Review: 'Karate Kid' gains fistful of knowledge

The Karate Kid isn't one, really. He's more of a Kung Fu Kid, a saucy American 12-year-old who moves to Beijing with his single mom and winds up bullied by a gang of menacing students under the tutelage of a sociopathic kung fu master. The boy's only hope is a mild-mannered custodian who instructs him in the Chinese martial arts, prepares him for a tournament and helps him confront the goons - and his own fears.

But there's no messing around with iconic titles, so "The Karate Kid" it is: a fine, fun remake of a movie that updates, transplants and reimagines the original without sacrificing its heart or goofy charm. At times shockingly brutal for a movie about a barely pubescent child, it nevertheless retains a spry comic vibe and a loose-limbed jangliness. What's more, it's simply gorgeous, a love letter to the mountains and mystery of a landscape not often celebrated in big-budget Hollywood output.

One other thing: Jaden Smith is now officially a star. Sure, he's appeared onscreen before, in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and with his dad, Will, in "The Pursuit of Happyness," but this is his first time carrying a movie. As Dre Parker, the cornrowed new kid in town, Smith exudes more unfiltered charisma than the entire cast of "Marmaduke" - counting humans and dogs. And that face. It registers every emotion normally processed by children and a few that aren't, including saintly levels of compassion and stoicism.

The Pat Morita to Smith's Ralph Macchio is Jackie Chan, the well-duh choice to play a martial arts guru who's tough on the outside, squishy at the middle - a man with a little beard and a large font of wisdom. As with the 1984 film, the real sport of "The Karate Kid" lies not in Dre's increasingly violent clashes with his pip-voiced tormentors but in the unhurried rhythms of his relationship with his mentor, Mr. Han.

Despite the movie being overlong by about 20 minutes, it gives Dre time to grow and romance a sweet young violin student (Wenwen Han), one of the weaker points in Christopher Murphey's reworked screenplay. More effective are the scenes with his mom, portrayed with laser-like exactitude and hysterically apt mugging by the great Taraji P. Henson.

Harald Zwart's previous effort as director was the critically panned "The Pink Panther 2," but if, as Mr. Han maintains, "Everything is kung fu," then Zwart has landed a roundhouse kick to the critics who've been hating on him all these years.

-- Advisory: Bullying, martial-arts action violence and some mild language.

E-mail Amy Biancolli at datebookletters@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page E - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle