Written by Christian Garcia
Today I am looking at the infamous final film in the Miyagi-Verse, The Next Karate Kid.
It is often considered the worst of the Karate Kid films and an unnecessary cash-grab.
Is this film as bad as everyone thinks? Let’s take a look and see.
The Hero:
Julie Pierce is a young teenager who lost her parents in a tragic car accident and now lives with her grandmother. The loss of her parents and her grandfather cause her great anger and anguish which causes her to lash out others including her grandmother.
The only solace she gets is when she sneaks into her school at night to care for an injured hawk that she named, Angel.
Her father taught her karate which he learned from her grandfather who was a student of Mr. Miyagi’s.
She is played by Hilary Swank in what was considered her breakout role.
The Hero’s Journey:
Julie suffers great anguish after the loss of her parents. This causes her great anger and as a result, she lashes out others, especially her grandmother. Out of fear of feeling the pain of loss again, she chooses to shut people out and hides behind anger. This causes a great strain on her relationship with her grandmother, which leads to Mr. Miyagi offering her grandmother to stay in his house in Los Angeles while he stays in Massachusetts as Julie’s caretaker.
Julie is dismissive of Miyagi at first and lashes out at him as well. She attempts to run away and is almost hit by a car, but shocks Miyagi by jumping into the tiger position to save herself. It is here that they begin to connect. Miyagi helps her confront her grief and tells her that anger won’t bring back her parents and that she must still live her life. Miyagi tells her that her parents left her a great legacy which is karate.
Julie decides to learn karate from Miyagi but immediately dismisses his teaching styles refusing to wax a car. She tells Miyagi he knows nothing about girls which creates a new challenge for him. He has her babysit some kids as an exercise in patience. She is impatient and wants to learn how to break boards and do cool karate stuff, which Miyagi rebuffs saying none of that will help her conquer her anger.
Along her journey, she is constantly harassed by the Alpha Elite, her school’s security fraternity, mainly by Ned Randall who is constantly making unwanted sexual advances towards her. She befriends one of the Alpha Elite students, Eric. One night she attempts to sneak into the school to feed Angel and is confronted by Ned and the Alpha Elite. The encounter results in her getting suspended from school for two weeks. Miyagi takes her to a Buddhist monastery to teach her the true ways of karate. During her time there she is taught to control her anger, as well as focus and awareness. There is an incident where she attempts to kill a cockroach and is scolded by Miyagi and the other monks. Miyagi tells her that in the monastery they respect all living things. She finds a mantis and brings it into the monastery to show her respect for living things. Once she does this, her training progresses and she begins to improve.
She returns to school with more patience and higher spirits until she is confronted by Ned again who tells her that he called animal control and that they took Angel. They retrieve her, and Miyagi convinces Julie that Angel is ready to fly away, and Julie releases her back into the wild. After releasing her, Julie has lost her confidant, but Miyagi tells her that now she can talk to him and Eric.
She begins letting people in with Miyagi and Eric, agreeing to go to prom with Eric. However, their time at prom is interrupted by the Alpha Elite when they bungee down during the middle of prom. Why this happens is never explained but when it happens, Eric shows concern for one of the injured members and then gets into another confrontation with Ned.
The film culminates in an anti-climactic fight at the docks where Julie and Miyagi come to the aid of Eric who is about to be executed on the orders of Dugan. At first, Miyagi discourages her from fighting but then relents after Julie says she will never have respect unless she shows she can hold her own. She holds her own until Ned throws sand in her face, but she applies what she has learned from Miyagi about using her other senses and defeats Ned.
The film ends with Julie and Miyagi walking away from the defeated Dugan with Julie now sure of herself and having conquered her anger.
The Villain:
Colonel Paul Dugan, mostly referred to as Dugan, is the head of the Alpha Elite, the school’s security team.
He believes in an aggressive style of security defense by any means necessary. He is rough on his students and believes in cruel and unusual punishment. He is like John Kreese but even more insane. He has his students blow up a car and even tries to convince his students to kill Eric (one of his own students).
He is more authoritarian and sociopathic than Kreese, but he is pretty one dimensional. We are given little backstory to him other than that he served in the army which is what made him develop his cold and aggressive demeanor but other than that there is not much else to him. As a result, he is not as memorable an antagonist as Kreese or Terry Silver.
