The Karate Kid (1984): Mr. Miyagi, Cobra Kai and Underdog Glory

0:00 The odds are on their side, experience is on their side. But now he's got someone. On his side fighting always Lastanza, someone who knows what it takes, always a guy, and is willing to share it. The best friend I ever had, You pretty o Kito the Karate. Kid, now playing at a theater near you. Check your local listings. In a world where podcasts reign supreme, two friends dare to ask, Do You even? Movie? Hosted by filmmaker Enrique Kuto and movie aficionado David Denyer.

1:02 Spoiler alert, Dave. There are no miracles. There's no miracles, no, and there's no mercy in this dojo. All there is is car repair bills. I did in case anybody wanted to help, because that's it was a very very I got a thirty seven hundred dollars car repair that was one hundred percent unexpected. Yeah, not like I've been hearing a sound and now it's time to whatever. When you said all your lights came on, the same thing had happened to me about a month ago, and it was just a fluke, like it literally just turned the car back off, turn it back on, and then nothing.

1:43 So I was hoping that was the case for you. But yeahly not luckily your hybrid battery was okay, right, Oh yeah, yeah that's well that's just what makes it way way more complice. Well, no, it complicated too. No, that car has been very good to me. It's just this was horrible timing. If it happened like four months from now, it would be much better timing. So but if anybody wants to help out, you know, I'll accept a tip for doing the show. I set up a thing at Weeklyspooky dot com slash help. It's on PayPal, Weeklyspooky dot com slash help. I just mentioned it twice, but I'm not gonna harp on it because somebody already said something shitty in the Weekly Spooky. He deleted it before it it. Uh was it the mechanic comment or I missed it?

2:24 No? No, somebody said like, well, while we're at it, how about I get six grand for my irs bill? And I literally went to reply and actually not be mean. I was just going to try and be nice, and he deleted it. I think he realized he was being an asshole. It's funny, though, because all I was thinking was like, look, I know that it's not like the coolest thing in the world to be like, hey, does anybody want to kick in? But you know what, Weekly Spooky is completely free. Our patreon backers are less than two percent of our listenership, so I ask for very little. Well, and I think it's worth mentioning, and not not to toot your own horn, but I think it's worth mentioning too that you you don't have a paying job. You you are self and deployed to the sense of that you have to make everything happen. Well, sure, sure, Uh it's one of those things where if it was two grand I wouldn't have even said anything. Yeah, it was just being thirty seven hundred dollars was just a was just a bit, a bit of a lot.

3:14 So I was, you know, putting out that call. But but that all being said Weekly Spooky dot Com slash or yeah, Weekly Spooky dot Com slash help but whatever. Uh, by the time this airs, the sale will already be over. I think it'll be dropping Tuesday early Friday. Yeah, I think that that by then the fifty percent off sale will be over. So how dare you dude? Fifty off? I can't run it that long because people are getting movies for like six dollars. Yeah, so, but I I'm happy to have the cash. But that all being said, this cigar that I am not even puffing on yet, it is a very special cigar to me. You'll make get my my zippo and my jacket, and so we could just don't you just have one of those like car lighter.

3:56 Maybe I do still have one of those in my car. I mean, of course you do, But I don't have a cassette deck now working cassette deck. Bummer. That's literally I listened, but it's the only way I listened to my to my my phone. That's the only because I put it in through the adapter and everything for my casseette. Because I don't have FM hooked up, and I haven't had FM hooked up car FM radio when it when I bought the car, it was never hooked up, so I haven't done anything in the radio, so I haven't even touched it. And so that means even the transmitter thing doesn't work unless I get an AM one, which I don't even know. I don't think it wouldn't sound very good exactly. Yes, So I'm kind of up shit creek right now. Unless I can find someboddy to take care of that for me. I mean, you could put a new stereo and it won't be very expensive.

4:39 Yeah, but with that car, I don't know if I really want to. Well, I mean, I mean, but if you if you just want a working stereo, you're talking thirty five bucks. Yeah, but I also have to get somebody to install it. I mean, like most of the I've bought stereos for for I had to buy one in from of old Swagen. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the installation was included if it was more than forty bucks. Where'd you get it from? Best By? Oh? Okay? I bought for Walmart and they didn't have anybody and saw it last night bought it and that would have been when I was in high school. So yeah, Well, installing a car stereo is surprisingly simple, and I bet it be even simpler because your cars holder. I not saying that you're that that's not true. I'm just telling you that when I had mine installed in my GIP last time we had a we had a huge fucking nightmare with it because one of the wires apparently looked identical to something had to do with the headlight.

5:25 Because the radio was working, and then I turned the headlights on and the radio would turn off. So there was a whole thing we had to go through with that. So it wasn't like super difficult, but it was. That was like again also like over a decade ago. So I'm just saying, I remember when I got a stereo put in my old Volkswagen. Yeah, because I had a disc changer in the back and a tape deck and the tape deck had stopped working, which is how I was listening to my iPod at the time. Yeah, I ended up getting a new stereo and at that time, I got like a ninety dollars stereo. It was actually a gift. Yeah, but I got a ninety dollars stereo because I wanted because it had iPod like interactions, so was like extra. Yeah, but they installed it best buy, like you just had to pay for Like there might be something like they might have to buy a kit, you know, to make it fit. Yeah, so if that, if that has to be purchased, then you pay for that.

6:12 Hey for that? Well yeah, but they tell you they'll be like, oh we'll need install kit for That'll be twenty bucks. If they still do that though, but I wouldn't be surprised. But all I know is that every time I've looked into a car steraria installation is generally simple and generally cheap to have done. Okay, But I just remember after I had it done, thinking wow, I should have done this, like three years into owning the car. I remember. See, the last time I bought the stereo was I got out at Walmart, like I said, and whoever had put it out I had put it in the wrong spot. So what I saw was like sixty five dollars. When I took it to the register, it was like one hundred and thirty something, and I was like, that's not what it said back there. So they went back in check and they're like, somebody put in the wrong spot. We got to honor that price. Oh I got it for like fifty dollars off. I'm just saying you might be surprised. Plus I feel like I feel like you just know people who probably work in installing shit.

6:54 Yes I do. Do they live in Ohio? No, not anymore because the guy that I had install mine lives in Tennessee. Now road trip, but uh, without a stereo, you got well you you what were how are we listening in the cards? Oh well, I'm see CDs pay. Don't get it wrong. I have plenty of CDs and can and can spin them for hours and hours that I have them listen to the same thing if I if I chose to. But yeah, it's just a bummer because sometimes I'm mood for a certain song. No, I I get it. I had I had a tape deck break. It was over ten years ago, but I did have one break and it was a very pain. I had a good year where I was putting cardboard on top of the tape transfer to get it to make the connection. Well. And what kills me too is it's it's not an easy fix, but it's an easy problem to identify, and it's the belt. So basically going in and taking it apart and replacing the belt on it, because it'll play one side, switch to the other side, and then it'll leject and say check the tape. That's what it keeps doing to everything. And I've also cleaned it.

7:52 I mean, yeah, I would say opening it up to fix it would be more of a pain than just buying a new stereot Yeah. But uh, but that all being said, this cigar is special because it was one of the first cigars that I ever smoked and just went wow. And it is the Nika Puro. But it's fine to tell you this because we're not being promoted. And I'll tell you why it's not a promotion. They don't make them any They haven't for two or three years now, and. I think I have one left. I bought a box of them when it was announced, and I don't usually buy I mean, I'm starting to buy more boxes here and there, but I don't usually buy a box. I bought a box of them because I wanted to have twenty to enjoy as time goes on.

8:44 I get you. But here's the funny thing. Cigars are a great metaphor for life because if I put them in their box, which is built to not only store them but age them, cigars will stay. If you keep them at a moderate temper at a decent humidity between basically between sixty and seventy percent, they will keep basically indefinitely. They will change some And that's why I'm saying they're like life. Because that box of Nica Puros that I haven't even opened, because this is one of maybe four I have that aren't in the box. When I do open it up and smoke them, none of them will be like the ones I had before. What they will really be is a reminder of something I really enjoyed, of a hobby that was growing at the time, and they'll probably be very good in different ways. They're very I'm not trying to make this all cigar. I'm actually trying to be I'm actually trying to be metaphorical. But this is a very potent cigar, very very strong and strong cigars age the best, So that's a nice thing. Yeah, But I'm saving them for you know, whatever may be a special occasion for the most party. Are you a big save something person or do you do you just kind of hork it down once you want it?

