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The Karate Kid before release was thought to be an okay movie. But then, the unexpected happened. It became a huge success. Both the critics and the audiences loved it despite the fact that the original Karate Kid was a 26 year old franchise, but recently the 11year-old star Jaden Smith surprised even the studio that made the new movie, Columbia Pictures, by bringing in $55.7 million on opening. People said that the most the movie would bring in was $ 30 million.

"We were definitely thinking low 30s would be great", said Doug Belgrad, President of Columbia Pictures, "Anything more than that would be gravy. And anything over $ 40 million was the kind of number you wouldn't dare to speak of, it was so out of the realm of the possible". What worked was the movie was it a score of A with test audiences with the under 18s giving it an A+.

Then there were the parents who grew up in 1984 who watched the original and wanted their children to meet Mr Miyagi and Daniel-san.

When Jaden began taking Karate classes his father thought about remaking the old hit. Jaden had already acted with Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness.

Jaden is reported to have said, "Dad was seeing how good I was getting and he was like, `You know what Jaden? We should remake The Karate Kid. I was like, `Seriously?
Whoa!"'.

Columbia who backed Will Smith in the Men In Black days gave the green light, switched the story's setting to China -where there's a huge audience, adding a global star like Jackie Chan to what's an amazingly non white cast with pros like Will and his wife Jada who's Jaden's mother on board as hands-on produces just made everything right. Said The Karate Kid director Harald Zwart, "Will thought of everything including getting Justin Bieber to sing one of the songs."

Said Columbia's head, "We have started talking about a sequel but we didn't want to jinx it before it opened."

The other star Jackie Chan whose real name is Chan-Kong-San has appeared in more than 100 films. His highest grossing film was 2001's Rush Hour 2.

He worked as a stuntman on Bruce Lee's master pieces Fist Of Fury and Enter The Dragon before headlining his own Mega hit in 1978, Drunken Master.

He holds the Guinness records for "most stunts by a living actor" his animated show Jackie Chan adventures ran for five seasons. He voiced characters in Kungu Fu Panda. He has released 20 albums in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and English.

And he studied at the Pecking Opera School as a child and still often sings his own theme songs for his movies. With all this and the Smiths and Jaden high kicking and Bieber singing I guess you pay what it takes to see The Karate Kid.

Said Jaden Smith, "When I was younger, I was like, `I want to be trained by Jackie Chan.' And now here I am doing a movie with him!" Of his three-hour daily training regimen, the hardest thing was probably the stretching. I'd cry sometimes, it was so painful. I have always wanted to be an actor. My parents said, `You can pick your career, do whatever you want to do. Now if you mess up, don't blame it on us'."

Showing proper martial-arts respect, Jaden made sure to check in with the original Kid, Ralph Macchio. "I talked to him over the phone once. He said, `This is going to be a good movie. Don't screw it up."

When you have Jackie Chan sharing screen space with Jaden Smith (Will Smith's son), you expect magic, and you won't be disappointed with Karate Kid. The remake of 1984 hit of the same name, Karate Kid has perfect balance of humour, drama and, of course, martial arts.

Frankly, instead of Karate Kid, the movie should have been named Kung Fu Kid, as the focus is on kung fu rather than karate, but who is complaining?

The movie begins with Dre Parker (Smith) moving to China from Detroit with his mother Sherry Parker (Taraji P Henson). While Sherry tries her best to make her son adapt to the new environment, Dre finds it very difficult to be a part of the world that is not only new and different, but also speaks a different language. While trying to know the guys in his neighbourhood, he comes across Meiying (Wen Wen Han), a beautiful young violinist, who quickly becomes good friends with Dre.

But Cheng (Zhenwei Wang), a bully and a family friend of Meiying's, does not approve of Dre and her getting close . He ends up hitting Dre with some serious kung fu moves.

Dre and Meiying continue being friends, while Cheng continues bullying Dre now and then as they all attend the same school. While Cheng and his group are bashing Dre up one day, the building's maintenance guy Mr Han (Jackie Chan) comes to Dre's rescue. Watching Cheng and friends misusing kung fu and their teacher Master Li teaching them not show mercy to their opponents, Mr Han decides to teach Dre `the real Kung Fu' and participate in a tournament against Master Li's students.

While learning kung fu, Dre and Mr Han get closer battling their inner demons and fears as well.

Harald Zwart who has tried comedy before with Pink Panthar 2 has used a fine balance between hu mour and action. The training session scenes and the chemistry between Chan and Smith make the movie interesting. The cinematography is good, especially during the scenes from Wudang Mountain. Chan is in a different role than other movies in the role of a drunkard loner who keeps to himself but is a good person with the right knowledge of kung fu.

Those who are hoping to see Chan kick butts will be disappointed as he barely shows his moves. The movie actually belongs to Smith, who is on his way to stardom. From comedy to emoting to action, Smith proves he will be ruling the box office just like his famous father. The antagonist Cheng can not only do some serious kicking but also is good in emoting and has done full justice to his role. It won't be a surprise if we see him becoming the next Jet li.

Though the Karate Kid has a Bollywood feel to it, especially at the end, one cannot deny it is worth your ticket money. All in all a worthwhile movie for your children's summer break and many of the parents can even reminisce about their childhood as well. Karate Kid Director: Harald Zwart Cast: Jackie Chan, Jaden Smith, Taraji P Henson, Zhenwei Wang and Wen Wen Han Being screened.