Kung Fu Karate

Renzo & I watched a very silly Jackie Chan movie - Karate Kid. It's a remake of a 1984 film that was set in Okinawa (where karate comes from) but in this one the action switches to Beijing and the kid learns Chinese kung fu, so you'd think it would be called Kung Fu Kid, but anyway... The whole film is unbelievable from start to finish. We learn in the first 30 seconds that the boy's father just died which for some reason prompts mum & son to move from New York to China. There is a silly love sub-plot (between 12 year olds!); kung fu lessons take place in a succession of super-exotic 'Come to China' places as we see the dynamic duo take a day-trip to the mountains of Guilin (1,000 miles away) to visit a mountain-top monastery (actually Datong, 300 miles west of Beijing) and then practise on the Great Wall (with not a soul around); and finally, our little hero wins the big competition by 'doing the cobra thing' - a technique which takes decades of practise - on the school bully. Hooray!