10:03 I mean, it depends on what it is, if it if it comes to specifically two cigars. I have saved multiple cigars for special occasions. I actually had one backfire on me recently. Was it the one you left in your car? No? Do do you remember those those newspaper wrap cigars? We got a while his cigars apparently the one that our buddy gave me. I don't know if I didn't take care of it or if you are already given it to me. And it was a little dry. It was falling apart the moment I cut it, the moment I started smoking it, the leaf was just coming off. I don't know. It definitely sounds like a dried up well. But then I luckily had a Don Peppin blue so well. As I say, as I said earlier today, as I was smoking a cigar rewatching our film, Yeah, tonight, I was smoking a La Roma de Cuba especial, which I think is my favorite La Roma de Cuba so far, And as I was enjoying that, I actually had that moment where I was like, you know, luckily Don Peppine always has my back. He's the guy who rolls those cigars and blends them. But anyway, my point is is not specifically two cigars, like do you uh, do you save anything? Like do you savor anything? Like how are you with with things that you really love that maybe could go away?

11:18 Uh? I mean it's a tough question for me because you've you've seen me eat unfortunately, so like you know that I sometimes don't even take a breath in while I consume my food, so I can be. Oh, I was positive you were breathing the food. So I mean, it's it depends, because it's like there's times that like I'll save a movie for like if I if I get a release of something and it's just like something I love. Like I've got a Jaws to four K I bought recently, and I'm saving that for a particular day. I don't know when yet, but there's gonna be a day that comes. It could be and it's probably gonna be night that I'm gonna get home or I'm gonna just be at the house and decide to grab a cigar, throw on Jaws two and enjoy myself. Saving stuff is difficult for me, more so when it comes to food items or even liquor items.

12:07 I would say, like, I'm I'm not bad about like liquor. I can actually like make bottles last like a good while if I want to. But yeah, I would say, I would say, I'm mid on saving things, like I enjoy doing it. But sometimes it's way easier to treat yourself on a bad day. Well, of course, yeah see, and that's good for you, because I have been fighting for years with the problem of saving things for too long. Yeah, you know, I'll buy special candy like gourmet candy and it'll expire, or I'll buy I've had gourmet sodas that I was literally like, I'm gonna have this on a special movie night. They spoiled in the fridge. Because we're talking leaving years.

12:51 I I just actually have something to add to that. So when my ex and I went to Jungle Gyms for our first it would have been I think it was our first aniversary trip. We went to General Gyms and like had like a spree and like you know, got some stuff and everything. We had gotten this glass skull that was for Sangria, like you made sangree and it had the mix in it and then you put the rum into it then cipher it out and whatnot. And I was like, I want to make that for my birthday when when the breakup it had happened last year and I didn't do it, and then I was like, I'm going to do that this year. So I took it out. I've got to prepare to my bar and then my friend comes over Monday and show or Sunday and she's she's like, hey, just by the way and shows me the tag and it expired in twenty twenty three.

13:31 That's a long time ago, Inspire two. Which means I mean, well we did buy it like twenty twenty one. Yeah yeah, I mean that's still yeah yeah, yeah no. And that's kind of my point, is I do. I have a belief that I've been trying really hard to to hold too and I think I've done a good job for the last like four years or so, which is that you have to celebrate every victory, every moment, even if it's not certain, because if you wait until the time to celebrate is exactly right and perfect, you may simply never celebrate your entire life. Like, for instance, I'm working on something right now I can't talk about, but it's a it's a relatively big deal project for me, and it's been high stress like crazy. But after the first meeting where they said let's do it, I smoked one of my finest cigars and I said, hey, like, this is a good thing. It could have fallen through.

14:40 Two days later. It almost did fall through when we had the contract dispute, just a poorly timed contract contract dispute. It would have only taken two hours to get through if it hadn't been on a Saturday. But that's kind of my point, is that it's good to celebrate and it's good to do the special thing. Absolutely, I've been trying extra aggressively for the last year year and a half to smoke the really great cigars, and I've slowly over time, I've collected a bunch. I don't know if I told you one of my buddies who I met at the lounge about two years ago, very generous dude.

15:20 Love hanging out with him and him and his wife, and one day he was I was telling him like, oh, yeah, I'm having I was having a lagaretta and I love those. They're so good and I'm so glad I discovered those, and he was like, well, shoot, and he handed me one, and he gave Jeff one and he was like, enjoy him. I took it home and then I looked at it and I realized it was an anniversario. It was like fifty one dollars. Yeah, I thought he'd handed me an eleven dollars cigar, and I was very grateful for that eleven dollars cigar. But now it's on the top shelf of my aging human work. I don't know when I'll smoke that soon probably, But so it's funny how we can be that way. I'm but I'm really bad about that. And it took me a long time time of fighting that because now I'm at a point where if I have a memory that is sad, I'll celebrate it.

16:11 I get the I totally get the you. Know, and not obviously it's not going to be like that, you know, that day I broke my foot or the day tragic thing happened, but celebrating the memory of why it was a tragedy. Yeah, And that's become a very common I would say anytime I'm smoking a cigar after one in the morning, it's because I I am burning tobacco in remembrance. And that's a good thing to do. Oh, it's an ancient I would say. Like to add two things to that, like morisit you're gonna think about it? There's there's two things that I can say. One is that I am extremely savory with movies, specifically with ones that I want to either revisit with someone or ones that like, you know, if I bought something and like I know you and I want to watch it, like I'll hold on to that and no, no offense to either of us. But sometimes those those can get to be like three years out and we would be like, oh shit, we forgot like about this and whatnot.

17:06 We haven't had a chance to just sit down on a Sunday and watch like nine movies in a while a while. Yeah, but but yeah, I would say on top of that, I would also say that it's sometimes I save for events that never come. Oh do you care to expound on that? Or I don't. I don't want to. No, No, I mean it's it's not trying to pick at a wound. Yeah, I mean it's it's not it's not even a wound. It's it's more so just something that I came to terms with recently. Uh in uh, just assessing things. And mainly what I mean is that, uh, I love to collect things for occasions that never come, and that pertains largely to like that was largely part of like my cassette collection. Like I know that sounds weird, but like what it was was like the idea of getting getting like cassettes, like and they didn't have to be anything for specific really, it was more so just like, oh but if this happens then I'll have this. It's like I prepare for things that never happen, and therefore I overprepare, Like, yeah, I can't tell you the last time that I've gone on vacation and I haven't brought like at least six books with me. In case some magical thing happens to where I read the other three that I'm already planning to bring with me.

18:11 I will like go on a cabin trip and bring fourteen you know, DVD blu rays, which is extra funny because it's not that I think I'll actually watch all of them, It's that I want choice. Fucking variety. Point is to leave behind this every day hustle of like what do I watch on Netflix or Prime or whatever? Because there's because having so many options can be really stressful. Yeah, I've been lately watching literally just I give myself eight options and that is it. Yeah, so if I go through them twice, it's like, all right, fucking pick one. There's forty movies currently on to buy my TV right now.

18:55 Because I do stacks, so I have my my left side is my not scene stack, and then my right side is my revisit stack, and I cap those at twenty apiece that way, Basically, I have rioty. I've pulled these out for a reason, and I'm gonna watch them. And that's sometimes the only way I can get myself to watch them is by being like, no, you can't go to your shelves like you have to pick from these. Yeah. No, I mean it's a good thing. I'm very bad about the movies I buy it. I'm not a huge collector, but I will buy something and then I'll be like, I'm gonna watch soon, Like I got the A movie that is bizarrely nostalgic to me is The Bikini Car Wash Company, and one and two got a Blu ray release from MBD, and I was like, I loved when I was a kid. I would catch those really late at night on cable when I should not have been watching them. Yeah, and I very fond of them.

19:44 I haven't watched it yet because I keep thinking like maybe I'll do a special thing, or maybe i'll and then I'm like, one of these nights I need to just pull the projector screen down and be like I'm having a screening of the Bikini Car Works. Legitimately, during Quarantine, I assembled all of Alan Rickman's movies for this marathon that I was crafting for myself because I was like, well, I'm home, you know, I haven't watched it eason a while. I should like go through his hohomography because I can't remember he may have passed around that. I think he may have passed around the time. I can't remember, but didn't watch a single fucking one. I have the picture on social media of the stack. I specifically ordered a Galaxy Quest truly, madly, deeply in a couple others didn't. That marathon never happened. Well at least you try.

