Karatê Kid III - O Desafio Final

While this film went back to the more casual appeal of the first film, it proved to be a bit of a rehashing of the first. The only difference, we see Daniel take on the `dark side' (a.k.a. not Mr. Myagi's way) of fighting. Sure, this had to be a little different, but Daniel trying to be a tough guy seemed a little off in a way. Sure, this film was entertaining, but it proved the series was running on empty. However, Mr. Myagi proved he could still kick plenty of butt, making the ending all worth it.

I don't know how many stars to give this movie, because a 1 tells you not to see it, and a 10 tells you that it is an excellent movie. Truth be told, this is one of the worst movies ever made, and that is why you absolutely must see it. It is more unintentionally funny than most actual comedies, and it provides as much entertainment value by accident as lots of movies do on purpose. It is like a train wreck, but with this wreck, the passengers are all slipping on banana peels as they exit the train.

Here is what I think happened – the producers decided that they wanted to cash in on the franchise one more time, so they decided to bring back Mr. Miyagi and Daniel for one last hurrah. The script writers cooked up another story about Daniel fighting the Cobra Kais, getting beaten up, competing in the karate tournament once again, and then winning in the end. Then Ralph Macchio showed up for day 1 pudgy and out of shape, and panic erupted. Quickly, the script was rewritten with all of Daniel's fight scenes taken out, and the tournament rules changed so that all Daniel had to do to defend his title was show up for the last fight. I find it next to impossible that anyone associated with this movie honestly expected the audience to buy this, but they were far enough into the project that they had no choice but to finish it.

So what do we get? We get an hour and a half of poor Danny getting abused over and over again. He's chubby. He's pushing 30, but he is still 17 in the movie and he sounds like he is about 13. He gets punched. He gets taunted. He gets kicked in the balls. His, uh, "girlfriend" gets harassed and almost assaulted as some bullies trash Mr. Miyagi's shop, but Mr. Miyagi does absolutely nothing but push the bullies out the door. At no point, does it cross anyone's mind to call the cops. At some point, we start sympathizing more with the bullies than Daniel. He is such a wimp with no defensive instincts, and at this point, Mr. Miyagi seems like an insensitive dope because he makes Daniel get beaten to a pulp multiple times before he will finally agree to train him.

You can tell that just about everybody acting in this movie knows that it's a stinker, so why bother trying? Ralph Macchio totally phones in his performance, and so does Pat Morita (Miyagi). The minor actors in the movie, like Thomas Ian Griffith (the evil pony tail guy) and Martin Kove (the big evil trainer from the first movie) seem to get the joke here. They play over the top, exaggerated cartoon villains, whose only function is to be pointlessly mean. They are grown men, but their lives revolve around torturing a 17 year old boy as revenge for winning a karate tournament. At the end, Daniel finally faces down the big bully. Only this time, he doesn't try to throw any punches or block anything. He just stands there like a doughboy punching bag, yelping out in pain with his girly voice. I have always thought that the greatest achievement of the first two movies was that they made Daniel's triumphs believable and convincing. Since Mr. Miyagi focused on defense and maintaining a positive attitude, Daniel could survive a fight against a privileged bully and a brutal Okinawan street fighter who did not have this kind of positive influence. But in this one, it's just a massive beating. It is just so hard to take seriously that you get a sadistic pleasure out of it, kind of like watching somebody get hammered with a 2X4 in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Maybe the worst thing about this movie is that deep down, somewhere buried underneath the terrible acting and the awful script, there were some good ideas here. A Vietnam vet befriending Daniel and teaching him the darker side of martial arts – sounds like a story with a lot of potential. Maybe the world isn't inherently a good place. Maybe life has predators and prey, and maybe a Vietnam vet is an appropriate guy to teach that to Daniel, who up to this point is still pretty naïve. Maybe a movie that questioned the idealism of the first two and dug into some gray areas could have been really good. But, nope! We just got a tired rehash of the lessons from the first two movies, but they don't even seem to make sense here. Our Vietnam vet is actually just a villain – so cartoony that he even goes around a corner for a sneaky evil laugh while he listens to Daniel punch a piece of wood. Ouch! This one shows up on cable somewhere every once in a while, and if you can catch it, I highly recommend it. Invite some friends over, have a few beers, and have a few laughs at the expense of this tire fire.

