Wax On, Wax Off.

The Karate Kid (1984)

Even 25 years after the fact, watching The Karate Kid for the first time, I can see why it became a hit with teenagers everywhere, and also despair at the fact that it puts most modern teenage movies to shame (come to think of it most modern movies are remakes of the old ones), despite being Rocky Jr. Same director, same soundtrack composer, and you can hear Stallone in many of Ralph Macchio’s utterances, especially when trying to woo Elizabeth Shue. I half expected him to shout, “Yo Adrian, I did it,” at the end. It’s been stated before but what keeps KK from sinking into the mire of straight to dvd releases, and differentiates it, is the relationship between Daniel and Mr Miyagi which is a sweet natured if hard to believe friendship. Shue adds the usual polished performance from this period and Cagney and Lacey’s Martin Kove, on his second most memorable villain duty after Rambo 2, makes a hilariously hissable baddy- even his club has an evil name. Like Rocky, it also deservedly spawned a fistful of sequels, but the original deserves to share shelf space with Back to the Future and Ghostbusters as one of the 80s best. 9/10 Also, Bananarama featured on a soundtrack isn’t exactly commonplace even in English movies of the time, and cheered me up that they got the work