The Karate Kid Part III (1989)

Was I the only one who simply wasn’t engaged with this series? Building on the success of their very own equivalent of the 1970s “Grasshopper” (David Carradine) doing karate rather than kung fu, the now slightly loved-up “Daniel” (Ralph Macchio) finds himself embroiled in quite a nasty plot by his erstwhile nemesis “Kreese” (Martin Kove) to avenge himself on the lad and his mentor “Miyagi” (Pat Morita) by goading him into a final conflict with his new Cobra Kai star “Mike” (Sean Kanan) which he hopes will repay the injustices he feels were visited upon him in the last film in 1986. The sagely “Miyagi” also has to worry about his charge when their apartment block is demolished and the kindly youngster uses his college fund to buy the old gentleman a venue for his bonsai tree business. This latter enterprise only serves to give “Kreese” and his young enforcer even more leverage over “Daniel” as he starts to look just a little bit out of his depth. With his guru disapprovingly abandoning him to his fate and him unsure as to who is really on his side, the whole underpinning principles of the honour of karate start to become blurred - but not as blurred as his vision, physically and metaphorically, as things come to an head. What is odd about this is the comparative tameness and timidity of the action scenes. I know this isn’t rated for the age group of something like “Enter the Dragon” but there the martial arts look so much more real and so much less choreographed than this rather placid, furniture-trashing, affair. “Miyagi” seems to have modelled his character as a sort of khaki-clad “Yoda”; Macchio could hardly be more of a drip and Kove ought to have stuck to “Cagney and Lacey” - at least there he didn’t have to try to pretend he was menacing. This just doesn’t ever take hold and the lacklustre efforts from just about everyone - except, perhaps, the unjustifiably wounded tiny little sculptured tree - are as flat as the mat. Same old, same old - sorry.

I totally forgot about this one until someone at work made an obscure reference about it... and suddenly I was faced with memories I'd rather forget. Honestly, when you remember The Next Karate kid and not Part III, it should tell you something. Anyway, he was right, it did have Robyn Lively in it and I think this is one of her early roles... and this and Teen Witch are kind of a shame because she can do a good job, a Twin Peaks quality job here and there but otherwise lingers in obscurity and really only surfaces for people like me who see her here and there in television roles and have fond memories of some of her better roles. Anyway, it also has Ralph Macchio doing a job that kind of makes sure to tell the audience that he does not want to be there, he does not think III is a good idea, and otherwise convinces the audience not to like it. And he was right, the script wasn't there. It was nice that he had a platonic interest and not a love interest, it was unique, it fit his character, it worked with the story... but the story otherwise wasn't there. It's kind of a revenge tale that you have seen a thousand times over and this one doesn't say anything more than low budget Canon Pictures quality film.

**The weakest of them all in the Karate Kid franchise.** After an excellent initial film and a sufficiently honorable sequel, this film comes to us… and there is no way to hide that the quality of the material presented is substantially lower and that the film works badly. The biggest problem with this film is the script, quite weak, poorly written and full of holes in which the lack of logic and credibility are closely associated with a dose of predictability that makes the film tiresome. The characters were also frankly poorly developed, the villains are stereotyped and loaded (the movie does everything it can to not like them) and the material given to the actors wasn't enough to guarantee a good job. Even so, it is necessary to recognize that Pat Morita and Ralph Macchio did everything possible to rise to the challenge, and to live up to what the audience expected from their respective characters. Morita remains a sympathetic presence and Macchio is not as immature and stubborn as in previous films, which shows some maturity in the character (although I don't know if this was intentional). The disappearance of Macchio's character's mother from the scene is justified in the most stupid way possible, and the place that was supposedly leased for the bonsai shop looks more like a warehouse than a commercial space. In the midst of these problems, the film compensates us with regular cinematography, good editing, a pleasant pace and no room for dead moments. Filming locations are satisfying enough. This being an action movie, a fight movie, karate, I expected to have seen some more fights, it has a lot less fights than the previous movies, and the tension is not as palpable, but what was done is quite well done, and the fight choreographies were well rehearsed and carried out.