The Karate Kid - Everybody was kung fu fighting !!!

The Karate Kid ( Actually Kung fu Kid ) is a reboot of the 1984 Hollywood film Karate Kid and can be considered as a carbon copy of the old version conceptwise. A brilliantly made film which resolves what was lacking in the original 1984 version .Jaden Smith ,in this youger age, has delivered a ver mature performance. It is Will Smith's luck that his son is so young,otherwiseJadon would have been a big competitor !! I had watched the old version very earlier and I beg to differ with all claimings of the 1984 version lovers. This film has a lot of difference in the quality of making,character creation .
Story
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Story line is as same as the 1984 version. But they have shifted the atmosphere to China instead of LA and the martial art reffering to is not Karate ,but Kungfu. The film also shows a mockery of Online teaching Medias, like DVD or books. One can never learn a martial art by seeing a DVD or reading books.

Charatcters who strike:

 
3 charatcters steal all the show. Obviously Jaden Smith is at No1 position taking the character to a new level ( compared to dull performance of his counterpart (Ralph Macchio) in old vesrion.

His  mentor training  , before the shooting has been utilized in the film brilliantly.I think that was another flaw in the 1984 version, Ralph has got no karate experience while doing the old karate kid movie and also the actor who portrayed the Trainer , Patt Moritta, was NOT a martial artist. But in this film, when Jackey Chan did the role of trainer, it was much much concieving and also, I have never seen Jackey in such a serious role. Obviously second character who draws our attention is ofcource of Jackey Chan. Then the third character is "Chen" the villain. I don't know anything about this kid actor, but his portrayal of the villain “Chen” and his kungfu skills were brilliant.

Pros and Cons:
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Actually first half of the movie seems bit  dragging  but it gains its pace gradually. The characters are more emotionally linked each other than the older version. Still, I felt depiction of Han’s tragic past and the sentimental drama was not required. I don’t know why the story was manipulated in such a way that the incidents should take place in China. May be , they can use Kungfu instead of Karate and can have Jackey Chan do an important role.Definitely Chan’s presence would have given much better market to the film worldwide.

Cinematography cannot be called as an outstanding one, but of course adequate. Some beautiful visuals of Chinese natural landscapes can be seen in the movie and they are indeed a feast to the eyes.

Apart from the above, the positive is, the thrilling and effective climax.. A director's signature can apparantly be seen here. I remember the climax was not at all thrilling in the previous version. Most of all it was a film based on a boy who learns kung fu and particpates in a tournament,and they show some real kung fu actually ( even though ,the "scissor lock" take down shown in the climax, is usually from another form of martial art called "Vovinam viet vo dao" (vietnamese )). I'm not sure if such technique exists in kung fu) .The old version was a failure in completely depicting real  moves. , despite having such a name and theme. Fight choreography is good. No wire-fu seemed to have used, perhaps they might have used, but it cannot be noticed anywhere. In a nutshell, this new version of Karate Kid gives everything which is expected from such a movie.

Overall my rating is 8 / 10.

NB: I don’t take into account of logical points for this film, because after all this is just a movie and clearly a remake of the old classic.

TAARE ZAMEEN PAR -That's what is called cinema !!!

I have certain prejudices about bollywood films, and I watch them very rarely .But Amir's debut directorial movie "Tare Zmeen Par" is something which is different from contemporary bollywood flicks.What impressed me much in TZP is that even being a film which is crafted by a main stream actor ,it never tries to boost up his star image. In fact we won’t get to see the star "Amir Khan", we see only an art teacher called "Ram Shankar Nikumbh" in the movie. Nikumbh is introduced only at the end of first half. Amir's effort is appreciable because he didn’t try to make yet another usual Amir khan entertainer, as his maiden dircetoial venture. Instead he has made a perfect socio-drama which has something serious to interfere with spectators.

The film deals with "Dyslexia" which is a learning disability , ie problems in ,reading or spelling etc.. the theme itself is fresh. ie Amir succeeded in the first stage of a basic movie making ; selection of theme. But most impressive is that how he narrates this simple theme and getting us involved in the movie. The story is about a school boy call "Ishaan Awasthy", the central character of the story, who is introduced as a lazy, unintelligent student in the school, regularly getting punishment from his teachers, so on ..but at the same time he is being portrayed as a good observer of nature and surroundings. ... The entire story revolves around this character “Ishaan”.


The casting for this character is an important factor in the movie. I can’t imagine any other actor, other than ‘Darsheel Safary”, as Ishaan Awasthy. Here I purposefully call him as “actor”, instead of child artist... Because the boy has displayed an incredible performance which can never be under estimated. He has got good control over the body language, expressions and dialogue presentation. One which comes into my mind is, the scene in which he is being interrogated by his father when he finds out the absent note written by his brother for him to bunk the class.

The second stage of the story also begins with this scene. Ishaan’s father decides to send him to a boarding school despite the weak protest of Ishaan’s mother and elder brother. The frustrated mind of the child at this situation is depicted well by Amir, especially the dreaming scene. But things are going bad to worse here onwards. At his new surroundings, he finds his life miserable and lonely…until he meets his new art teacher Ram Shankar Nikumbh who is joining the school as a guest faculty, enacted by Amir Khan himself. Frankly speaking, the introduction scene of Amir doesn’t fit into such a natural movie. But considering the the overall quality of the movie, we can just forget that scene.

