Sequels And The Law Of Diminishing Returns: The Karate Kid Part II

On paper, The Karate Kid Part II should have worked. It features the same cast members as the original and is written and directed by the same people, Robert Mark Kamen and John G. Avildson respectively. The cinematography for both films was shot by 70s and 80s stalwart, James Crabe. Even the score was composed by the same person, Bill Conti. So what makes it such a poor film in comparison to the original?

In both films, new kid in town Daniel LaRusso provokes the ire of the local bully. Under the tutelage of mentor Mr Miyagi, he learns a secret karate move that will defeat his enemies, bestow on him the adulation of a small community, and win the girl of his dreams. Like most sequels in the 80s, The Karate Kid Part II follows a generic sequel blueprint, rehashing the exact same story as the original with slightly elevated stakes. This certainly reduces its value as a film in its own right, but shouldn't necessarily make it 'bad'. It's when we start comparing the two films that the sequel's failings truly become clear. The film-makers actively force us to do this in the opening minutes of Part II, in which we are treated to a flashback summary of the first film. By the time Daniel's flying crane kick makes its appearance, we are reminded of the excitement we felt at the climax of the last film and are primed and ready for the next instalment. The sequel, inevitably, fails to reach these same heights.

Using story elements originally written for the end of The Karate Kid, the sequel begins at the conclusion of the All Valley Karate Tournament. Straight away, things don't seem right, and I'm not referring to the fact that Mr Miyagi is awkwardly loitering by a shower room filled with naked teenage boys.

Daniel's mum and newly acquired girlfriend are suspiciously absent, with a throwaway line from Mr Miyagi to explain the reason why they're not there. 

Immediately, our suspension of disbelief and immersion in the movie is dissolved, and we are left wondering:

• did Elisabeth Shue ask for too much money to reprise her role?
• with Cocktail and A Night on the Town (AKA Adventures in Babysitting) just around the corner, was her star rising so quickly that she was in a position to turn down a lucrative sequel?

Later, we learn that Ali not only dumped Daniel for an older guy, but has smashed his beloved car; and on Prom Night! Daniel finds this crazy behaviour baffling and is suitably upset – for about 5 minutes. Then it's as if she never existed.

In The Karate Kid, Ali appears to be a positive female character. Despite being a wealthy 'valley girl', she is intelligent, compassionate, polite and friendly. She doesn't care that Daniel lives in Reseda and ignores her friend's snide comments about him. She tolerates Daniel's mood swings and is quick to forgive his unwarranted accusations. Ali is the ideal 'love interest', but due to the gap of 6 months between tournament and prom, we never see her as the 'girlfriend'. Instead, we are left with a soured image of Ali. We invested time and emotion into this character, only to have her disappear off-screen and be told that she wasn't worthy of our time or emotion to begin with. This kind of lazy storytelling leaves us, the audience, feeling cheated. The true reason for her absence becomes clear soon enough. Ali could never be cast as the girlfriend; instead, she needed to be removed in order to make way for Daniel's next love interest, Kumiko. 

These movies only contain female characters that fall into one of two categories – 'the Mother' and 'the Love Interest'; archetypes as old as The New Testament (back when they were known as 'the Madonna' and 'the Whore'). When we come to this realisation while watching a film, when we can see the cogs and wheels turning behind the scenes, it's very difficult not to become cynical – and this colours our film experience, whether we are entirely aware of it or not.

The opening scene of Part II is one of the most memorable, yet dumbest, scenes in the movie. Kreese is berating his Cobra Kai students for losing the tournament. He destroys Johnny's second place trophy, then proceeds to strangle him while surrounded by onlookers. 

Keep in mind, these guys are 16 years old, 17 at most. They're in their final year of high school, and chances are, many of them will move away to college and leave the Cobra Kai in a matter of months. Yet Kreese, a Vietnam veteran who undoubtedly experienced hardship and trauma beyond anything that could happen in suburban California, is so humiliated by his dojo winning second place that he wilfully commits physical assault against a minor – in public! And when defeated by Mr Miyagi, for a brief moment we're expected to believe Miyagi might murder him with a karate chop to the nose. 

