Ji, Mary

8East, Gym

May 21, 2003

Movie: The Karate Kid

The Last Resort

The movie “Karate Kid,” shows both martial arts in positive and negative forms. The depiction of martial arts is clearly high when martial arts are used for violence towards others when martial arts don’t mean violence at all. This movie shows both martial arts as positive when Daniel uses it to show the other kid martial arts are a defense, and isn’t used for violence. This movie depicts martial arts as basically being a good thing because of how Daniel uses it to defeat the place where they were teaching martial arts was a tool of violence and was for revenge.

In the film, the old man, Miyagi, taught Daniel that using martial arts for fighting should be the last solution in a problem and that karate comes from the mind and heart, and it’s not determined by the belt you are wearing. Mr. Miyagi taught Daniel basic ideas of martial arts, but in the beginning Daniel wasn’t getting why Mr. Miyagi was telling him to wash and wax the car, wash floor, and paint the entire fence. Washing and waxing the car help with his arm and hands, wax on wax off. Washing the floor helps with the strength in his wrist and in his shoulders. Painting all the fence helps him with his arm and in martial arts, it helps him block hits. Both wax on wax off and washing the floor helps him be able to block attacks by the opponent. Later on Daniel understands why Mr. Miyagi asked him to wash and wax the car, wash floors, and paint fences, it was just the beginning of his training for the martial arts competition against the other gym. By showing this, the film is showing martial arts as a positive thing, whereas in the other gym, it was using martial arts as a tool for revenge and a tool for violence. This movie shows martial arts as a good thing because in the end, the film shows Daniel using martial arts to defeat the other gym, and it wasn’t by violence nor revenge, it was by the mind and heart that got Daniel to defeat the gym and win the trophy.

At first, when the film was starting off, martial arts seemed to be a bad thing because the bad boys were using it to fight off Daniel, but near the end, the film shows how martial arts is a defense and it is saying that fighting isn’t the answer because whenever the boys beat Daniel up, he didn’t fight back but he just got very pissed and mad at them and just wanted to get back at them. This movie overall is showing that martial arts is a positive defense not used for getting revenge.

In the present, there are many fights that lead up to revenge which causes children to use physical attributes to get back at someone or something. Although this movie shows that fighting should be the last resort, real life isn’t this way at all. People fight for the fun of it and enjoy watching others get pounded by others if it’s not them getting hurt. This movie is fantasizing because life doesn’t go this way. People don’t hold angry in when something bad happens to them, they let it out by using violence sometimes even physical violence. You should look at your community and change yourself to not use violence to resolve anything, instead violence should be your last resort to solve a problem.