The Karate Kid, Part II (1986)

The Karate Kid, Part II (1986)

Directed by: John G. Avildsen

Starring: Pat Morita, Ralph Macchio, Joey Miyashima

The Karate Kid, Part II starts immediately where the first Karate Kid ends, which is nice, because that movie just STOPS immediately after the kid wins the tournament (SPOILER!!!). Perhaps so it’d be more like a standard kung fu movie?

Karate Kid II is about Pat Morita having to go home to Japan to meet his elderly, sick father before he dies. The kid comes with him, because otherwise they would’ve just called this “The Mister Miyagi Show”. Of course, the reason Miyagi left his home town in the first place was because he didn’t want to fight his best friend in a fight of honor over a girl. It’s been 60 years, but the guy still carries a grudge and wants to fight it out.

The whole movie leads up to this fight between Morita and the other old Japanese guy, but it never actually happens. I was disappointed, even though I logically knew that Pat Morita is just too goddamn old to do real karate or kung fu or what have you, and it wasn’t going to be an awesome old master kung fu fight sort of situation. It’s too bad, really.