Again, let's put this in perspective. Daniel was bullied at school because he didn't know how to mind his own business. He participated in a local karate tournament and won. These are not traditionally life or death situations, yet the film-makers want us to believe they are.

As the film progresses and the stakes literally become life or death, our suspension of disbelief is stretched even thinner. The premise of The Karate Kid Part II is this:

At the age of 18, Miyagi fell in love with Yukie, a girl who was arranged to marry his best friend, Sato. Miyagi made a public declaration of his love for Yukie. Sato, humiliated, challenged Miyagi to a fight to the death, so Miyagi fled Okinawa, never to return. During that time, Yukie remained unmarried and, at some undisclosed point, began to nurse Miyagi's aging father. Forty years later, she contacted Miyagi (who apparently lived at the same address since first arriving in the US), to inform him of his father's impending death. Sato learned of this (somehow), and still bearing a grudge, reinstated his challenge to fight Miyagi.

Are we truly meant to believe that mid 80s Okinawa is such a backwater, lawless place that a renowned businessman like Sato can presumably commit murder in public because of honour? 

When a film's plot is this ridiculous, the audience cannot invest in the characters. Yet this is still not what makes the movie such a cheesy schlockfest.

Sato's nephew is Chozen, replacement bully for Johnny Lawrence. Unlike, Johnny, Chozen is a psychopath with no redeeming qualities. In The Karate Kid, it made sense that Johnny and his gang would appear frequently to torment Daniel – they attended the same school and ran in the same circles. Yet for no logical reason, Chozen seems to be everywhere that Daniel goes; whether it's in Miyagi's hometown, or the 50s style rock 'n' roll dance hall, or in a dive bar in Naha, the capital city of Okinawa, which Daniel decides to visit on a whim. This is possibly one of the most ridiculous scenes in the film, topped only by the climactic battle between Chozen and Daniel. Daniel ignores Kumiko's wishes and drags her into the bar, where American soldiers are attempting to chop blocks of ice while onlookers bet on the outcome. Chozen appears and coerces Daniel into chopping six blocks of ice. Kumiko leaves to find Miyagi, who is apparently in the only refrigerator repair store in town. Miyagi arrives and, to Daniel's chagrin, bets all their money on Daniel's success. Then, from out of nowhere, Sato materialises to honour the bet. Which begs the question: Is Okinawa really this small??

Both Sato and Chozen are two-dimensional villains, laughing maniacally and twirling their metaphorical moustaches at every available moment; which makes Sato's last minute redemption and 180 degree shift in character highly implausible, and Chozen's final battle with Daniel laughable.

The climax of the movie takes place at the Obon festival, and includes one of the most hilarious villain entrances ever committed to film – Chozen's painfully slow zip line onto the stage. 

I mentioned in a previous post my dislike of Kevin Costner's zip line use in The Postman. Maybe I just have an issue with zip lines in film. It's a distinct possibility.

As the film ends, the ridiculousness intensifies. Daniel employs the secret block/punch combo learnt from Miyagi's drum toy. It's a secret move so secret, that every single person in Miyagi's hometown secretly carries the drum toy with them and produces it at the climax of Daniel and Chozen's battle. This secret karate move was supposed to carry the same weight as The Karate Kid's crane kick, but instead becomes an unintentional parody of itself.

The Karate Kid Part II had the potential to tell an interesting story – to return Daniel to the status of novice in a larger world of martial arts, and to give us a glimpse into the origin story of mysterious mentor Mr Miyagi. Instead, we are fed weak plot devices and weaker character arcs. By the time the third movie rolls around, it comes as no surprise to hear that the burgeoning love between Daniel and Kumiko has amounted to nothing. Kumiko, like Ali before her, dumps Daniel off-screen for a better offer rather than officially becoming 'the girlfriend'. The romantic sub-plot of both films reminds us that romance only exists in the early stages of courtship, and never in the relationship itself. Even Miyagi, who appeared to find happiness in lost love Yukie, failed to bring her with him to the US. She doesn't even garner a mention in the third film. Like a weekly sitcom, the events of each film carry no weight. Consequently, we feel nothing for the characters, and this, more than anything, is why The Karate Kid Part II pales in comparison to the original film.