20:25 Yeah, I mean that's the thing is like I have all these great ideas sometimes and I just don't act on them. So what I've been trying to do lately is force myself to do that by either making that the only option or actually even setting up like a date for them. In that sense, I gotta say, there's a I try not to be one of those like aficionado types mm, but I do get a kick out of like learning the stuff tastes the cigar or whatever, Like this thing tastes to me like like cocoa, like not hot cocoa, but like cooking chocolate, cocoa, and like black pepper, like fresh crack black pepper and a little bit of leather. But you know, yeah, but those are called tasting notes, right, like like like wine or whiskey or whatever.

21:10 I actually watched the guy do a whiskey tasting recently and I was like, I am never doing it that way because it is steps. But one of my one thing I do like on that though, is they have what is called You may have heard me reference this before the room the room note note, which is how it makes the space you're in smell to the non smoker. Yeah, and I have to say, I mean, are you enjoying one smells in particular, I'd say with good cigars, the room note is either pretty good or great. They're very seldom nasty. Well, it's like I had a couple I had a fire a couple of weeks ago and one of my friends you mean you had a bonfire, bonfire on fire. Sorry, sorry, you know it just sounded a little scary for a second.

21:50 I had a bonfire a couple of weeks ago and it was me and I would say probably like at least six or seven friends that are on the fire and one of my friends. She saw me take my cigar and she's like, oh God, are you gonna smoke that? And I was like yeah, and she's like, oh, they stink. And I was like are you sure, and like literally like lit it, took a puff and blew it and she's like, oh, that actually doesn't smell too bad. Yeah. Yeah, I was smoking what may be a new favorite of mine. The I'm really into Grand Habano right now, and not just because I got to meet George Rico, who owns the company and he's a massive movie guy. We sat and talked about movies instead of cigars for an hour and it was really funicular. But his cigars is very interesting. They don't taste quite like most other cigars.

22:32 They're very citrus and very floral. They're very different in that way. But I was smoking a Coroha number five last night while Rachel was playing a video game, and I literally, I've been doing this just to kind of see what while wafting the lit cigar toward me, just to cut because it's a different smell, the smoke coming off the front, and I remember going like, oh my god, and Rachel was like what And I was like, is this amazing to like smell while I'm smoking, and she's like, oh, it's really nice. It's really delightful. And I thought that was funny, Yeah, because I often tell people like it's a lot of times it's like she said, she was like, that just smells like incense. Sometimes they smell like incense kind of you know, they smell like kind of whatever. But that's again, I wasn't trying to make it all about cigars. It happens, but it's well, I love them and they're my one hobby, and you can say what about movies. Unfortunately it's my day job too, you know, talking about and appreciating movies isn't as much my day job, but they're all tied together a bit so. But the other thought that I wanted to point out is that the idea of the cigar changing, of saving it because you can't get any more that are fresh, and for all I know, in two or three years they could bring this back. I actually talked to the rep at Alec Bradley, and he said that it was a tragedy that they had to stop making these, but everybody loved them.

23:50 And then they ran out of the tobaccos and they had to be off the market for a year and a half, and when they got them back, people didn't remember, Yeah, that'll happen. So he said, you never know, we might bring it back. It might be a different or it might come back entirely, or it might be limited whatever. But I think it's interesting to imagine how when I smoke the next one, which will likely be months, maybe a year from now, who knows. I literally, just as we were talking, I was like, wouldn't it be nice to just smoke this while we do the show? So I just grabbed it. Not only will the cigar be different, but I will be different. You will be different. And that's the other thing that fascinates me, and not just because like my tastes will change, my mindset will change.

24:33 But we go through so many changes every day, you know. We become different people all the time. And it's one of the reasons revisiting these movies is interesting because a lot of times you'll have a very different opinion or it'll take you back, but it never takes you back the exact way it did originally, because that's just not possible. It just isn't. I mean, like a great example is the movie that we're talking about tonight was three and a half on Letterbox. When I last watched it was last year. This watch really to full four really well. What made me think to tie this all together is before we talk about that film, we watched its most recent legacy sequel.

25:16 We did, I guess is a legacy is legacy? Yeah? And that is the Karate Kid Legends. We just saw that in the theater, starring Jackie Chan and not really Ralph maccio. It has the star and Joshua Jackson. Joshua Jackson was that the lead? He was noted the dad? Oh well he was great. He was great. Yeah, Ben Ben Wang is the lead. Okay, I was about to say Joshua jack Hey, I mean he has a very he also speaks English like he's you know, American, so I wouldn't have been surprised if he had like a non Asian name. First thing I want to say to start us off is ninety four minutes. I was not expecting that. I don't know why. I mean, the first movie is two hours and six months. The second one is like at least over two hours. I want to say, third one's probably like right on the cusp by I would imagine a next Karate Kid, I think is like write at like ninety years.

26:03 I'd say, it's like right at ninety yeah, But like I was, I don't know. I was surprised because, like I just Jackie Chan's Karate Kid is like two hours and twenty minutes if I remember correctly. Really I feel like it. I saw it the once. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't I watched. It last year for the first time. It was two hours and twenty minutes on the nose. Wow. Yeah, I did enjoy the scene where he like not beat up all those little kids. Oh the like there's there's a lot of great moments in that movie. It's just it was kind of that whole thing again where it was just like, you know, the story going into it, and it's it's got that remake fair to it and it, but it also does have some pretty solid fight scenes. But I just remember not caring much until we got like it brought about an hour into that sure, sure.

26:45 Well, And that's the interesting thing. So this is a legacy sequel that's technically not technically literally a sequel to both the remake, Yeah, which was initially I believe completely not connected. Yeah, it was supposed to be. They reckcon some stuff to make to make there be a relation between Miyagi and uh and Jackie Chan's character. But then it had that tie in with LaRusso and you know, a reference to the Karate Kid the original. It was fun and I did enjoy it because it checked all of those nostalgic notes. It reminded me of something I loved very very much. It did not bring anything new.

27:32 It's it's purely a nostalgia piece. It's a lot of fun. It's got a very fast paced for a lot that happens in it, to be honest. I mean we're talking about there's loan sharks, there's a pizza place. There's a kid that moves from Okinawa to. What you said, Okinawa that's in Japan. Japan ship Yeah, well double racist, all right. I love that because he doubled down. But no, no, yeah, yeah. And while I us from Beijing to New York and is trying to basically has one role with his mom, which is that he can't fight and immediately gets into a fight once he gets there. Basically he gets his ass well, doesn't fight back that first time he doesn't know. Well, he didn't really get a chance. No, And then that's a very that's a cliche story of like I promised my mom I won't fight.

28:20 I'm believing where I you know where I'm from because I get into too many fights. That's hinted at and the original Karate Kid is one of the reasons they left Jersey was that he got into too many fights. Yeah, so there's there's there's a lot to like Jackie chan Is. He's in a good amount of the movie, and he's painfully likable. The lead actor really good. Yep. I really was impressed. I thought all the characters were likable, even even even the bullies like had have that edge to them that was that was just like, oh no, like I'm supposed to not like you, and I don't. Yeah, they were payper thin though, Yeah, I mean they were just kind of it was kind of like he's my ex boyfriend, he's crazy ever since started karate the end, Yeah, he's beating things up now. That you know. He like really didn't really even have like a dialogue scene except for like a couple like exchanges Like no, yeah, he like really didn't And that was also one of my favorite things is like towards the end with like them getting ready for the final fight and everything, even the whole I'm going to talk to your mom and get her to okay. This was done in a montage. No, it was all.

29:13 It was very very high paced, but it was fun. It's just it is, I would say, the antithesis of Cobra Kai and what Cobra Kai was doing, which was bringing an entirely new element to that story while still honoring the. Story and did it better well. Cobra Kai was like I think about Cobra Kai a lot, because it was not only an awesome The thing is, I appreciate the fan idea that like Johnny was actually the one being bullied and the Russo was the bully. Totally fine. I don't think that I think that that's not a revelation because I think that bullies just bullied and then get bullied, Like it's just the way it is.