I'm guessing like a lot of Cobra Kai fans, I re-watched this movie for the first time in years recently. In Cobra Kai 4 Terry Silver returned and talked about how over the top the them of this movie was. Ralph Macchio has pretty much said the same in real life.

Daniel goes from a confident fighter to an insecure and winy one. The plot is ridiculous as well: a billionaire who puts his life on hold to terrorize a teenager.

Nontheless Thomas Griffith was very good as Terry Silver the evil villain. It does still have some touching moments with Mr. Miyagi and Daniel. It's the last time the two are on screen together.

Ultimately its a ridiculous movie but not without its charms. Cobra Kai 4 did well to incorporate it unto today.

The Karate Kid, Part III、as the title suggests, is the third film in the Karate Kid film series, released in 1989, directed by John Avlidsen, and starring Ralph Macchio as Daniel and Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi. The Karate Kid film series is a rather typical example of other 1980s film series (such as Robocop) which just run out of steam as time goes on to the extent that they began with a bang and ended with a whimper. Despite its flaws however, The Karate Kid, Part III isn't nearly as bad as some people make it out to be and is certainly no Robocop 3. This review will discuss the problems with the movie as well as what it gets right, with an overall assessment of the Karate Kid original film series as a whole.

One of the biggest problems with this movie is the lack of continuity with the Karate Kid Part II, which for all its flaws did genuinely advance the story and develop Daniel and Miyagi's character. The film is fairly graceless in its dumping of Daniel's love interest Kumiko; it's explained that she just got a job in Japan that she couldn't turn down. This just didn't strike me as believable, perhaps because they had done it before in Part II. Daniel's relationships always happen to end between films? It's frankly insulting when sequels hit the reset button like this.

But the real continuity problem is one that is never addressed at all, and that is the relationship between Yuki and Miyagi. This is not presented as a mere superficial teenage romance, but instead as true love. Miyagi even says that he would stay in Okinawa, if not for the people trying to kill him. So why doesn't Miyagi stay in Okinawa after the conclusion of Part II, or take Yuki to America? It's never explained. This film takes a dump on Miyagi and Daniel's development; the second film may as well have never happened.

Moreover, all the balance and self-control that Daniel developed in the first two films is gone, indeed Daniel if anything seems even more neurotic and unbalanced than he was at the beginning of the original film. Daniel is whiny and angsty, going into long diatribes about his own inadequacy. This would be less irksome if it were a response to something far more drastic; but in Part II the villains were trying to kill him and his master; in Part III they are just trying to take away his title as champion by defeating him in a local karate tournament. So, Daniel is cool-headed when threatened with death in a foreign land, but the prospect of losing his title to a bunch of local punks turns him into a nervous wreck? The film also fails to find a coherent theme, besides poorly retreading the original.

That said, the film does manage to get some things right. As whiny as Daniel is, he retains something of his likability, even if it is diminished. We also have the things that make the whole series fun; wonderfully over-the-top villains and pseudo-eastern wisdom. The emotional core of the film is tarnished but intact; that of the relationship between Daniel and Miyagi. These two characters, although somewhat botched, still work together well.

None of the original Karate Kid films are by themselves incoherent, but taken as a whole the series is rather lopsided. They do get progressively worse as the series goes on, and by the end of Part III one is glad they never made a fourth film (unless you count the Next Karate Kid, and I don't). Still, while it's a shame that they never managed to quite recapture the magic of the first film, I'm glad I got to spend 3 films in the company of these terrific characters.

Having enjoyed the first two films, I wanted to see this film too. While not particularly brilliant, I do think it is better than people make it out to be. The script is weak, the plot predictable and the villains unbelievable with somewhat unrealistic motives. However, it did move fairly briskly, had some neat direction, it looked good, the karate sequences were efficient and well choreographed, the ending was decent and there is some nice messaging. I have liked the character of Miyagi as well, he strikes me as wise and caring, the sort of character I like. The acting also was not too bad, Ralph Macchio once again is appealing while Pat Morita, who is always watchable, gives another solid performance. Overall, it was decent, while nothing exceptional. 6/10 Bethany Cox