Year: 1989
Starring: Ralph Macchio, Noriyuki "Pat" Morita
Directed By: John G. Avildsen
Run Time: 112 Minutes
Rating: PG
For the third installment of the series, the director takes it back to the original story line. The movie begins much in the same way as the others, a montage of the events leading up to this movie. However, this one kind of skips the second movie and focuses more on the first movie, and the downfall of the Cobra Kai dojo. This movie completely skips the second movie plot all together and gets back to more of a reemergence of the Karate Kid main plot.
First and for most, apparently in California, there are people that are so into Karate, that Daniel winning the tournament a year earlier meant the Cobra Kai went out of business. So the plot is to bring down Daniel in the tournament, by bringing in a Karate champion, who is pretty much a big tool in this movie. Daniel also gets introduced to a teacher who at first appears to be his friend, but the audience knows that he is evil. Trying to teach him that Karate is about injury the opponent, while Miyagi insists that it is for defense only, and that defending his title at the tournament is not the true meaning of Karate. And just as there is in every Karate kid movie, Miyagi comes to save the day, and then agrees to train Daniel. Anyway, the ending is pretty predictable.
I will give this movie 3 out of 5 Crane Kicks, because it at least got back onto the original story line, and the build up to the tournament was better. The underlying messages in this movie? Don't go to college, open up a store with your Karate teacher selling Bonsai trees, and center your life around karate. I think if anyone in China or Japan saw these movies in the 80's, they had to be saying "America just destroyed martial arts." It was more entertaining then Part II, but really, thank goodness for Jet Li, Jackie Chan and any martial arts actor who made the art of martial arts cool again.
TMBro
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