30:00 Both of them had troubled lives. Larusso's fathers nowhere to be found. We find out Billy's backstory much more. We get a lot of it in Part two as well, though we get the sense that he's upon and increases, you know, his his sense's game, and we talk about the original movie, but in Cobra Kai we basically find out we just go even deeper into the ideas that they originally were trying to expand on in Karate Kid one, two, and three, and four. I wish they had referenced for directly because I had a saucepuffore. It was always on cable when I was young. It's a lot of fun, but it's so my expectations. I didn't set them super high because I was like, well, you know, Cobra Kai got like, what's five season, six seasons of great storytelling.

30:46 It was basically a lot of the time to grassy with incredible fight scenes. It constantly made me cry, I'm a big sucker. You're gonna find out as we talk about the main movie. For the idea of how powerful it is for an adult to take an interest in a child, that's something that the Karate Kid legends kind of didn't have. He just always it's just his uncle and his mom. It was a stab, I mean, it was established with the family relationship already, and then Laruso being brought in was just kind of the extra element of Yagi. It's just that this kid didn't need He already had this support system. He already had this interest that was, you know, pulling for him. He didn't really need anybody necessarily to grow as a character. Because with Karate Kid, if Laruso had lost, it wouldn't have mattered. The story would still be great because he grew as a person.

31:40 And we'll talk about that here in a second maybe, But no, So I did enjoy it, and I think it's worth your nostalgia money. I think you'll get a kick out of it. Like I said, Jackie Chan is just I can never get enough of him. The fight scenes are super fun. It's really fast and and and it moves at a lightning pace exactly so, but I enjoyed it. You know what I say. I would say, if you if you love Karate Kid and Cobra Kai, yeah, go go catch it. I would say, go catch it in the theater. I would say. I would say, if it's one that you think would be fun in the theater, then definitely go see it. If it's one that you think you can wait, you probably can wait to catch it on TV or whatever. Yeah, I would say, it's it's only special in that it's like I was saying, it reminds you of the flavors that made you happy.

32:28 Yeah, that's a good way to put it. It is not new, no, and it is not old either. It doesn't bring anything new to the table. No, but it lets you have a chuckle one more time and have a good time, had some good jokes, had some good moments, the training montages where I liked them being so drastically different. Yeah, so yeah, it was. It was a fun one. But tonight's movie. M H listener request month mind you. Yes, uh do you have who? This was requested multiple people. Patrick had requested this, Our friend Daniel had requested this, so we had moreultiple requests. This was This was the highest requested title, along with one the Wall. So get to this week as well or this month. Yeah, and we want to mention if you want to recommend a movie for us to watch and talk about, yeah, you could send us an email at do you even Movie pod at gmail dot com. We keep track of the recommendations we do, and we love to watch something that maybe we hadn't given a shot in a while, or just be reminded of. There's so many great movies.

33:25 There really are. But Karate Kid is a very special film to me, and it's a movie that I think about all the time, and it's a movie so special to me that when they when they announced Cobra Kai when it was a YouTube YouTube original, yeah, well that was before we were original. When it was called Red, I cringed because I was like, oh God, they're just gonna like they're just making a property I love into something. I think that was the general consensus. I don't think a lot of people were just like, oh man, this is gonna be awesome. I think it just had that connotation to it immediately that it was just like, oh wow. Okay, And I think that that didn't get broke. Well obviously that didn't get broken until Netflix took it and was like, if we get enough people to watch it, they'll see what they were doing. Was actually really interesting.

34:10 Because Red only got one season, right, I think so, and then season two went to Netflix. I'm almost certain yeah, I thought so. So. Yeah, it ended up being it ended up being more of what I love. But at the time, I was like, this is gonna be another show that just uses that concept and maybe it'll be fine. Maybe it won't. I don't know. When it was on Netflix, I was like, hell, yeah, I'll watch because I already had that, but I wasn't going to like sign up for something to watch it. So but yeah, so tonight we're talking about the original Karate Kid. Yes we are, and it's a film that just I believe is so important still important. So Dave, you want to do your magic? The Karate Kid from nineteen eighty four two hours and six minutes, rated PG for martial arts, violence, bullying, language, and mild drug use.

34:53 Bullying. That must be a newer warning. Maybe David can piled this rating description because there isn't one. Oh okay, yeah, I went off of the remake a little bit and tweaked it. I'll let you have that. That's fine, will you? No? I AMDB synopsis says, recently relocated from New Jersey to La Daniel becomes the target of the gang of Cobra Kai students. When mister Miyagi saves him with his expert karate skills, Daniel convinces him to teach him to defend himself and put his bullies in their place. Pretty good, Pretty good description. My synopsis. After moving to La a young boy must seek help from the caretaker of his building with the request to be taught karate to beat the bullies at his school. Yes, I think I think they're pretty equal. Yeah. Tag lines include only two this week. Oh, only the old one could teach him the secrets of the masters, and he taught him the secret to karate lies in the mind and heart, not in the hands.

35:48 I love that one. That's the one. That's the one, Yeah, because I get the first one because emphasizing the martial arts element is how you're going to get asses in the seats. It's called absolutely it's called the Karate Kid. Not a kid makes the best friend. Yeah, so mister Miyaki and me, I mean Tuesdays with Miyaki. Oh my god. Uh uh so uh yeah, no, I like that tagline. That second one's really good. Uh. The Karate Kid currently available on Hulu, also rentable on Prime and Fandango, but you can get it readily available on Hulu, and there is a Blu Ray forte. Multiple packs of the sequels also included with that too, So depending which when you get, there's not a bad release of this, I will say, yeah, yeah, I would agree.

36:31 Director on the film is John G. Albertson. He gets his start as director and editor in nineteen sixty nine on Turn Onto Love, Yes, Yes, goes on to do nineteen seventies. Guess what we learned in school today? Director and editor on cry Uncle in seventy one. Okay, Bill Well, cry Uncle was a Lloyd Kaufman. Yeah, joint pre Troma Lloyd Coffmin. Yeah. If you want an interesting perspective on Avilson, read Lloyd's book Everything I Know about Filmmaking I learned from The Toxic Avenger Get a mat which I read that in high school. If you not read that book, you really. Ought to read it. It's it's really his best work. Lloyd. You've said that. Yeah, And but he talks a lot because Aveltson kind of became his mentor, and he got obsessed with learning things from Aviltson about being a director, of being a storyteller, like a lot. Because that's why Lloyd. Lloyd was just like loitering on the set of Rocky just because he wanted to see what was happening.

37:22 Funny side note on that, So I watched that documentary. I sent you the picture of young Brian Usna in which was Stephen King's This Is Horror. Oh okay, I have extended Japanese laserdiscript of that that's like six and a half hours long that I got out of con years ago. Nice, but there is the I think I want to say it was part three. They were on the set of Class in dukem High and Lloyd Coffin was actually like kind of normal and like actually directing, but also like really stressed out. But his interview was like decent. I think that was back when he and hers were still co directing. Yeah, and I bet that took a lot of the pressure off. It was just weird to see him like, oh, normal and with facial hair. Well. He also it was the early nineties when he really built himself as a face to trauma.

38:05 Yeah eighty five was in the documentary. Yeah, that's really early. He really became a face in the in the nineties to where you'd be like, oh, there's uncle Lloyd. You know it's doing this crazy thing and going off. I was very obsessed with Lloyd when I was a teenager because he was so likable. Yeah, and that has changed and me liking him or that he's likable, you'd be the Jeni, but no, but he had a great aura to him about like filmmaking his art and just going out and making your own movie. His second book was make your own damn Movie. Not as great as everything I learned from filmmaking and learned form The Toxic Avengery, but still a pretty good I need to I have my copy somewhere signed. I got it signed by Lloyd. You should find that. I'm sure it's around here, somewhere.

38:46 Oh, I'm sure it is. So. He does Cry Uncle in nineteen seventy one, then directs and edits Okay Bill, Slow Dancing in the Big City, A Night in Heaven in eighty three, does The Karate Kid director and editor in eighty four, Karate Kid two in eighty six, for keeps An eight eight, Lean On Me in eighty nine. He's also a director and editor on all these I'm naming right now. Yeah. I believe he might have even edited for Lloyd Early on It's. Possible, Karate Kid Part Three in eighty nine, Rocky four in nineteen ninety, the Power of One with Stephen Dorf in ninety two. He also, in the meantime, directs Joe the Cannon Film in nineteen seventy with What's His Face, Peter Boyle, Save the Tiger WW and The Dixie Dance Kings four play Rocky in seventy six, he directs.

