The Karate Kid - Mr. Miyagi is dead! Long Live Mr. Miyagi!!

I saw The 'new' Karate Kid - should we call it The Kung Fu Kid! - on Sunday last (20 June) and I should say it is 20 shades paler than the original. In spite of a more charismatic Jackie Chan... I found Mr. Han not a patch on Mr. Miyagi (who passed away early this year and in whose memory I spent an entire afternoon watching and rewatching all the three Karate Kid films).

That said, I shall say that Hollywood's attempt to sell China (how much kickback was got in the bargain, your surmise is as good as my guess!) to Americans is disgusting to say the least. Haven't we been through the Forbidden City, the streets of Beijing, the Shaolin Temple, the Kung Fu universities, the glitzy Kung Fu championships, the Great Wall of China? What we do get to see new is the new Americanised condominiums, people of China playing ping pong and violins and basketballs as well as old men sitting around the landscaped parks of Beijing streets that fail to hide China's poor attempts to reduce pollution levels and throwing Afro-Americans into the Beijing crucible. Jackie must have a huge proclivity or affliction towards his Afro-American counterparts - Will Smith, Chris Tucker... and now Will Smith Jr!

By throwing in Jaden Smith on to the streets of Beijing and showing him play basketball in the glorified ghettos of Beijing, if any subtle comparison is made to the streets of Harlem and Pittsburgh... I miss the point! After 2 hours of loud western music and blurring visuals of boys chasing each other through the narrow streets of Beijing, I came home with a headache. It stayed till about another 4 hours.

Though, all is not unwell in the state of The Karate Kid latest. Jaden Smith has worked his "those words relating to the body part that Mr. Han asks him to avoid speaking" and the learning is evident. The kid has a lot of spunk, gumption and attitude. That brings me to the point I want to convey - the new Karate Kid is all about spunk and attitude. And there is no subtlety whatsoever in this 'in yer face' exhibition of Hollywood's latest attempt to make moolah at the expense of the Oriental. I missed the quietness of Pat Morita's Mr. Miyagi, the serenity of the Japanese backdrop, the sanctity of the Japanese home and family tradition, the greenness of the rural Japan, the heart of the Original, the human-side of the villain of the original and his side-kick foil to the American boy Daniel played by Ralph Machhio... and most of all... the SOUL that The Karate Kid (original) had. This new avatar is just two hours of entertainment. It doesn't stay with you or warm the proverbial cockles of your heart.

Mr. Miyagi is dead! Long Live Mr. Miyagi!!

Film Review: GOD IS BRAZILIAN

Title: God is Brazilian (Deus É Brasileiro)
Language: Brazilian (Portuguese)
Year of Release: 2003
Director: Carlos Diegues
Cast: Antônio Fagundes, Wagner Moura, Paloma Duarte, Bruce Gomlevsky and Stepan Nercessian
Genre: Picaresque, Travel, Comedy, Adventure, Fantasy

What happens if God is bored! With his own creation - Man. A comic adventure fantasy, God Is Brazil is a conceptual comedy. God (Antonio Fagundes) decides to take a break. Wants to go on vacation. Comes to earth, lands up in Brazil. The country is supposed to be the most religious country with most believers and more church-goers and many more missionaries than other countries. And he finds that a certain 'Quinca of the Mules' is a person worthy to be canonised so that Quinca can take His place until He returns from the vacation. God is joined by Toaca (Wagner Moura), a conman and a cheat and a fisherman son of a guy who owns a tire puncture shop on the beachside high-way of the picturesque north-east Brazil. And the two are appended with by the beautiful and young girl Mada (Paloma Duarte), who decides to join them on their way through Sao Paulo to the Bacuta Valley. This is one helluva pleasure ride both in physical sense as well as psychological sense. Deeply refreshing and really redeeming in its quality, it is really touching as well as infinitely funny. You would want to own a copy of the transcript.

Owning the transcript would not suffice simply because a transcript would never capture the cinematography or the beauty of the locales or the changing scenescapes. The movie courses through a truly poverty-stricken Brazil, but never for a moment does one feel the alarming horror in a very irkingly realistic sense to leave you feeling you have watched a stark exposition of the darker side of life. Picture this scene... God and Toaca are walking through the streets. God naturally does not feel hunger or fatigue. Toaca is a jolly go lucky guy who has no scruples when he want food or pleasure. And suddenly he hears music. Death wail... someone has died. The implication: there would be food for the mourners who come to condole. Unceremoniously he enters the house, turns his nose in the direction of the right information and joins the mourners... The almost surreal nakedness of his frivolous act of absurd seeking for food in a tragic circumstance takes the edge of what would otherwise had been a serious moment in parallel cinema! Instances are many.

And finally God does meet Quinca. Surprise surprise, the latter does not believe in God. A moment of anagnorisis leading to a personal hubris for God who gives vent to a fury unabated that makes God human in our eyes. After all, He is our Creation.

The movie comes from the man who gave us Bye Bye Brazil, back in 1979. What a romp, is all I can say!