Karate Kid Collection: Karate Kid (DVD)

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Director Christopher Cain and scriptwriters were so desperate to use the formula but vary it somehow that they ended up with an incomprehensible situation. At a high school where every student appears to be age 24-31, one of the teachers who leads a kind of special forces ROTC program there is the villain, and his thugs patrol the school like a vigilante police force. These neo-Nazis damage property, they torch a car, they bungee jump out of the rafters onto the school dance, and never does there seem to be an adult around. Except for their evil Colonel-Teacher (Michael Ironside), who orders a car destroyed and says things like "finish him off." As in, murder? Not even the bully and prize student (Michael Cavalieri) who tries to blackmail Julie (Swank) for sexual favors buys into that (yep, they drifted that far from their younger, target audience).

Add to this little blend of absurdity a love interest with a former vigilante trainee (Chris Conrad, as yet another 30-year-old high school student) who works as a security guard at a railroad yard, and things begin to look as if they couldn't get any sillier. But then the monks come onstage. Zen bowling, anyone? The first two films in this series got honest laughs with some clever lines. This one has to resort to goofiness, and even that's not enough to rescue it from a tone that's as heavy as a tome. While Morita seems to be getting tired of his character's narrow range by now, Swank isn't bad . . . but her character is such a walking cliché and the script is such a turkey that all she can do is baste a bit. This one merits a 2/10.

Parents whose kids are into martial arts might be interested to know that the set is rated PG (for mild violence and some mild language). That mild language includes "hell, damn, and bastard"—no "f-words," but just about everything else, and voiced infrequently enough to where they stand out when we hear them.

Video:
"The Karate Kid" was released in 1998 on DVD in pan-and-scan with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. This collection presents all four films in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, remastered in High Definition. I don't have the 1998 version so I can't compare, but I can say that the picture is ever-so-slightly grainy but otherwise sharp and clear, with vibrant colors.

Audio:
The first DVD release of "Karate Kid" featured English, Spanish, and French soundtracks. Sony dropped the Spanish soundtrack, presumably to make room for the sharper visual transfer and an expanded range of subtitles. The sound on this set is English and French Dolby 2.0 Surround, with subtitles in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Thai. There isn't a lot in the way of separation, but the sound is free of crackles and hiss and other defects noticeable to my ear.

Extras:
This is a three-disc set, with the first disc containing the first 126-minute film and the bulk of the extras. The plum is a full-length commentary with director Avildsen, writer Robert Kamen, and actors Morita and Macchio. There are also short features on "The Way of the Karate Kid," "Beyond the Form," "East Meets West: A Composer's Notebook," and "Life of Bonsai." The second disc features the second 113-minute film, a very brief feature on "The Sequel," and an interactive DVD-ROM game that (big surprise) isn't Mac-friendly. The third disc features the third 112-minute film on one side, and the final 104-minute film on the flipside (though they got the labeling switched).

The commentary is surprisingly among the most rollicking I've ever heard. I mean, this wasn't a comedy, was it? And yet Kamen and Avildsen carry on like Click & Clack, the Tappet Brothers of "Car Talk" radio fame, laughing and overlapping with dialogue throughout most of the film. Their exuberance never sags for a minute, and Macchio joins right in. The older Morita tries, but he gets lost in the shuffle of wise-guy voices and comedic one-upmanship. And there's some pretty funny stuff here. Kamen at one point razzes Avildsen about a line he insisted be inserted into the script. "The 'G' (in Avildsen's name) stands for 'obdurate.' You forced me to fit it in." Laughter. When Daniel goes to Ali's house and meets her parents, Kamen quips, "John's homage to his protestant past. The two stiffest people either side of the Mississippi."

Macchio, seeing himself ride a bicycle in traffic, says, "John so much wanted me to ride the bike with no hands, but I said I'd do the crane kick, but that's it." More laughter. Or when Daniel locks eyes with Ali for the very first time, one of them jokes, "Ralph, I know what you've got on your mind. Orthodontia!" Laughter. And then as the scene continues and the young couple continues to look longingly at each other, one of them says, "What do they have on their minds?" Laughter, as the cameras cut to wieners roasting in an open fire. "Ralph wants hazard pay," the other laughs. And so it goes, a free-for-all throughout the commentary that's quite fun to listen to. There are also some lighthearted informational moments, as when they laugh at a t-shirt that a boy wears at the apartment complex ("Makin' Bacon") and remark how that was unscripted. The bit-part actor just showed up wearing it. "You can't do that anymore," one of them says.

The features are play-it-straight by comparison, and the surprise here is that the musical one with composer Bill Conti and the bonsai short featuring bonsai master Ben Oki are really enjoyable and informative. Conti explains about the three types of music (dramatic underscoring, source music, and production music) a composer has to blend into a film soundtrack, and does a pretty good job of illustrating. Oki tells how "bon-sai" ("pot-tree") came to Japan, like karate, from China, and shows 400-year-old California junipers he's trained to grow miniaturized in shallow pots. But the English subtitle option is a bit of an insult, since he's as clear-speaking as Morita's character. "The Sequel" is about like the original featurettes, interesting for their behind-the-scenes footage (even home movies of the director's), but compared to the commentary they're pretty standard. Morita, who gets drowned out on the commentary, shines in the extras, and shares how the "Miyagi voice, Miyagi spirit, Miyagi presence" just came to him when he auditioned for the part. The three tease Morita on the commentary for being the only one to participate in a fourth Karate Kid.

Bottom Line:
The first film in the series is the one worth seeing, while the second one is watchable and the other two highly forgettable. But there are enough extras and the price isn't bad, so fans might want to upgrade. Like "Hoosiers," "Rocky," "Rudy," and "Seabiscuit," the first "Karate Kid" holds a special place in the triumphant, feel-good sports wing of the Hollywood film industry. It still has plenty of appeal for viewers ages 8 to 80, and if you get this package you can just consider the other films a bonus. My final score is based on the extras, the widescreen presentation, and the two films that are worth seeing. As for the others . . . um, what others?

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