Karate Kid

Jaden Smith does his parents ( Will and Jada Pinkett Smith) proud in his acting debut as the 12 year old Dre, transplanted to China when his widowed mother is transferred there. As in the original, there is the obnoxious bully ( hiss, boo), who has been trained by a merciless and evil (more hiss, boo!) vicious martial arts teacher. You have to suffer, along with Dre for quite a long time being picked on and harassed in his new school until finally (hooray!) the maintenance man played by the absolutely marvelous, Jackie Chan, reluctantly takes him under his wing and trains him inthe legitimate Kung Fu, of which, of course, Chan is a superb, intelligent Master. All of this, so that the kid can triumph (no surprise) over his adversaries in the grand finale. There's also the love interest sparked by a really lovely young (probably also 12) Chinese girl whose plays exquisite violin. Lest we forget about China winning the international ping pong championship years ago, there's also a scene featuring this, my favorite sport. (The only one I was ever good at. I love ping pong!) Yes, no money was spared in fillming this appealing (except for the nasty bully, etc) view of China -- but all in all, it was a great showcase for this fine, likeable young actor, who is a natural, and seems certainly headed for a successful career in films. (I'd love to see him in a movie with his dad!) SP