39:29 Which is one of my favorite things about Karate Kid and Rocky is they're both two of the greatest movies about trying to be your best. Yeah, I love them. They're very similar movies, but they're also insanely. Different, sanmely different, especially with their endings. Well yeah, I mean Rocky was trailblazing with that ending. I could talk, Well, I have to. We have to cover Rocky at some point because I could talk for hours about just how much I appreciate that ending. You'll shock you. Sure, I've never seen it in one sitting. I've seen it on TV all the time growing up at all. I've never actually sat down and watched Rocky from end to end. That actually kind of hurts. I'm sorry, No, because it's it's a really no, it's a fantastic movie, like I remember, like, because like I said, it was always Rocky, Rocky two, and even Rocky four.

40:16 For some reason, Rocky three I had to catch on a VHS because Rocky three, like was never on TV. But Rocky one, two, and four were always on either AMC or TVs or something. Those the later Rockies were more fun. Yeah, so for a young young man or a young boy to watch, because they were a little bit sillier. They were way more about the wild action because Rocky. The reason I love Rocky is Sylvester Stallone wrote that screen point. He was an unknown actor. He had done some bit parts in some movies. I think he'd done a couple of Corman's at that point, and he really wasn't going anywhere very quickly. Yeah, and he had. Been told your time has passed to become a big actor, like you should get at another job and maybe act when you could get a gig here or there or whatever. Yeah, Well, he writes, so he doesn't agree, So he writes the script.

41:10 And I don't remember the exact details. We'll go into it when we do talk about Rocky sometime. But I don't know if you knew this. But so, studios were offering him crazy money for that screenplay so they could go make it, and he was like, I'm starring in it. That's my thing. So they immediately withdrew their offers. They were like, Nope, you are not the star. So he took the lowest bid. They paid the least amount of money because they were the ones who were willing to let him play Rocky Balboa. And I love it because the story can be about anything, because obviously to him it was about his dream of being an actor. But in the movie he is told, like, you're too old to be a real fighting champion. You could box golden gloves, you could box regional here and there, maybe you'll even place a couple of times. You can keep it as a hobby to stay and shape, but you're really not that smart, You're really not that talented.

42:04 Whatever. And the fact that the movie is truly about him trying to be the best in the beat beat the best in the world. Yeah, that's That's what's incredible about is learning to believe in yourself and understanding that you are that that It's not just are you capable, it's are you willing to do it? No? Are you willing to fail? To fail? Yeah? Are you willing to give it everything you have and fail? Honestly? And when you pick yourself up, you have you ask yourself, did I give it everything? That's why Rocky's great. Oh, Rocky's Like, like I said, I've seen it multiple times on TV, but yeah, I've never actually, like in one whole sitting from start to finish, have seen it.

42:52 You you should, especially because you know now that you're middle aged. But no, but you you just you just bumped up in your thirties. Yeah, it's a movie that's better as you get older, because as you get older, you start to realize that that Rocky is really about. It's not just about chasing your dreams. It's about living and growing up, which is actually a theme Karate Kid has in spades, especially after rewatching it. And I rewatched it today after one of the most I've had the most stressful five or six days that I've had in a while without there being like a personal tragedy. But I sat down with my cigar and I started watching it. Even though I had to check my goddamn phone, I had to for work. I would put it down and just be like, man, this and then I do whatever.

43:35 I'd be like, but man this so anyway, But so my point just is that Avelson had proven with Rocky that he could tell a story about the self and do it well. And of course there's also, you know his use of montage was pretty new montage, although was it Rocky three? Where there they did one montage and literally led to another montage. The song ended and then he started another part of the advantage that is Rocky three. God love it so anyway, But no, So Aveltson is, in my opinion, just for those two films forever remembered. So he directs, Yeah, he directs Rocky in seventy six, then goes on to do the Formula and eighty Neighbors Traveling hopefully eight seconds and Desert Heat in ninety nine on Claude Dan dam Oh.

44:24 I need to watch that. I need to watch all of Aviltson's movies. I have not seen all of them. We unfortunately lost him back in twenty seventeen June sixteenth, at age eighty one to pancreatic cancer. That's awful. Yeah, I remember when I was afraid I. Had that that would yeah, that'd be bad. It was bad for you, Yeah, I remember. Yeah. You know, in hindsight, I would have kept it to myself, but I was so scared. Yeah, and then I needed to have somebody to talk to. I get it. No, I will say one of his movies that I would really love to bring to the show. Lean on Me from nineteen eight nine with Morgan Freeman. I think I have seen that it was great, such a good movie. We should we should do an averltson month of only none the lesser knowns. I would love to do that. We should, we should do that. Maybe we'll do it in like a month that's hard to pick, like January. We'll just do like yeah, you know, we'll just do just the lesser known apults.

45:13 And then so our writer on the film is Robert Mark Caaman. He gets to start as a writer in nineteen eighty one with Taps, goes on to do Split Image eighty two, writes The Karate Kid in eighty four, followed by The Karate Kid Part two, followed by The Karate Kid Part three, followed by Karate Kid the TV series, which could a character credit on. Then in ninety two he's a TV series, the Little Cartoon Series. Oh the cartoon. Oh, I remember the cartoon. Then in nineteen ninety two he does a movie called Gladiator, which I wanted to take a second here because I actually just watched this over the weekend. Gladiator is a ninety two boxing movie with James Marshall who played James Hurley in Twin Peaks, Cuba Gooding Junior and their buddies that are in an illegal boxing circuit. Basically, James Marshall moves back and comes to this new town with his father played by John Hurd, who is a gambling addict and running from the basically who isn't so he at James Marshall gets tied up with the likes of Brian Denahey and Robert Loja to get into a bear like a bare knuckle box and he.

46:13 Said ninety two, So they're like at my favorite time of their careers. Gladiator is a movie that I cannot recommend enough. I'm definitely gonna show it to you soon. But yeah, I just had to say that that's a lot of fun real quick. I have we have to always whenever Denna he has brought up, bring up my favorite story ever, which is when Patton Oswald was at a event, a function, and it was at a they ran in a buffet line, yeah, and Dennehy was just piling up the plates and he just turned to Patton Oswald and said, character actors, no one gives a fuck if we get fat right my favorite, and that's that alone makes me. I wish he was my I wish he was my dad, you know, like. Well, I mean and Dennah he uh, you know, everybody knows him as Tommy Boy's dad, of course, and he's got those lovable roles. He is really good and I think it's ninety two of them. Mistaken TV movie where he played. Gacy called The Catch a killer that I cannot recommend enough. I've heard that's good, fantastic movie. I got it on DVD recently because Umbrella put it out.

47:05 Oh okay, so, but the Power of One in ninety two, Lethal Weapon three in ninety two, gets character credit on the Next Karate Kid in ninety four, A Walk in the Clouds, the Fifth Element in ninety seven, He writes really Kiss of the Dragon in two thousand and one, The Transporter in two thousand and. Two, A surely really like Kiss of the Dragon. Miss the Dragon's good? Yeah, I must have just caught that on like Showtimers. Black Sash in two thousand and three, Transporter two in two thousand and five, Bandidas in two thousand and six. Then in two thousand and eight he pens a little film called Taken. The writer of Karate Kid also wrote Taken. I'm guessing in a team. If it is, I didn't want out so Transporter three in two thousand and eight Karate Kid the Remake. He gets a story credit on Colombiana. In twenty eleven Taken two and twenty twelve Transporter the TV series in er Get's character credit on Taken three and twenty fourteen, Transporter Refuel gets character credit Taken the Series. He gets character credit Has Fallen. In twenty nineteen Cobra Kai he gets character credit for Karate Kid Legends, he gets character credits for.

48:06 He also was the script continuity advisor on Lethal Weapon two, The Punisher, under Siege, The Fugitive, The Devil's Own, The Devil's Advocate, Deep Rising, and the one. I just want to mention what I thought, which is which is awesome? Robert Mark Kaiman wrote, Taken with Luke Passant, Okay, Yeah, so that which is? That's we talk No One, god Man, No One to That movie's so great. Yeah, and no, I love the fact that he was a script department person. Oh yeah as well, although most of these were. Script revisions revisions. Yeah, well, once you've had a hit, like a couple a bunch of hits, You're gonna definitely end up writing on a lot of stuff. Well, I mean he literally wrote on three of our favorites, Lethal Weapon two, Deep Rising in the Fugitive, I mean not to mention under Siege, yeh.

