By Geno McGahee
After binge watching COBRA KAI Season 3, I needed to go back further to give me my Karate Kid fix. Since John Kreese phoned Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith), I had to watch KARATE KID PART III as I anticipate the return of one of the best villains in the KARATE KID franchise.
Daniel (Ralph Macchio) and Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita) are just returning from Okinawa where he saved the day, but didn’t get the girl. As they enjoy being back in the states, John Kreese (Martin Cove) is depressed and on the streets. After losing the All Valley Tournament and his students, everything has been terrible. He is planning on giving up on karate and goes to his friend’s house to let him know. Terry Silver runs a chemical company and is very rich and he is also Kreese’s best friend. Kreese and Silver were both in Vietnam and Silver has never forgotten that his friend saved his life on multiple occasions.
After being filled in on the Daniel Larusso/Miyagi situation, Kreese decides to put all of his business dealings on hold to focus on revenge and he does it in style. Silver is a cartoon villain that has a great maniacal laugh and enjoys the game that he’s playing. He really seems to like being a bad guy.
Instead of going to college, Daniel takes the money and helps Miyagi open a business where he sells his Bonsai trees. Macchio does not carry weight very well. This is just a personal observation. In the first KARATE KID, he was very skinny. In this one, he’s put on weight and he looks sort of fat. He’s not a lard ass, but he is not carrying that weight very well, at all.
To get revenge on Daniel, Silver decides to hire a guy to beat him up in the All Valley Tournament and take back the championship to Cobra Kai. He recruits the “Bad Boy of Karate”, Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan). For 50% of the Cobra Kai franchise, he agrees to make Larusso’s life a living hell and he does. He is constantly fucking with him but Daniel will not sign to fight at the tournament. Miyagi, for some reason, will not train Daniel for it, which is where the conflict is. I don’t get Miyagi. Daniel just bankrolled his business and all he is asking for is training to defend his title. It’s ridiculous.
Silver introduces himself into Daniel’s life by being very nice and helpful and even kicks the ass of the new bully, leading to Silver secretly training Daniel. There is also a semi-love interest in Jessica (Robyn Lively) that runs a ceramic pot shop. I read somewhere that there was supposed to be a romance but Lively was too young. She was in her mid-teens while Macchio was nearing thirty. So, they made them just friends and that sort of takes away from it. Why didn’t Daniel just bring back Kumiko (Tamlyn Tomita)? He saved her life, fought to the near death and he was forced to go home with his dick in his hand.
After constant harassment from Barnes, Daniel agrees to train with Silver and it’s intense. It includes breaking boards with his hands and punching through them. Ian Griffith really shines in this as Silver. Despite him not being a nice fellow, he is playing the tough love helpful guy quite well and whether he’d admit it or not, Larusso learned a lot in his training with Silver.
When Daniel and Jessica go out on a “friendly date”, Silver hires a guy to fuck with him to see if the fighting technique and killer instinct was truly there. The guy goes up to Jessica and puts her arm around her and is basically groping her. Daniel steps in and gets shoved by the guy. Daniel punches the dude straight in the face and breaks his nose and then hauls ass to the delight of Silver, but it’s the breaking point for Larruso. He realized that his personality change isn’t him.
The bullshit here is that Jessica is pissed at Larusso for punching the dude out. When Daniel tells her that he’s sorry, she says “why don’t you tell that to the guy that you punched?” I would have said, if I were Larusso, “what, the guy that was groping you against your will? That guy? That fucking guy?” He saved her and the thanks he gets is her being a bitch AND she’s not even his girlfriend. Man, he dodged a bullet there. If he dated Jessica and she’s being this unreasonable here, I can only imagine what she’d be like if they got serious.
When Daniel goes to tell Silver that he’s out of the tournament and that he’s done fighting and that’s when everything is exposed and Kreese and Barnes show up. When Daniel starts getting his ass kicked to the delight of Silver and Kreese, Miyagi shows up to save him. I noticed something here. As Miyagi kicked the hell out of Kreese, Silver and Barnes, he never took a hit. You’d think that Silver or Kreese would have at least hit him once and Barnes being so much younger and quicker would light Miyagi up. Whatever the case, that did not happen, but the situation inspires Miyagi to train Daniel for his biggest challenge.
Daniel and Barnes go into the tournament and have their fight and you can probably guess how this turns out. Cobra Kai goes 0-2 against Larusso and the evil plan hatched up by Silver and Kreese didn’t work. Larusso is a 2-time All Valley Champion and the film ends.
KARATE KID PART III is a really good movie. I’ve heard people complain that it’s basically the first movie done over again, but that’s not true. There are similarities and some of the same formula is still there, but this one has the addition of Terry Silver and his scheme that makes up most of the movie. The film missed the mark by not having Larusso have a girl. He’s always better when he’s winning over a girl and having them there to cheer him on. I think Miyagi getting beaten down would have added something. If Silver got the best of Miyagi at the Cobra Kai dojo, it could have given Miyagi his own obstacle to overcome, but those are minor complaints. Overall, this movie is a winner. I recommend it!