The Film’s Pros:
Mr. Miyagi
The heart and soul of the Karate Kid films is of course, Mr. Miyagi. While some of the lessons he teaches are not as iconic as what he has taught Daniel-san, he still shows why he is such a great teacher and instills some great lessons onto Julie and helps her grow. Miyagi is wise and funny in this film cracking jokes while also instilling great wisdom.
With this film being the last appearance of the beloved sensei, Pat Morita puts in another solid performance giving us some genuine moments that remind us why we love Mr. Miyagi.
The Dance Scene
While this film lacks most of the heart and emotion of the first two films, it does have a genuinely nice moment where Mr. Miyagi teaches Julie how to dance. It shows how far their connection has grown and it’s an important moment in Julie’s growth as she finally lets go of her anger and lets Miyagi in, the first person she has allowed in since the loss of her parents. He teaches her to dance and then surprises her with a dress for her school prom. It is a touching moment and is nice to see Julie happy and having a fatherly figure again. Swank and Morita have great chemistry in this scene, and it is one of very few highlights of the film.
The Film’s Cons:
Feels like a cash-grab
This film lacks the emotion and heart that made the first film a classic. The first film felt like it was made to show the value that karate has not only in teaching self-defense but in teaching important life lessons. This film feels more like an unnecessary attempt to cash in on the Karate Kid name and takes short cuts that make it feel hollow and like a typical early 90s teen flick that just happens to have some karate in it.
While Julie and Miyagi are likable characters, they are given very little to work with and the film has no real stakes to it.
While Julie’s story of growth during her time with Miyagi does get better and is enjoyable to watch, it is not strong enough to sustain the rest of the film. None of the ideas that the film introduces ever flesh out and it feels as if the writers did the bare minimum.
Anticlimactic Ending
Of all the final acts in the Karate Kid franchise, the final act of this film is easily the worst.
The first film built up a rivalry between Daniel and Johnny Lawrence that culminates in the All-Valley tournament fight where Daniel overcomes the odds and proves himself. It had a big fight build akin to a Rocky film and Daniel’s victory is a feel-good moment. Part II built up to fight to the death between Daniel and Chozen. Even Part III with its flaws at least built towards the final fight between Daniel and Mike Barnes.
This film doesn’t build up to anything. We see a few glimpses of Julie being harassed by Ned and the Alpha Elite but there isn’t any real rivalry built up and if anything, the only “rivalry” that is somewhat built up is between Ned and Eric. However, Eric is given so little screen time that we don’t really get invested in him nor care for him. The film culminates with a fight at the docks where Eric is cornered by Ned and his fellow Alpha Elite students. They blow up his car (I kid you not) and then Dugan orders Ned and the other students to kill him. Yes, actual murder is threatened here.
But of course, Julie and Miyagi show up and come to his aid. Julie beats Ned easily and then Miyagi squares off and easily beats Dugan. The students then turn on Dugan seeing he went too far, which is not believable nor earned given that they continuously sexually harassed Julie throughout the film. Then the heroes walk away with Miyagi’s final words in film being, “fighting not good. But if must fight... win.” It doesn’t feel like a happy ending and just feels like an ending.
Final Thoughts:
The Next Karate Kid is ultimately the worst film in the Karate Kid franchise and the most pointless film. It lacks the heart and emotion of the original film and feels more like a cash-grab that does the bare minimum and feels more like a typical late 80s/early 90s film with the Karate Kid name slapped on the cover.
However, there are some elements in the film that I did enjoy. Mainly, the relationship between Julie and Miyagi. Their chemistry felt genuine as she grew to trust him more and of course Mr. Miyagi is the only saving grace in the film. Julie at first, I was not a fan of but as she grew through her training, I did grow to like her a bit more as a character.
While the performances of Hilary Swank and Pat Morita are good, with Swank’s performance being her breakout performance, they are not enough to save the film. The film is bogged down by poor writing, bland and one-dimensional villains, and a story that has no stakes nor heart to make it appealing to any Karate Kid fan.
It is a shame that this is the last film to feature the iconic Mr. Miyagi but it is also reassuring that this is not the last entry in the Miyagi-Verse. Twenty-four years later, the saga would continue and be given new life with Cobra Kai. Although she is no Daniel LaRusso, Julie Pierce is a solid character, and I admit that I would be interested to see if she were to ever show up in Cobra Kai.
This is the Karate Kid film that you can easily skip, and I would recommend doing so.
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