48:51 Well, yeah, I mean death by microwave. Moving on to our cinematographer is James Crave. He gets his start as a DP in nineteen sixty two with The Proper Time, follows it up with Everybody Loves It in sixty four, Shoots the Bold Men in sixty five, Sole Survivor in nineteen seventy, Zigzag in nineteen. Sex Shot Soul Survivor. I don't think it's that one, okay, yeah, because that was the eighties. Yeah, yeah, you're right, Yeah yeah. Lost Flight in nineteen seventy, A Step out of Line in seventy one, Sweet Sweet Rachel in seventy one, All About Alice in seventy two, The Honkers in seventy two. Okay, I want to see that. Great American Beauty Contest in seventy three, Save the Tiger in seventy three, Rhinoceros the Dead Don't Die ww and the Dixie Dance Kings, The Entertainer, The Disappearance of Amy, and then in nineteen seventy six he shoots a little film called Rocky.

49:35 Uh, the one about I Don't Have a Joke. Follows it up with Sex Tet, then goes on to Thank God It's Friday in seventy eight, The China Syndrome in seventy eight, Players in seventy nine, Baltimore Bullet, How to Beat the High Cost of Living in nineteen eighty, the Formula the Letter, Night Shift in nineteen eighty two, No Way Two Kinds of Love in eighty three, Then does the Karate Kid in eighty four, follows it up with paper Dolls, followed by Police Academy two in nineteen eighty five, their first assignment, The Hug A Bunch in eighty five, Covenant in eighty five, Long Time, Goodbye and eighty six, Karate Kid Part two in eighty six, When the Bow Breaks at eighty six, Deadly Care in eighty seven, Happy New Year in eighty seven, for Keeps in eighty eight, and Baby m in eighty eight. We unfortunately lost Him in eighty nine, May Second at age fifty seven to aids man. Yeah, but I mean, first off, the China Syndrome amazing film, Rocky amazing film. Karate Kid won in two amazing films, So I mean, the dude has a rest.

50:31 Karate Kid two is so good that I forgot that the beginning of karate Kid two was not the ending of karate Kid one. So it's not in my it's not in my trivia for this part or a little touches on that a little bit in trivia. But when I watched Karate Kid on TV they put that at the ending. Does that proven beyond you? I mean, I just I know for a fact it didn't go into Karate two Karate Kid too, because T two was on after Karate Kid. It's possible they did that on the TV mosion. But you haven't found a corroboration to that. I haven't looked for it, but yeah, I haven't seen anything. I didn't I didn't, like look at the alternate versions of it. I guess like, oh no, no, I mean, I mean, it wouldn't shock me. Was it fits to the time slot. It was the intention originally they were gonna have that as the ending, and it actually is the ending in the novelization, I do have that in the Trivia The Look at Too. So moving on to our cast, we have mister Ralph Maccio who plays Daniel LaRusso in this film.

51:20 He gets to start in nineteen eighty on Up the Academy, goes on to do Eight Is Enough in eighty one, Dangerous Company in eighty two, High Powder in eighty two, The Outsiders in eighty three, does The Karate Kid in eighty four. Same year he does one of my favorite films, Teachers in eighty four, follows up with another one of my favorites, Crossroads in eighty six, The Karate Kid Part two in eighty six, Distant Thunder in eighty eight. Do you know about Distant Thunder? By the way, I haven't watched it yet, but you're gonna love this synopsis when I give it to you. No. So, John Lithgow plays his father that is a Vietnam vet that has come back from home and is dealing with like a very bad case of why can I think of it? What's the shell shock? Oh? Yeah, like.

52:01 Yeah yeah, And so he's trying to reconnect with his son, but then there's also apparently these people that want to kill him because he's like the crazy guye in Town. I've owned it in Voodoo for several years and have not watched it yet, but it looks amazing. I would dig watching that. Yeah. Same. Then he does Karate Kid Part three in eighty nine, Too Much, Son, My Cousin, Benny in ninety two, Naked in New York in ninety three, Secret of the Nim two, The Outer Limits Can't Be Heaven twice in a lifetime, The Office Party, good Night to Die, Entourage, Beer League, Ugly Betty, The Whole Truth, Hitchcock in twenty twelve, A. Right I love. He was cast so perfectly in Hitchcock. He played the screenwriter yep, who adapted the book, and the way that they established him is so good. That wasn't Block. Block wrote the novel Stefano right, Yes, funny.

52:49 When he's meeting him, he's like so total. He's literally Hitchcreck saing them with a cigar, just staring at him, and he's like, he's like, I'm sorry I was late, mister Hitchcock. I just I was trying to here as fast I could. I was at my therapist's office and he's like, what could you possibly have to talk about with a therapist for all of the you know, for so much time that you would be late, and he's like, oh god, you know money love my Mother, and then he just smash cuts to Psycho written My It's just so good. It's a perfect moment. Yeah. Holiday spending twenty twelve, Happily Divorced, Robot Chicken, How I Met Your Mother, Psych, A Little Game, Psych, the movie Kevin can Wait remember that show? No one else does that.

53:30 They're okay, good good, I'm not alone. The Deuce in twenty seventeen, Cobra Kai in twenty eighteen, and then Karate Kid's Legends in twenty twenty five. Yeah, and he really got to I'm so glad he got that. I mean more so Zabka, Yeah, because Zabka had much more of like a B movie career. Yeah, but I was so glad that they both got to have such an awesome kind of not swan song. But you know, they're both put I mean, he's in his sixties and Zabka's pushing sixty. So to have them have one really great hit series together where they got to act and act and act, yeah, I'm so glad that they'll be remembered for that forever. No, it's pretty great. So moving down, we also have Pat Marina in this who plays mister Miyagi one hundred and seventy six credits on his He'll tell.

54:10 You something about Pat Merita. Yeah, my mother loves Pat Merita because she remembers everything he did before Karate Kid. Yeah, and he was was he a stand up Was he like I thought he was a literal stand up comedian? Yeah, so he was. My mom knew him as just a guy who she was laughing to the point of like crying. Yeah, like her entire teens and twenties. Oh yeah, because he was so so funny. No, he Uh. One of the movies that I'll talk about on the resume here in a second is Night Patrol. And that was like I'd seen him in Karate Kid obviously in Spy har were like the two things that I remembered him from. But he plays like he plays a rape victim in Night Patrol and like has the low Pat Marina, the little Pat Merita voice going and everything, talking about these horrendous things and it's really funny.

54:52 Well, and his his real voice is totally different. Oh yeah, which was the funny thing. The first time I watched one of the Karate Kid movies, I don't remember which one, like one of Really Really Young. It was on cable or something, and my mom loved the movies, but she was just like, she was like, that is not Pat Merita. He's doing a voice. Yeah, that's my mom. She'll just blurt out things like that. So it gets a start in nineteen sixty seven with Thoroughly Modern Milly goes on to do the Shakiest Gun in the West in sixty eight, Courtship of Eddie's Father, Green Acres, Roanan Martin's Laugh in The Odd Couple in seventy two, Where does It Hurt? Colombo? Cancel My Reservation? Love American Style, Hawaii five, Oh, Mash Punch, and Judy Kung Fu Love America. I Wonder who's killing her now? Which I love that title. That's a great title. Yeah, Sanford and Son, Midway, Welcome Back, cotterr. Chico and the Man the Love Boat when Time ran out. Full Moon High in eighty one.

55:39 I remember I remember seeing him in Full Moon High m hm and being so confused because he's being funny Pat Marita and I had not really seen him very often as Funny Pat. Merita, Jimmy the Kid Happy Days does The Karate Kid in eighty four, Night Patrol in eighty four, So the same year he does that, he does that back to back. Wow, Alice in Wonderland, Karate Kid Part two, Babes and Toyland Karate Kid Part three, Collision Course with Jay Leno in eighty nine, The Karate Kid at eighty nine, which is the cartoon Strawberry Road, Harry and the Henderson series, Do or Die in ninety one, Okay, Honeymoon in Vegas, Anti Lee's Meat Pie is in ninety two. Oh yeah, he's in that. Wow Yeah Wow, Space Rangers in ninety three, American Ninja five, Dave's World, The Next Karate Kid, time Starter, Blood Sport two, Married with Children, Spy Hard in ninety six, then goes on to do Blood Sport three, Family Matters, The Outer Limits, Moulan in ninety eight, which you played the Emperor in Carolyn in the City, King Cobra, Desert Heat gone to Maui Brother in two thousand, The Boys of Sunset Ridge, Baywatch in One Body and Soul Mulan two, The Karate Dog Spymate Act, Your age and last performance was Rice Girl in twenty fourteen. We actually lost him November twenty fourth of I want to say, was it twenty fifteen to twenty fifteen at age seventy three to kidney failure Damn. Yeah, but a hell of a resume one hundred and seventy six credits.