It is Nikumbh who finds out the real problem faced by Ishaan- Dyslexia. He visits Ishaan's parents to discus about it.Some of the dialogues delivered by Nikumbh are strong enough to blow our mind, especially parents and teachers who mishandle children suppressing their born talents and forcing them to be mere bookworms; a case in point is the question he asks to Mr.Awasthy (Vipin Sharma), regarding Ishaan’s problem goes like this; “I am asking the reason for the disease and you are telling me the symptoms. “ And another scene in which he shows the packet of a toy to Ishaan’s father and asking him to read the Chinese letters in it in order to make him aware of the real problem with ishaan, is also a good one.

The transformation of Ishaan as a brilliant student has been depicted step by step. Amir displays some methods of teaching, even though I am not sure if those methods are really working for a boy having Dyslexia, still it seems adequate in the movie. The climax of the movie shows a different kind of painting competition participated by all students and teachers.

Amir is not a professional director yet, so some minor flaws, like unnecessary dragging in certain scenes and some melodramas, can simply be ignored. Also we should ignore the grammatical aspects. Moreover he has given a movie which is competing to any classic given by veteran directors earlier. He has shown adequate discipline in the making of his directorial debut and which is highly appreciable. He didn’t show any technical extravaganza in the film. Even computer graphics used only for some required scenes. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy team has given good music and well suited BGM for the movie.

Last but not least, this film may sometimes make your eyes filled, but not by cheap sentimental scenes. So don’t worry about that. Amir Khan tries to give some good social messages to parents as well as children and he has succeeded in the same to a great extend.

My rating for this movie is 9/10 .

A truthful Account Of Grief - La Stanza Del figlio (The Son’s Room), Italy

Basically people watch movies for entertainment and/or time pass .If you come under this category,
I suggest never watch this movie. Because ,at certain parts,the movie “The Son’s Room” would make you one of the characters in the movie itself, while you watch it. The Son’s Room, directed by “Nanni Moretti”, is a simple movie which doesn’t claim any technical brilliance, but extremely touching. One who watched P.Padmarajan’s “Moonnampakkam” (malayalalam(1988), may find some narrow similarities in both movies.In fact the themes are very much similar. Both movies depict ‘death’ and it’s aftereffects.
A group of people, an unexpected death, how the death affect to each of them and their personal life. This is the constructional line of the movie.

The movie start with introducing us the happy family life of Giovanni, a psychoanalyst,living with his wife and their daughter, Irene, a teenage son Andrea. The first half an hour of the movie simply narrates their happy family life, showing the intensity of the relation between each character. Giovanni spends much of his time with his patients, people with different kind of mental problems. Irene is an excellent basket ball player, and also a member of the school team. But, worst thing happens in their life, when Andrea goes to scuba diving with his friends and meets with an accident. The director doesn’t show the accident scene, we will come to know about his death along with Andrea’ father. From this point onwards, the movie would become uncomfortable for at least some of you. Because the scenes going to come after this point, are very much realistic. The very next scene is a silent one but, extremely effective. Giovanni goes to his daughter, who is in the middle of a match; Irene, seeing her father, wishes him cheerfully, but suddenly gets the red signal seeing Giovanni’s abnormal face, and smile on her face fades away. Not a single dialogue is present in this scene, but the performance of both actors in this scene is mind blowing. The face expressions of the actors and the silence gives a terrific effect of the scene.

Following scenes, the open casket being closed, first in a metal shielding and then in wood, each screw drilled in to make the seal strong. It’s the thing you do, but the idea is beyond our comprehension of life…Nanni Moretti might have purposefully used slow and detailed shots, to depict this scene, so that the viewer will get the very similar effect of attending the funeral. Just after the casket was closed, Irene asks the men to open it again; she looks his kid brother for a few more moments and then asks them to close it. No more explanation needed for that scene; obviously, she knows that it would be the last glance of his brother in her life . The background for this scene is pin drop silence.

After this traumatic incident, the entire family struggle to adapt the the truth. Movie then deals with, their mental grief and guilt, their loss, memories, ..Giovanni finds himself inadequate to solve the problems of his patients. He quits his profession, recieving unexpected reactions from each patient. He has a guilty consciousness that he didn’t call his son to walk with him on that day as planned earlier, instead he went to visit a patient; He always replays past to what might have been , in his mind .. Irene is very much disturbed and she feel anger to every one .She gets herself suspended from her team, breaks up with her boyfriend but she is not at all bothered about those incidents.

Even though movie deals much with Giovanni and his personal life, I liked the character Irene; Her attachment to her kid brother is shown only after his death (eg:scene where she take last look at Andrea) .There is a saying that if you have lost your parents, you have lost your past; if you lost your children, you have lost your future; if you have lost your spouse, you have lost your present; and if you have lost your sibling, then you have lost a part of your past, present and future. So the most sympathetic character is Irene. her disturbed mind is revealed well in the basket ball match ,when she begins to fight with her opponent and even with their supporters, and also in the textile showroom scene.

But in the climax, the director gives us the signs of their life stepping towards a hopeful living. Paola gets a letter to Andrea, from his girlfriend, who is unknown to the family members. Paola calls her and inform about the his death,. Later the girl visits the family, on her way to France, with her friend. The family accompanies them to the border and the trips lead to a relief from the grief to the family.

The movie is made in a simple way. It is slow paced. No technical extravaganza is needed for this movie. Shots and camera movements are simple. This is because director needs us to concentrate on the characters and their life in order to be immersed in the theme and any kind of technical factors like, unusual camera angles, movements, editing would distract the viewers from this.


“The Son’s Room” is for all movie lovers who watch movies for not simply for entertainment. But it may be uncomfortable for you to watch it a second time.

My rating for this movie is 4/5 .