The Next Karate Kid (1994)

Starring:
Hilary Swank
Pat Morita

Plot summary: Ralph Macchio is back, and this time he's Hilary Swank!

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After Ralph Macchio turned 40 and demanded a raise to $8.50/hr, it became clear that he had to be replaced. So director Christopher Cain, of Young Guns fame, cast Hilary Swank. This was genius, for not only did Hilary open up the Karate Kid franchise to a new, younger, more female generation, she is also incredibly hot. (Note: Don't worry, she is 19 during filming)

Sure, the franchise may be a bit old at this point. Sure, only about ten people saw Karate Kid III in the theatres. But they still have Miyagi. Miyagi is the Yoda of the Karate Kid world: short, wise, powerful, green, cryptic. Shorter than Tom Cruise, stronger than Nicole Kidman, Miyagi is the hub on which the movie turns.

The film opens with Miyagi in Boston accepting a citation for his service in the 442nd during WWII. Apparently he was a sergeant, even though he was Okinawa born and would have had his ass in an internment camp in WWII. But what the hell, it's as logical a means as any to put an Asian in Boston. He goes to visit Louisa Pierce (Constance Towers), the widow of his army buddy, and meets Hilary Swank, playing sneering high schooler Julie Pierce. Miyagi senses the pain in young Hilary, orphaned, raised by her grandmother, so he tries to convince Louisa to go to California for two weeks and let him take care of Hilary. Minutes later, she's on a plane.

Now with the old woman out of the way, Christopher Cain is ready to establish the softer side of Hilary Swank. Hilary breaks into the school after hours to feed an injured hawk she stowed away on the rooftop. She has named the hawk Angel and has long conversations with it. Before we get to the part where she says, "Injured hawk, you're my only friend," Hilary is interrupted by the cops. Illustrating her catlike reflexes and steel trap mind, she eludes the cops using a modified "Superman" maneuver: throwing her flashlight in their general direction. Running home, she sneers at Miyagi a little before going to bed.

We join her at high school to learn why she acts like such a raging bitch-troll. Somehow she has become the enemy of the Alpha Elite, a tightly disciplined service club whose members all wear the same black uniforms. This fascist organization is led by Colonel Dugan, played by Michael Ironside, who parlayed this role into a spot in Starship Troopers. Dugan's blackshirt army has somehow given him enough power that he outranks the principal, and is able to use his unholy influence to put Julie on sudden death probation. One more screw up and she is suspended. To compound the situation, one of the blackshirts has a personal vendetta against Hilary. Ned (Michael Cavalieri) either wants to kill or screw Hilary. He repeatedly tells her to meet him at the docks. "You know what happens at the docks, don't you, Julie?" His eerie sexual harassment is cut short by Eric McGowen (Chris Conrad, who would go on to play Johnny Cage in the Mortal Kombat sequel). Eric is the good little Hitler youth, only in the organization to try to get in the Air Force Academy.

We learn to like Eric at an Alpha Elite after school meeting, which consists of Dugan beating the crap out of his blackshirts consecutively and concurrently. Eric refuses to fight Dugan, and alienates himself from the squad for his lack of violence and suicidal machismo. Eric is stupid, cute, and all over Hilary. He tends to play a passive-aggressive courtship strategy, letting her make all the moves. Obviously, the theme of the movie is feminist power. That and bared midriffs. And oh, what a midriff. Remember, she's 19. It's okay.

Meanwhile Miyagi attempts to develop Hilary's ass whooping ability so she can stand up to the small army of bullies devoted to making her life a living hell. The beauty of this movie is the familiarity of the plot with a few twists on the formula, namely wicked booty and a hawk. He haggles a deal with her to exchange karate lessons for her doing her homework. He starts with the famous "wax the car" routine, but we discover that Hilary is not nearly as gullible as Ralph was. So Miyagi has to become much more clever at psychologically tormenting his student, and he has her babysit the three juvenile delinquents next door. A Home Alone Nerf product placement montage follows, and Miyagi enters to give Hilary the theme of the movie. He tells her if she gets mad she should repeat, "Sun is warm, grass is green," borrowing from his successful anger management program for people with severe head injuries.

In the original Karate Kid we learned that an opponent that leads with his face can be defeated with the crane kick. In Karate Kid Part II we appreciated the power of the drum. Karate Kid Part III we learned to never sweep the leg. Next Karate Kid? Sun is warm, grass is green. Think about it, won't you?