57:03 Yeah. And he was also not one of those guys that like he was playing like late sixties yeah, from like forty two. He was also a voice in the Kingdom Hearts Video Games really awesome. Yeah. And wrapping us up for our cast is Elizabeth Shoe, who plays Allie Mills in the film She Gets Her Started nineteen eighty two on Burger King commercials all Right, have It Your Way, Somewhere Tomorrow in eighty three, The Karate Kid in eighty four, followed by Call to Glory Link in eighty six, I Do Remember Her and Link Adventures in Babysitting Cocktail, Back to the Future Part two, Back to the Future Part three, The Marrying Man, Soap Dish, Dream On Heart and Souls, Blind Justice, The Underneath Leaving Las Vegas in ninety five. Great movie, but very sad movie. The Trigger Effect, The Saint Deconstructing Harry pal Meadow, City of Angels, Molly hollow Man, Tuck Everlasting, Mysterious Skin, Hide and Seek in two thousand and five, Dreamer Gracie Hamlet two in two thousand and eight.

57:55 One of my favorite performances of her because she plays herself hmm. And one of my favorite lines in Hamlet two with her in mind is Coogan is trying to get his class to basically acknowledge who she is, because he's like, you know, are you an actor or something? And he's like, oh, you could have looked up the Karate Kids. Steada Da Dreamer with the Fucking Horse. Yeah. Don McKay in two thousand, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Pirana three D and twenty ten. Janie Jones American Dad Hope Springs House to the end of the street, chasing Mavericks, behaving badly CSI, Battle of the Sex is Death, Wishmak in twenty eighteen, Oh Yeah, Greyhound in twenty twenty, The Boys in twenty twenty, Yes, Yes, Cobra Kai in twenty twenty one, From Now, Super Pumped, the Good Half, and most recently Jen V in twenty twenty three.

58:42 So I have to say I double checked something while you were talking. Yeah, I'm sad to say I checked William Zabka just to be safe. The guy plays Johnny Hum. None of these people you mentioned were in Dark Justice, And I'm kinda like or falcon Cress really shocks and makes me depressed. If anybody's gonna be a falcon Cress from The Karate Kid, it's brobably gonna be Martin Cove. Well, yeah, so what was your first time watching The Karate Kid? If I knew, i'd tell you that's fair. But I remember seeing it on cable many times. They would often show one and two and three. Sometimes three got played a lot more, as was the tradition back then, because cable rights were cheaper for the later sequels and the next Karate Kid.

59:23 I have. I'm sure it only happened once or twice, but I have a memory of so many sick at home from school days or just summer days where I was at home and it being on TV. Oh yeah, and me being like, hell, yeah, gonna watch that again. And my sister loved it because it was a girl. Yeah you know so, I mean because Hillary Swank was amazing in it. Yeah, And Honestly, I really don't think it gets the love it deserves because it's not a bad movie. It's pretty insane, but it's a lot of fun. And while it's a it is a remake, it is. But top tier. Pat Marita, Oh yeah, you know, he's so good in it. He's excellent in it. So I've always loved The Next Karate Kid. I have the distinct memory of being at my parents' shop, and I don't know, I don't know why we all were there. It may have been when the house was being remodeled, or it may have just been they were working late that night, but they brought in a VHS of The Karate Kid that they had rented local library.

1:00:13 And I'm like six seven at this point, like had no idea about this movie. If I did, it like had gone through my brain and out the other side. And I just remember putting this tape on and just being sucked into this movie because it was just the it's the fucking Karate Kid. I mean, it's there's so much to take in on a first go when you have no idea or any of that nostalgi or anything with it. So immediately I was just like, oh, this movie Rocks and then multiple cable viewings later. I will admit I did not see the sequels until last year in their entirety wow again, watched them on TV never. That's one thing with being a huge movie fan is that when you grow up with cable in the sense that you had you know, premium cable and I had more so like the cable like USA and TBS and TNT and all that, you watch movies, but you actually don't ever realize if you've actually seen it, either uncut or from start to finish for that matter. Sure, So that's one of those things that has been kind of interesting, even doing this show, but also just going back and watching stuff. It was just like, oh yeah, I've actually never sat down and watched this from beginning to end.

1:01:13 Well, And it's funny because with our age gap, but it's not massive. It's like, but it's a few, a few good years. I'm eight years older than you, not quite no, no, no, we're eighty six six year or yeah six six yeah, yeah, okay, I'm math. I'm great with math. It's all good. I'm math. I'm math. But it's funny because a lot of the stuff that you're like I watched it on USA and I watch whatever. I'm like, I watched it on HBO because that's where it goes first. Yeah. So it's just funny that a lot of times it'll be like you saw it on on Basic cable and I only saw it on premium cable or initially saw it on premium cable, because it stays there first. I mean, the only uncut channel I had growing up, like unless we have Liken, like in those weeks where it was like here's a free week of Stars or whatever weekend, Oh.

1:01:57 Yeah, it would start I remember those. Yeah. The only channel we had on well, two channels we had that run cut would have been Turner Classic Movies, which sometimes would show some stuff that wouldn't normally be shown in the daytime. I would say, and movie Plex. Movie Plex is where I first saw Creep Show. Wow. Yeah, but yeah, I think the Karate Kid the movies themselves are like as a whole, with the sequels and everything. It's a full experience, Like they are a lot of fun. Yeah, and while three gets a little silly, it's a lot silly. Yeah yeah, yeah, but one and two are almost entirely cohesive. Yes, And I really love them. Yeah, and then I really enjoy three. And I remember one of my favorite things about watching Cobra Kai was when they would pull the next thing from the movies and canonize it, which is why I'm mad that they never really referenced the next Karate Kid. I was literally we were all waiting every season. I was like, where is Hillary Swank?

1:02:53 Yeah? All right, so you're ready to get into the Karate Kid. This is gonna be interesting. It is because, well, first because a lot of it is a teen drama, a very slow build teen drama, So I don't think that the breakdown is going to really be that intense. There's genuinely not a lot that happens in this movie, honestly. No. I mean people talk and and and but that's that's I'll get into why I love that, yeah, and why it's important. So we open and it's nineteen eighty four and seventeen year old Daniel LaRusso and his mother Lucille are moving from Newark, New Jersey to receive a Los Angeles and we're seeing that everybody's crowding around the car. They're all saying goodbye, and they're running on down the road into the car. They're going through Arizona. At one point they're at a hotel and the car won't start. So I love when they're pushing. That's the best because it actually comes back in the movie several times.

1:03:39 Yeah, I love that. So they eventually make it to Los Angeles and they pull up to their apartment and you know, she's getting out, and Daniel is not really looking forward to this movie. He didn't want to move away from his friends. He doesn't see why her job had to take her here, because that's what we find out is that she works for a computer company and that's where she's been relocated at. Yeah, but unfortunately she's definitely starting somewhat from scrap act because they move into a very lower income area and a very small apartment. But the apartment complex, while what it lacks, and having a pool that's clean enough to be near. That's one of my favorite things is she keeps telling him about the pool the entire time, and then when we see the pool, it is completely empty except for like a little puddle of water that a duck is swimming in. Yeah.

1:04:23 Yeah, oh my god. And then the moment he sees his mom after he's got his luggage up because he meets a nice guy who's just chatting with him. Yeah, and he realizes that, like people are generally friendly where he's living. But when she walks in the first thing, when he walks in the first thing, she says, I'll call about the pool first thing in the morning. I wish I could remember what his friend's name is. Is it? It's not Freddy? Is it? I don't remember because it's such a brief moment. But but I like that because it does establish It doesn't go for the easy of just everybody hates him. It doesn't do that. It doesn't do it doesn't And that's if maybe I'm insane for feeling this way. But one thing I feel about Karate Kid is that it is is nuanced and subtle. Yeah most of the time.

