The Karate Kid: A Proper Movie Trilogy VIDEO SCRIPT)

The Karate Kid, The Karate Kid Part II, and The Karate Kid Part III. Not only was this franchise responsible for “kicking off” the Karate craze in America from the mid 80s onward, but its underdog themes and even its male lead helped dub the series -- at least the first installment -- Rocky for kids.

But considering the fourth installment of this franchise before its 2010 reboot featured Hillary Swank as Miyagi’s protege, the three proceeding it that starred Ralph Macchio -- regardless of one's opinions of said follow-ups -- can be looked at as a trilogy. But is it a PROPER trilogy? And if it’s not, how can we make it one? Let’s find out.

INTRODUCTION

The Karate Kid was released in 1984 and directed by John G. Avildsen.

It was written by Robert Mark Kamen, who combined two real-life elements in order to craft it.

The first half was based on a news article that was presented to him by producer Jerry Weintraub after he optioned it for screen, about a child of a single mother who became a black bet to defend himself against bullies.

The second half was based on Kamen’s own life. He ALSO picked up martial arts to defend himself against bullies, but decided to be taught by a non English speaking Japanese instructor of Okinawan Goju-ryu Karate after leaving his first instructor for caring more about using martial arts as a tool for violence and revenge.

/Take a wild guess who HE was supposed to represent in the trilogy./ (You got a problem with that?)

Not only was this movie a major success in the box office with a take home of 90 million on a budget of only 8 million

/Along with launching the career of Ralph Macchio -- whose natural charisma and emotion was just what the doctor ordered to bring the role of Danny LaRusso to life, in my opinion/

But also revitalized the career of Pat Moria, who before this film did mostly comedy roles in the states.

/And his portrayal of Miyagi-San was so well-received in The Karate Kid, that it landed him an Academy Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actor./

The Karate Kid Part II was released 2 years later, once more directed and written by Avildsen and Kamen respectively.

/The film takes place immediately after Danny wins the All-Valley Karate Championships before fast-forwarding 6 months later, where LaRusso and Miyagi travel to...a very Hawaii-looking Okinawa upon learning about Miyagi’s dying father in order to get his affairs in order, including ones he wanted to avoid./

This one differed from the 1984 original because of how it strayed from the everyman underdog sports story in favor of giving Danny a more globetrotting action/adventure feel to show that The Karate Kid brand was more marketable in other ways than just Rocky For Kids.

/And while it appeared a bit white savior-ish in some aspects in my opinion, I’d be lying if I said the movie wasn’t enjoyable. And considering that The Karate Kid Part II made over 115 million on a budget of 13 million, I think its safe to say that I wasn’t the only one who thought that way/

And with that, we fast-forward 3 years later to the release of the third and final installment of Danny LaRusso’s story, The Karate Kid Part III, once more written and directed by Avildsen and Kamen respectively.

Despite taking place immediately after the duo’s return from Okinawa, a lot happens over the course of it.

Danny and Miyagi go into business together to open a bonsai tree shop after new ownership of the LaRusso’s complex lays off the staff, and Cobra Kai sensei John Kreese enlists the help of his fellow Vietnam war vet and OWNER of the dojo, toxic waste disposal business owner Terry Silver, in order to seek revenge against Miyagi and LaRusso for beating his students and embarrassing him at the All-Valley Karate Championships last year.

/They attempt to break Miyagi and LaRusso’s bond, and Terry attempts to break LaRusso’s spirit so that their chosen champion in the form of “Karate’s Badboy” Mike Barnes can steal his title of champion and rebuild the Cobra Kai name in order to franchise./

However, because of the similarities it had with the first movie -- along with ways it went about carrying out its story beats --  Part III wasn’t really as well-received as The Karate Kid or The Karate Kid Part II. And after watching the movie for myself to see if the movie met the requirements to classify the three as a whole a proper movie trilogy, I could kinda see why. Allow me to explain.

THE CURRENT STANCE

/After watching The Karate Kid Part 3 for myself, I can definitely understand why it’s not the favorite in Larusso’s trilogy. While I definitely appreciate that it picks up almost immediately after Part 2 with their return to California from Okinawa, just like Part 2 picked up immediately after the martial arts tournament of the 1984 classic, the overall storyline wasn’t as engaging in my opinion as the first two movies./

Which is kinda a shame, considering The Karate Kid Part 3 had all the building blocks to produce a very interesting story, and did a good amount of work to make everything feel cohesive in how its story connected with the first movie to bring everything full circle.

