy, one which even John G. Avildsen came to regret. Miyagi and Daniel-San deserved better, and one hopes that the character of Daniel will get a new lease of life in Cobra Kai, the character of Miyagi would have one more swing at delivering wisdom and karate teachings, and it equally under-serves the character…
The Next Karate Kid
Released in 1994, The Next Karate Kid has its place in film history as being Hilary Swank’s breakout film role, and she is certainly one of the more appealing factors of this uninspired and simply dead-on-arrival sequel.
The action is transported to Boston where Miyagi is attending a ceremony for Japanese-American War Veterans. Whilst there, he reconnects with an old friend’s wife, who is raising her Granddaughter, Swank’s rage-filled Julie, following the death of her parents in a terrible accident. Miyagi offers to help the troubled Julie through his teachings, all the while she must contend with the unwanted attention of her school’s security fraternity, the Alpha Elite.
You’d be forgiven for being puzzled by the idea of a student security force called the Alpha Elite because the film is completely baffled by its own concept. Under the command of Michael Ironside’s Colonel Dugan (yes, even Ironside can’t save this) the Alpha Elite are certainly suitable antagonists, if largely down to the fact that the lead member Ned (Michael Cavalieri) is exceptionally creepy towards Swank’s Julie, so it makes for satisfying viewing when she does eventually kick his ass. They also offer moments that air on the side of stupidly entertaining, bungee jumping into a school dance being chief among them. But they ultimately come across as this film’s poor version of the Cobra Kai.
Everything feels like a cheap version of things that we have seen before, from Julie’s visit to a Monastery to her lessons from Miyagi. The relationship itself offers a nice subversion of the dynamic between Daniel and Miyagi, but the film is so charmless and clunky across its runtime that it is hard for the relationship to register. Swank has attitude to spare, but she is greatly let down but some of the worst expositional dialogue that the franchise has to offer (and that is saying something).
It is not hard to see why this installment failed to kick-start the franchise back into action. It has little to offer, and while it is kind of interesting as a curious artifact displaying swanks early talent (look out for a young Walton Goggins as well), it is nigh on unbearable to sit through, lacking much of the charm that made the franchise famous to being with.
You can now see what the future of The Karate Kid franchise looks like as Cobra Kai is available to stream on YouTube now! I’m certainly excited to check it out, my anticipation still alive and kicking despite the best efforts of these last two installments to bring it down! I hope you’ve enjoyed this series, and remember, keep waxing!
