Karate Kid 2010

I've been trying to understand why this movie reached so deep into my heart.

After about 3 weeks I think I've got a grasp. It came to me while watching the Justin Bieber-Jaden Smith music video of "Never Say Never", Bieber's hit song that closes the film.

In the video there's a short clip of one of the most dramatic scenes in the movie, when Jackie Chan finally begins to show Jaden how to use the tedious exercises he's been practicing for so long. Jaden looks into the eyes of Jackie with fear - so common among minority boys when dealing with adult white males in the US. But here Jackie is not a white male. He is not chastising or punishing Jaden. Rather he is empowering him. And when Jaden realizes that, he takes off like a young eagle leaving the nest.

This is absolutely brilliant, and I wonder if the makers of this movie - among whom are Jaden's famous parents - were conscious of this revolutionary quality. From the little I know of Jada and Will, I suspect they were very conscious indeed.

This film is revolutionary. Here's a young black male whose people have been downtrodden for centuries by whites and white culture. Here's a Chinese man whose people have also been abused by Europeans for so long. And here's a Chinese actor who in real life was denied access to Hollywood because of the racism rampant in the American film industry, and who bided his time with great wisdom and patience until he could return to America in triumph. And what happens in the film? The Chinese man takes the African American boy under his wing, teaches him, strengthens him, and empowers him; in turn, the African American boy empowers the Chinese man. They turn to each other for strength, for spiritual growth. They have no need for the white man. They have outgrown the myths surrounding the white culture, and they realize those myths never were true.

This theme of people of color around the world uniting and empowering each other is reinforced by the fact that there are no white actors in the film except a token music teacher who hardly speaks and is deliberately made to appear cold and marginal.

But it is not an anti-white film, and proof of that is in the popularity it enjoys among whites - despite the fact that it was heavily criticized on rottentomatoes.com and other review sites; in the enthusiastic participation of Justin Bieber; in the brotherly spirit of the Bieber-Smith music video; and in the smash popularity of that video. That Karate Kid trounced The A-Team when they opened together across the US is a further sign that Americans are no longer interested in John Wayne-style white male dominance, that they see a globalized society rising, and that they are renouncing the old world to embrace the new.

Coming on the heels of The Pursuit of Happyness, which was one of the most spiritual films in recent years, and a reverberating statement of African American empowerment, Karate Kid 2010 only reinforces and expands the message: that African Americans, Chinese, and all other oppressed peoples of the world, are beautiful, powerful, and beginning to soar.