/Bringing Kreese back as an antagonist and having him seek revenge on LaRusso and Miyagi for beating his Cobra Kai students in Part 1 -- and humiliating him in the beginning of Part 2 -- is definitely a solid foundation to work on, considering trilogies like to sew their roots in the soil of the first in one way or another. But the introduction of his rich war buddy Terry Silver was incredibly Saturday Morning Cartoonish, and I couldn’t really take him seriously over the course of the movie in comparison to how seriously everyone else was treating the script. Even when his plan to mentally break Danny to lose the tournament was well underway./

Mike Barnes and ESPECIALLY his henchmen did everything in their ability to try and SEEM threatening, and as a result ended up trying too hard to the point that they ended up becoming textbook examples of stereotypical 80’s villains that ham it up for the camera.

/So much so that even Ralph Macchio could sense that they were nothing but Jokers every time they interacted with each other staying in character as Danny./

Now that’s not to say that there weren’t aspects of this movie that I actually enjoyed, because there totally are.

For example, I thought that the way they went about to show how mature Danny became since the first two movies while still struggling with his hot-headed nature and wanting to do things in the spur of the moment was handled very well.

/Him deciding to spend the money he was gonna use to enroll in college and choosing to lease the shop that would be Mr. Miyagi’s bonsai shop, while at the same time deciding to take Miyagi’s advice to heart and make the decision to not enroll in that year’s martial arts tournament was a great way of displaying those two wolves within him in my opinion./

Then there’s the decision I didn’t really care for initially, but I came to respect after I realized where they were going with it.

/And that’s the case of the female lead Jessica, played by Robyn Lively./

Now I didn’t initially care for it because I was under the impression she was going to be just another love interest, and I didn’t really care for how quickly Danny was “going through women” in the franchise.

/Especially since I think Elisabeth Shue’s Ali Mills -- his love interest in the first movie -- actually had the best amount of chemistry with him out of them all./

It was disappointing to see how quickly they decided to write her off in the beginning of Part 2...

/And even more disappointing to see that they did so in order to introduce his Okinawan love interest Kumiko -- who, thanks to films like Tom Cruise’s The Last Samurai that tend to heavily romanticize native Asian women falling for white dudes, I wasn’t really digging it as much./

But what made me warm up and respect Jessica’s role in The Karate Kid Part 3 was that not only was her presence in the movie limited in ways that made her screen time more prominent and worthwhile, but they never took their relationship past the point of friendship.

/And considering what the story for The Karate Kid Part 3 was, Danny needed someone who cared more about his overall want of doing the right thing and being in his corner because of it, as opposed to being listed as just another one of his mid-teen romantic conquests./

Now you would imagine that because the story for The Karate Kid Part 3 goes full circle with the first movie in how it uses John Kreese and brings back the All-Valley Karate Championship, that regardless of how it turned out, this third installment follows the protocol of taking a thread from said movie and expanding on it with the third’s narrative in order to make the whole a Proper Movie Trilogy. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.

None of the callbacks from the first Karate Kid that are present in Part 3 are ever used as threads to unravel into the plot and narrative of Part 3. And as a result, we never learn anything new about any of the things that were brought over from Part 1 to Part 3.

Not even the one prominent piece that WAS brought over, that -- if done right -- could’ve revealed so much more about Danny and Miyagi’s relationship.

THE THREAD

/While some might claim that the reveal of new character and villain Terry Silver being the founder of Cobra Kai instead of John Kreese is the actual thread that makes LaRusso’s series of Karate Kid movies a Proper Movie Trilogy, I’d make the argument that introducing new characters as a way to bring about addressing the past and delivering new information is something that isn’t really utilized unless regularly unless there’s proper setup established for them in the first installment./

/The reason why we can accept Talia Al Ghul as the new information in “The Dark Knight Rises” is because we saw the setup in Batman Begins in the form of Ducard-Slash-Ra’s statement to Bruce about him once having a Great Love, and even then it was painted in a way to make casual moviegoers that aren’t familiar with comics think that they were talking about Bane./

The reason why we can accept Vincent Mancini as the new information in “The Godfather Part III” is because in the 1972 classic we actively saw his father Sonny Corelone partake in his conception during his sister’s wedding.

Yes, with the revelation that Terry Silver is the actual founder of Cobra Kai and that he and John Kreese were war buddies, it does in fact bring about new information that we didn’t know upon watching the first installment of The Karate Kid.

But in order for this aspect of the first movie to count it as a proper thread to explore in the third, emphasis has to be made about it beforehand.

