Flashback: The first four Karate Kid movies

Some notes on the three 1980s films that starred Ralph Macchio, and the 1990s film that starred Hilary Swank.

Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita in The Karate Kid (1984).

There’s a new Karate Kid movie opening today, so I figured I’d re-post some comments I wrote about the first four films on my private Facebook page a few years ago.

I was a teenager when the first three films came out in the 1980s, and I can remember what a big deal they were at the time (well, the first two films, anyway)—but until recently, I had never felt any particular connection to the franchise.

The first two movies both landed in the top five at the box office the years they came out, but if memory serves, I didn’t see either of them until they were out on home video. I did see the third film in the theatre (with a co-worker from the video store I was working at at the time), but I didn’t re-watch any of these films after that, and I skipped the fourth film—the one with Hilary Swank—entirely.

That all changed in 2020, as I was looking for something to watch during the Covid shutdowns and someone recommended that I check out Cobra Kai, the series that not only continues the story decades later—as the former karate students become teachers with students of their own—but also puts a new spin on the story by allowing us to see the original film from the bully’s point of view.

I figured I should refresh my memory of the original films before getting into the series, and for completeness’ sake I should watch the one film I hadn’t seen yet, too—and so I did, and I wrote up some notes about the films, which I am now copying-and-pasting below (for paid subscribers).

One film I did not re-watch five years ago was the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid starring Jackie Chan. I had seen it during its original theatrical release, and ten years later it still felt semi-recent; I also assumed it was completely separate from the movies and series starring Ralph Macchio. But the movie opening today has retconned the remake so that it now takes place in the same universe as the Ralph Macchio movies—so maybe I should re-watch that film too. We’ll see.

In any case, after re-watching the first four films, I went on to watch the two seasons of Cobra Kai that existed at the time, and I enjoyed it enough to keep following the series right up until the sixth and final season finished its run on Netflix three months ago. I wrote notes about most if not all of the episodes as I went through the series, so I may or may not re-post those comments down the road, too.

In the meantime, here are my notes on the first four films—three of which starred Ralph Macchio, one of which starred Hilary Swank, and all of which starred Pat Morita as the late, great Mister Miyagi.