Klaus
First Post
Remaking a movie about karate, changing karate to kung fu, and keep karate on the name is like remaking a movie about real-life British soldiers capturing a Nazi submarine and changing the Brits to Americans.
Oh, wait...
Trailer: The Karate Kid 2010
- Thread starter RigaMortus2
- Start date
Oh, wait...
Rykion
Explorer
U-571 wasn't captured by the Brits, it was sunk by some Australians. It was U-110 the Brits captured. At least they named the fictional movie to avoid confusion.
I don't think the movie U-571 was a remake either.I think a better analogy would be to imagine there had been a movie called the Football Kid about a boy taught by a former pro to play American Football. Then years later it was remade as the Football Kid, but all the "football" scenes in the remake are actually rugby.
Relique du Madde
Adventurer
Its insulting in the sense that it trivializes the history and the philosophy behind Kung Fu and Karate while saying "It doesn't matter which style you learned or practice, it's all Karate and it's all interchangeable*."
* Which is partially true if you just learn the martial art and not the philosophy that often comes as part of the martial art form. But then in order to make that statement true it would have to say "It doesn't matter what style you learn or practice, it's a martial art and it's all interchangeable.'
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Man in the Funny Hat
Hero
1. It's FICTION.
2. It's HOLLYWOOD.
What do you expect? Historical and cultural accuracy? That is NOT what Hollywood does, nor typically has ANY interest in. Even when somebody in Hollywood is interested in "accuracy" things are still bent, folded, spindled and mutilated. Noteworthy details are carefully removed if it's felt that doing so will makes the main character less offensive and more appealing. Non-existent characters are introduced to provide artificial feedback to historical figures. Actions are altered in time and place. The doers and speakers are changed if it makes the story move along better typically by combining many characters into one.
If you ask the person responsible for keeping the title "karate" but changing the martial art to "kung fu" you'll undoubtedly get the answer: "Nobody cares!" Obviously from the point of view of a dedicated student or even a mere afficianado of martial arts that would be wrong. But, from an entertainment motion picture standpoint it would be entirely correct.
2. It's HOLLYWOOD.
What do you expect? Historical and cultural accuracy? That is NOT what Hollywood does, nor typically has ANY interest in. Even when somebody in Hollywood is interested in "accuracy" things are still bent, folded, spindled and mutilated. Noteworthy details are carefully removed if it's felt that doing so will makes the main character less offensive and more appealing. Non-existent characters are introduced to provide artificial feedback to historical figures. Actions are altered in time and place. The doers and speakers are changed if it makes the story move along better typically by combining many characters into one.
If you ask the person responsible for keeping the title "karate" but changing the martial art to "kung fu" you'll undoubtedly get the answer: "Nobody cares!" Obviously from the point of view of a dedicated student or even a mere afficianado of martial arts that would be wrong. But, from an entertainment motion picture standpoint it would be entirely correct.
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
Avatar: The Last Airbender, an animated fantasy with characters from obviously East Asian-influenced cultures being remade as a live action trilogy of movies but cast with Caucasian actors. Big deal?
The Karate Kid, gets remade but Japanese karate gets purged and substituted with Chinese kung fu and name kept same. Big deal?
Which is the bigger deal?
The Karate Kid, gets remade but Japanese karate gets purged and substituted with Chinese kung fu and name kept same. Big deal?
Which is the bigger deal?
I agree about the title/martial arts snafu- its a typical Hollywood goof that simply didn't need to happen.
It insults the traditions of the martial art depicted by giving it a false name in the movie- surely, Kung-Fu has enough recognition to warrant using its actual identity in the title.
It insults the martial art in the title because it isn't being used to depict itself, despite its own incredible traditions.
Then there is the matter of using the cultures of 2 very different nations interchangeably, 2 nations that don't have a history of friendship... Its like doing a WW2 movie with all the Nazis having French names & accents while invading and occupying Germany.
If this was a conversation in an old Kung Fu movie, about now, you'd have the students squaring off in the alley to shouts of "You have insulted our master!!!"
It also makes me think that the next iteration of The Karate Kid- be it TV series or yet another movie reboot- will feature an even more cinematic martial arts style, like Capoeira...and will still be called The Karate Kid.
Still, its kind of nice to see Jackie Chan return to his roots in a sense- he started off in Chinese theater (stage, not movies), which is where he started to learn and develop his more cinematic style of martial arts.
It insults the traditions of the martial art depicted by giving it a false name in the movie- surely, Kung-Fu has enough recognition to warrant using its actual identity in the title.
It insults the martial art in the title because it isn't being used to depict itself, despite its own incredible traditions.
Then there is the matter of using the cultures of 2 very different nations interchangeably, 2 nations that don't have a history of friendship... Its like doing a WW2 movie with all the Nazis having French names & accents while invading and occupying Germany.
If this was a conversation in an old Kung Fu movie, about now, you'd have the students squaring off in the alley to shouts of "You have insulted our master!!!"
It also makes me think that the next iteration of The Karate Kid- be it TV series or yet another movie reboot- will feature an even more cinematic martial arts style, like Capoeira...and will still be called The Karate Kid.
Still, its kind of nice to see Jackie Chan return to his roots in a sense- he started off in Chinese theater (stage, not movies), which is where he started to learn and develop his more cinematic style of martial arts.
Desdichado
Hero
That's not what he said; it was insulting to followers of martial arts, i.e., people who obsess over martial arts movies on the internet, and internet tough guys who need to pick some obscure style to brag about being a black belt in online.
I didn't think the title was inappropriate at all. Some of you guys are acting like the original Karate Kid movies are an important part of our cultural zeitgeist or something. Comparing The Karate Kid to Hamlet actually is insulting. To Hamlet.
frankthedm
First Post
I do find it a big deal when so many people were judging actors by their skin tones. I thought "XXXX can't play the role, they are not the right color" was a mentality that folks wanted to move away from.
It is almost appropriate, and a good damn pun if they get the character symbols right. The term kung fu is a generic term for a Chinese martial art. The karate combat style was developed in the Ryukyo Kingdom, a tributary state of the Ming Dynasty. Afterwords, the Ryukyo Kingdom became part of Japan.
Prior to WWII, the characters used to write Karate meant "Chinese Hand", after that time, the characters were changed to "Empty Hand", both ways were pronounced karate.
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