/And outside of a picture of Kreese during his war days hanging in the dojo in the first movie, little to no emphasis was made regarding the beginnings of Cobra Kai to make that new information revealed about it in Part 3 stand out./

It’s like how the subplot of Marine Prescott and Rowan Bridger in Scream 3 was chosen to be the thread and expansion, instead of the revelation of Randy -- who died in Scream 2 -- having a sister that showed up in Scream 3 to deliver his horror trilogy exposition videotape.

And honestly, while that’s a pretty interesting tidbit of information regarding the LaRusso Karate Kid trilogy, that’s not the thread I want to focus on expanding. The one I feel deserves more recognition is one that has been a prominent force in the franchise since the beginning and even makes a triumphant return in the third one.

/I’m of course referring to Mr. Miyagi’s bonsai trees./

The bonsai tree and the practice of it is a very important element in the trilogy as a whole.

/Not only was it how Miyagi and LaRusso first attempted to bond after their first meet during the first movie, but it also plays a more prominent role in Part 3 upon Miyagi and LaRusso going into business together in the form of Miyagi’s bonsai shop./

And out of all the Part 1 callbacks that made it to Part 3, the bonsai holds a great amount of significance narrative-wise.

/Outside of it being how the two first bond before teaching Danny Goju-Ryu Karate, Miyagi gifts him a gi with a patch of a very specific bonsai tree on the back. And when Danny asks where it came from, Miyagi answers with/ (Mrs Miyagi make a long time ago)

Now we know that patch has heavy significance to it...

/Because earlier on in the movie during the date of their anniversary, Danny learns that Mrs Miyagi and their son died in childbirth at an internment camp while he was off fighting in World War II./

Taking into consideration Miyagi’s father was who taught him bonsai during his days in Okinawa and introducing it to Danny in the beginning of the first Karate Kid, that connection between bonsai trees, the practice of bonsai cultivation and his departed wife holds more of an impact in the narrative.

/Especially when Part 3 places such a focus of Miyagi losing his job and Danny spontaneously taking his savings to gift him a commercial lease to open his own bonsai shop./

But that’s not all we learn from Karate Kid Part 3. We also learn the difference between a wild bonsai tree and bonsai cultivation, and how wild bonsai are rare in the states...

/Because Miyagi brought one with him when he immigrated to America and moved to California. And because of the rarity, it’s worth over $10,000./

Now after this information is revealed, Mike Barnes and his goons go out and steal just about all of Mr. Miyagi’s trees the two were planning to sell in the shop in order to bully Danny into entering the tournament.

So, once again thinking spontaneously, Danny asks Jessica to help him traverse down Devil’s Cauldron to find and sell it to save the shop.

/Now, neither of them have ever seen this bonsai tree before. However, as Danny is searching for it with binoculars, he’s able to find it because of one specific coincidence./ (It looks just like the one on the back of my gi!)

The one on the back of his gi. Which was made by Miyagi’s dearly departed wife.

And while this is, in fact, a very spectacular revelation considering its connection to the overall narrative of the trilogy, it's something that The Karate Kid Part 3, doesn’t really take advantage of.

Thankfully, I found a way to make it work. Let me break it down for you...

THE BREAKDOWN

/In The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi gifts Daniel a Karate Gi with a patch of a special bonsai tree stitched on the back, created by his wife, who Daniel discovered died -- along with his unborn son -- due to complications with her pregnancy on the night of their anniversary./

/In The Karate Kid Part III, Mr. Miyagi informs Daniel that the only thing he brought to America when he immigrated from Okinawa is a wild bonsai tree that he planted in Devil’s Gorge for safe-keeping, worth at least $10,000 dollars that looks just like the one on the back of said Karate Gi./

So let’s establish that the bonsai tree in question IS the one on the back of his gi, and give it and Miyagi’s philosophy more meaning behind it that helps wrap Daniel’s coming of age arc up in a neat little bow.

The way we do this is simple. Because there was no further discussion about the bonsai tree pattern on the patch when Miyagi gifted Daniel his gi after learning his late wife made it, we pull a Return of the Jedi Obi-Wan ghost moment to have Miyagi go a bit more into detail regarding how much more the personal value of the tree rose upon meeting his wife in Hawaii.

That way we get a bit more exposition and a bit more knowledge about the two’s relationship that’s better tied into how Miyagi’s worldview ends up becoming the way it is during the whole trilogy.

