The Next Karate Kid (1994) – Review

Every now and then, a film series will deliver an entry that proves to be something called a franchise killer – an installment so despised that it halts the progress of a successful title either for a good decade or so, or in some cases, indefinitely. Some franchises have managed come back from from such a devestating event (Rocky), some haven’t (Die Hard), but forever more, that particular film that failed the collective is usually treated like it’s wearing a scarlet letter for the rest of eternity.
However, I have to say – and I can’t believe it either – that I truly believe history has been excessively unfair to the fourth entry of the Karate Kid franchise, The Next Karate Kid. Now, I’ll also freely admit that it’s no misunderstood masterpiece either and that there’s a boat load of flaws to choose from; but for someone whose interest in the entire saga didn’t peak until I watched Cobra Kai, this movie is nowhere near as bad as you’ve heard.

After visiting Arlington National Cemetery for a commendation for Japanese-Americans who fought in the Second World War, Mr Miyagi is reunited with Louisa Pierce, the widow of his former commanding officer and the two reconnect with wistful memories of her husband. Accepting an invitation to head back to Louisa’s home back in Boston, Miyagi has the “privilege” of meeting her granddaughter, Julie, a teenager who is one defiant ball of rage after the death of her parents four years earlier in a car crash – you know, textbook movie orphan stuff. Seeing that Louisa is buckling under the strain of trying to corral a hateful teen, Mr Miyagi makes her the offer of a house swap – she would go and stay at his place in California a rest while he stays in Boston in her house to watch over a female highschooler.
As it wouldn’t be a Karate Kid movie without some flabbergasting example of terrible parenting, Julie is left alone with this complete stranger who then attempts to try and give her life lessons.
However, despite her frequent outbursts, Julie doesn’t have it particularly easy either. As the death of her parents has left her utterly disinterested in continuing her studies, her only true interest is healing the injured hawk she has stashed on her school’s roof, but aside from that, she has to avoid the thugs who are part of the school’s security fraternity worryingly named the Alpha Elite. Essentially a fascist club of teen hall monitors who somehow have permission to rough up misbehaving students, the Alpha Elite are run by that other Karate Kid franchise mainstay, the unhinged military fanatic who likes bullying kids for kicks and in this instance is portrayed by the bellowing Paul Dugan.
Can Miyagi’s teachings manage to channel Julie’s anger enough so she can get a date for prom while fending off the rapey advances of the Alpha Elite?

I have no doubt that long term, Karate Kid fanatics have good reasons to hate The Next Karate Kid (no Daniel LaRusso, surprisingly little karate, barely any mention of bonsai trees), but as someone who has never really held the franchise in a particularly high regard, it’s a far better plotted film than the plainly batshit Part III and the gender switch actually ends up being quite sweet. Is Hilary Swank’s Julie just as big a complainer as Daniel LaRusso? Hells yes she is; in fact I don’t think she actually has a single line that isn’t delivered with quick tempered venom for at least the first 25 minutes of the movie. But while LaRusso constantly complained like Luke Skywalker on speed because he had to move to California, at least Julie has dead parents to fall back on when she’s having an entitled rampage. Also, while the entire concept of suddenly leaving a teenage girl in the care of an elderly, Japanese gentleman whose on real connection to her is that he served with her grandad in WWII is objectively fucking insane, it’s actually no worse than a teenage LaRusso suddenly moving to Okinawa for months with the same old dude and then cashing in his college fund upon their return to start a bonsai tree selling business for them both.
In actuality, swapping the titular kid from a boy to a girl not only gives the movie a nice, soft reboot feel, but it means that Pat Morita’s Miyagi has a few new teenage minefields to negotiate himself other than the typical forgetting to knock before entering a room and freaking out at the sight of Julie’s tights hanging up to dry in the bathroom. Yes, it’s incredibly dumb as only a Karate Kid movie can be, but at times it’s also genuinely sweet as cinema’s premier car waxer fumbles through buying his ward a prom dress despite knowing sweet fuck all about such things.
Of course, aside from Miyagi becoming yet another surrogate parent, there’s admittedly precious little other things that connect the fourth instalment to the franchise. While Julie does some martial arts training in a Buddhist monastery (no really, Miyagi makes them live there for two weeks), actual Karate is thin on the ground and there’s not even a tournament to join.

However, business picks up when the movie’s villains come into play and while Michael Ironside’s tyrannical, self settled colonel doesn’t make any sense whatsoever (the guy is obviously insane and punches his teenage troops full in the face on school grounds with baffling impunity), he sure is fun to watch. OK, so he’s nowhere near as iconic as John Kreese, as threatening as Chozen or as utterly, nonsensically batshit as Terry Silver, but his cadre of thugs (who include a young Walton Goggins) do actually make a solid metaphor for the unwanted sexual advances that young girls tend to face, especially when they choose to bungee jump into senior prom for no reason whatsoever.
Of course, the film is continents away from being perfect and contains many baffling ingredients that alternate between being disturbing and hilarious, but that tends to add to its goofy charm. For a start, is it really fair that Mr Miyagi manages to steal all of Julie’s formative, growing up moments from her only living relative; I mean, couldn’t Louisa have come home in time to see her own granddaughter wear her first prom dress? Also, why is no one questioning the fact that Julie’s boyfriend, Eric, easily looks around 35, has an actual job and has dreams of becoming the pilot of an F15 fighter jet? Where exactly is this large Buddhist Monastery actually located that Miyagi and Julie has time to visit, learn Karate and bond with all the monks in a two week period – my knowledge of Boston is minimal at best, but does Beantown have many monasteries?

Yes, it’s quite dumb, but then isn’t every Karate Kid movie when you put it under the logic-telescope? But in The Next Karate Kid’s defence, it has a lot of fun moments that keep things moving quite nicely; I mean, where else in the franchise would you find a scene that sees monks bowling, or an utterly overblown finale that sees Ironside and his over-amorous goons blow up someone’s car to really drive home the fact that their fascist boss has spectacularly lost the plot. Sure it needs more Karate, but just because the Kid is a girl now, it doesn’t mean that this unloved sequel should be crane kicked out of existence.
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