Sun is warm, grass is green does not keep Hilary out of trouble, though, and she gets put on a two week suspension. This provides Miyagi the opportunity to get Hilary out of the city and off to a Buddhist temple for training. En route he finds a hicksville gas station where he sends Hilary inside to get a candy bar. She gets frightened by Joey the Doberman, which means at long last we get to see Miyagi do his Miyagi thing. First he hypnotizes Joey the Doberman, drawing the ire of the hick gas station attendants. He beats down two of the gas station attendants using the third attendant as a weapon. Once they get to the Buddhist temple, Miyagi rings the bell and waits outside for a few hours, kind of like Fight Club without the verbal abuse.

Here at the Buddhist temple, far away from Boston, Hilary can focus on her karate training, and Miyagi can enjoy not being the only Asian. While we get to know the monks such as Tall Monk (Jim Ishida), Buddhist Monk (Seth Sakai), and Monk (Rodney Kageyama), Miyagi has Hilary repeatedly jump kick from one rock to another, landing on her ass in the sand over and over. Further training for Hilary involves her standing in a barn blindfolded while monks throw sandbags at her. Eventually she wears down and sees the light. She starts waxing Miyagi's car. After a couple weeks Hilary becomes a karate master, and receives a birthday present from the monks as well. She gets to watch one of the monks (I think it was Tall Monk) shoot an arrow at Miyagi's heart, which Miyagi plucks out of the air inches before the Karate Kid franchise is permanently ended.

Leaving the Circus Monks behind, Hilary and Miyagi head back to Boston in time for prom. Miyagi buys a prom dress as a surprise for Hilary and tries not to look like a sexual deviant. This is a close call since he picks out a dress that is a lot like the Seven Year Itch dress except a miniskirt. After giving it to her he teaches her how to waltz by mixing the dance steps with karate, kind of like Tae Bo without the marketing empire. Hopefully she won't accidentally kill Eric during their first dance. Eric comes to pick Hilary up, is greeted at the door by a monk (I believe Monk this time) and finds Miyagi cutting vegetables in the kitchen. He is a little rattled from negotiating a curfew with a knife-wielding master of the deadly arts, and inadvertently says that after the prom, "I will treat her with respect for one hour," possibly the greatest curfew negotiation with a knife-wielding master of the deadly arts line in movie history. After the two crazy kids go off to the prom, Miyagi takes his monk friends out bowling. In a sequence that undoubtedly inspired Kingpin, they get embroiled in a tense bowling contest against a team that apparently bowls a 12 average.

We then cut to the prom, and after Hilary avoids severing Eric's spine with Miyagi's karate waltz, the movie threatens to slow down from its rollercoaster pace. Luckily, the Alpha Elite blackshirts break up the dance with a bungee jumping exhibition. One of the fascist bungee jumpers violates the third law of bungee jumping: never bungee jump directly above a gazebo or gazebo-like structure. He crashes right into it, breaking his arm. This puts a damper on the festivities and Eric and Hilary leave to show some respect for an hour or so.

Eric drives Hilary home, and share a tender moment before a monster jeep lurks around the corner. Alpha Elite blackshirts jump out of the jeep and bust his car windows. The gauntlet thus thrown, Eric must go to meet Ned at the docks. "You know what happens at the docks, don't you, Julie?" Well, apparently not sex. Eric meets with Ned and the rest of the blackshirts for a fight to the death, and we learn why Eric didn't want to fight earlier in the movie. He's really, really bad at it. Within seconds Ned has Eric bloodied and down on the ground, when Colonel Dugan cries "Finish him off!" Without the widespread popularity of Mortal Kombat that we now enjoy, his little fascists only stare at him in confusion, refusing to kill. Hilary enters the fight to simultaneously save and emasculate her man by beating the living crap out of Ned.

One of the most important features of the Scriptomatic supercomputer that generated all of the Karate Kid movies is the showdown of the masters. Dugan, abandoned by his blackshirts, challenges Miyagi to a fight. Giving up three feet and a hundred pounds, the wily Miyagi nonetheless is able to dispatch Dugan in a comical manner.

If you love karate, kids, or just Hilary Swank, The Next Karate Kid is for you. I would have to say that this is the greatest movie I have ever seen.