/This discussion can happen after the scene in Karate Kid Part 3 where Miyagi and Daniel rush to save the tree from when Mike and his goons destroy it when Daniel gets back to the shop./

Still feeling guilty about rushing headstrong to find the tree and leaving Miyagi with no one to consult before making the decision to sell his truck to restock the shop, Daniel would approach Miyagi as he was tending to the bonsai tree, lay down his gi back up next to it, and say something like “It IS the same tree, I KNEW it!”

Then with a slight nod and a grunt of affirmation, Miyagi can go on about how he and his wife met in Hawaii after his immigration to America.

/We get her name, we get a sense of her personality, we get a better understanding of the twos relationship before she and their unborn son passed away, and -- most importantly -- we get how Miyagi’s life philosophy echoes throughout Daniel’s three-movie coming-of-age arc./

We reveal through this discussion that while the fact about learning to tend to bonsai trees from his father was true, it was his late wife that taught him the beauty about bonsai -- both wild and tame.

Something like, his wife would always find a way to use the bonsai tree he brought with him from Okinawa to teach him something about a goal he was trying to achieve;

/Very similar to Daniel’s comment to Jessie about how Miyagi can take any mundane task and find a way to turn it into a karate lesson./

Because of this, their relationship thrived as they fell in love and the two became their greatest support network as a result. Miyagi felt like he could tell her anything...

/Even about his ex-lover Yukie in Okinawa./

That’s when Miyagi reveals that the reason the IRL tree resembles the way it does on the patch is because she made the patch to mimic the final picture Miyagi always had in mind for it once their relationship blossomed.

It’s supposed to represent both the wild spirit of his youth that has since been willingly molded into the man, husband, and -- eventually -- father he pictured he would be.

/And because Daniel is the closest thing he believes Miyagi will ever have to a son, he tried to pass down the wisdom he learned from his late wife to him./

Of course, Daniel doesn’t get it immediately. Otherwise, there’d be no story for Part 3. It takes Daniel being manipulated by John Kreese’s friend Terry Silver for him to realize that everything he’s been doing over the course of the year that the Karate Kid trilogy takes place in has been him forming the final form he wants HIS bonsai tree to resemble.

/All the ups and downs he had training for the first tournament and courting Ali during his senior year of high school. Realizing his inner strength when he broke through six slabs of ice, helped save the people of Miyagi’s village and defeated Chozen in Okinawa./

When he confronts Terry for the last time before the tournament, and even when he fights Mike Barnes at the end of the movie, he realizes that all of these experiences he’s had over the course of the year was him pruning his own tree, and Miyagi’s words from the scene we created to add context to both the patch and Miyagi’s wife suddenly has more gravity behind it.

Like Miyagi showed Daniel and like Miyagi’s wife showed him, true bonsai trees grow wild and make mistakes every now and then. But in order to tame that wildness, you have to focus on what you want your tree to look like. You have to close your eyes, concentrate, and think only of the tree. Paint a perfect picture; from grass to pine needle. You have to wipe your mind clean of everything but the tree.

/And if you remember the picture after you open your eyes, then start making yourself LIKE the picture./ (But how do I know if my picture is the right one? If come from inside you, ALWAYS right one)

CONCLUSION

Now, as of the recording of this video, I haven’t seen The Next Karate Kid, so I don’t know if any of these ideas have either been handled or taken into consideration for that movie or not.

But considering that The Karate Kid Part 3 is the last bit of media that has any focus on Danny LaRusso until the Cobra Kai sequel series, it only feels right to establish the first three films as its own trilogy as it chronicles Danny’s journey over the course of his first year living in LA and how he became the character we all know and love today.

And with this one small change in a narrative already filled with callbacks that helps Danny’s arc truly become a coming-of-age story, we can tame this three-part saga into a perfect picture that is a proper movie trilogy.

Right now you can stream the Karate Kid trilogy for free with limited ads on Amazon Prime and IMDB, but if you want to financially help the channel and purchase them yourself I’ll have affiliate links in the description down below.

So with that being said Readers, YOUR homework assignment for the day:

Write in the comment section below what YOU think of the Karate Kid trilogy if you’ve seen it.

And if you have a movie trilogy you want me to cover later on in the segment, make sure to write in the comment section as well!

A Proper Movie Trilogy is possible thanks to the generous supporters over on Patreon. So if you enjoyed this video and you want to see more, you can join it by clicking the card at the end of the video or the link in the description box below, where you can also find a link to my merchandise store.

Or, if you prefer to give a one-time donation, you can find links to my PayPal and Ko-Fi account in the description box as well.

Also, make sure you subscribe to the channel. And turn on notifications. Because I make new videos every Monday, Wednesday and every other Friday.

But until then, this is Readus 101. Class dismissed.