1:05:03 Yeah. And we realized pretty early on that LaRusso has a temper, that he's angry with his mom. Well, the way that we meet the friend that he befriends first is he kicks the door open and actually kicks that guy to the ground by accident at the complex. And then there are friends immediately, like he's got a soccer ball. He shows them some tricks with it and everything, and then they end up going to the beach the next day, which I love that because the whole introduction of him going to turn on the water. Oh the water's broken, go find the handyman. So he goes downstairs and we get the first look at mister Baggi and what does he say that he'll be there tomorrow? I think he says like tomorrow, Yeah, tomorrow. So but yeah, he got invited to the beach by his friend. So the next day he's at the beach with his buddies. They're kicking a soccer ball around and that's when we get the first look of Elizabeth Shoop, who is Hayley Era Ali excuse me, and he immediately has the hots for her.

1:05:52 Well sure, she's like literally the nineteen eighty fourteen dream lady, and. She's a cheerleader from Encino. Of course, where else would a cheerlead be. From, so naturally they kind of hit it off at first. He's shown her some tricks of the soccer ball, and then we meet Johnny Johnny Lawrence. Johnny Lawrence. He is the and this is great because you get a lot more from Cobra Kai obviously, but yeah, all we really know at this juncture is that he's kind of a spoiled rich kid. So you know something I picked up on this watch that I hadn't before. What's up? When she kicks his soccer ball? I think she's doing it to get him away from her because Johnny's coming because she hears the dirt bikes. Oh yeah, no, she knows that he's trouble. Yeah, because I never noticed that before, because like I was like, well, wait, like she kind of bit a dick move and like hit it like really far. And then yeah, they come from behind. So Johnny and his gang go down because he sees that Daniel is kind of flirting with his girlfriend. But you also find out that they've broken up recently.

1:06:43 Right, But but Billy doesn't see it that way. He does not, So that is when he decides to basically confront her and starts talking about Billy. Yes, sorry, He starts confronting her about you know, talk to me and everything, and she's got a radio. He turns the radio, off ends up, throwing the radio down, and then and that's when Daniel decides to get involved. And Daniel has expressed that he knows some karate. But what he doesn't know is that Johnny and his buddies belonged to Cobra Kai and Johnny is about to whoop his ass. Yeah. He he literally had taken some karate classes at the y Yeah, at the mc Newark. Yeah. So Johnny uh starts just throwing punches, kicking, I mean, and to go ahead and just say this, Now, there's a lot of fighting in this movie. We can't describe the fights one on you know, one step at a time and everything. But Johnny kicks him. Johnny throws him to the ground, and Daniel gets one punching and you're thinking, okay, now he's gonna do it. Johnny lays him the fuck out.

1:07:34 Now they whoop his he whoops his ass. Yeah, and that's and that is that. And then his friends that he was, you know, hanging out with on the beach are just like, oh man, some karate kid and that's where the name comes from, which I always thought that was funny that like the actual title of the karate Kid was an insult from the friends. Oh yeah, no, it's a very clever concept and a perfect title because he was the karate He was the karate kid. So now he's embarrassed. Even Ali comes to his aid and he's just like, you know, leave me alone. So then the next day they're all at school together and he's, you know, his first day at the school and everything. And that's when we see that they have soccer practice together. Johnny and him get into it again, and Daniel's just like, I hate the school. I hate everything about it. Yeah, because they tackle him, yeah, and and just mess with him in the soccer class, he start he stomps off saying I hate this damn school because the teacher.

1:08:16 Kicks him out. Yeah it was I think it was pe Yeah. Yeah, they were just in gym class. And you're already starting to see that LaRusso has a lot of anger. Yeah, in general, he's angry about a lot of things, but he's not That's not all he has going. He wants to make friends, he wants to be social. He is charming. Yeah, he's not a bad kid, but he doesn't handle. He doesn't handle, you know, reverses very well, doesn't handle when things don't go his way very no. And he also adds to the fact too that like since he got beat up, he's got a black eye that his mom totally sees the next day that he's trying to hide under a pair of sunglasses. Well, and then she's like, oh great, so it's gonna be just like where It's gonna be just like Newark all over again. Yeah. So Miagi ends up coming over the next day and Daniel is the practicing karate and Miagi you know, immediately like it's like, oh karate.

1:09:03 Yeah, he's he's practicing punches, reading a book. Yeah, he's like karate from book. He's like, well, yeah, in the YMCA, you know when it was when I was back in Jersey. So he fixes the sink and that's basically all we get in Miyagi for this time, and then, uh, you know, some other things happen, and this all leads us basically to a couple more times that Billy and or Johnny and his buddy's just fuck with with Daniel. Like there's the one serious one is he's riding his bike and they come up along him on their dirt bikes and they take his bike and throw him in the bike over the side of a cliff and he or a cliff up a hill and he rolls like he rolls it and he takes at takes a hardball, so does the bike, and then this leads him to go back home. He's thrown his bike into the trash can. He's you know, crying to his mom about why did we have to move here and everything, and she just sees that her son's completely disdropped by this point.

1:09:50 Right. And also while this is happening, he's thrown his bike away and somebody peeks around the corner from his little hideaway and it's Miagi. And Miagi had his he had perked up, Yeah, just when he noticed that LaRusso was studying karate. Yeah, because you get the sense that Miagi keeps to himself and that he, you know, he likes to help people. That's why. Because he's just a handyman at a at a cheap apartment building and he does come and like fix the water, he does, he does the things that he's supposed to do. He's trying to keep the place for being a slum. Yeah, but yeah, he keeps to himself somewhat, but he's he's noticing that this Laruso kid. Is angry, angry, struggling. But that he has this interest in karate, and Miagi's probably not been around anybody who does karate in a very long time.

1:10:34 No. Absolutely. So this all leads to him fixing Daniel's bike secretly. He comes home one day and sees it goes and thanks him. And also we get a little take of this point of the famous catching flies with chopstick scene. Oh yeah, which Daniel does on his first try. Yeah. Well that's a little bit later and it's hilarious, you know, it's so good. Well, and that helps give Miagi some depth. So he is the Bonzi tree the first thing. The first thing is Bonzi. He's the catching of flies after he's starting to be starting to train. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, so he's cutting the Bonzeye tree, which is a huge theme that goes throughout the entire movies. I mean, I love the third one where they start their Bonzie tree business. Oh god, yes, such a good yea yeah, because the Bonzeye tree, for those who don't know, it's a it's a type of tree and you can encourage it to grow a specific way and it can become beautiful. Yeah, but it takes patience.

1:11:26 Patience and a lot of a lot of attention. Attention to detail, and it allows you to it's really then yea, for lack of a better term, it's very mindful to do. So while this is all going on, we've also had a scene where Daniel goes to the Cobra Kai to try and see if he wants to enroll, but he realizes that Johnny and his buddies go there, and he also gets a taste of Crease, who is an ex Vietnam that and he is a hard ass. Yeah. He wants to go learn karate to protect himself and then realizes that's where all his bullies are and that it doesn't seem like they came to being bullying shitheads on their own because Crease himself is clearly an adult bully. Yeah, and while this is all happening, he's also trying to get a little closer to Ali. But anytime he sees Billy and his buddy or keeps now I'm saying it, Johnny and his buddies, he walks the other way. And even Alli gets to the point where she's like, you know, you don't have to be afraid of them, and he's just like, oh, I'm not, you know, this is just you know, it's fine and wanders off. So this all leads to the Halloween dance.

1:12:22 Yes, and this is one of the most iconic moments that isn't him training with Miagi. This is one of the only really memorable moments, I mean deeply memorable moments that isn't you know wax amax off and the fights and and everything. Yeah, because he decides he's going to get revenge on them. Yeah. But he also goes to the Halloween dance with a great costume, which is he's a shower, He's a bathtub as shower, and he's got a curtain around him, so nobody really sees it where knows it's exactly Yeah. So Ali gets into the costume with him, and he sees at one point that Johnny and his buddies go off to the bathroom and they're all dressed as skeletons, and Johnny is in a stall rolling a joint. His buddy even comes in and he's like, you know you got that rolled yet, He's like, yeah, give me a minute. So Daniel sneaks in, runs a hose right over the top of the stall, turns the water on, basically ruining the weed and the costume. Yeah, and Johnny is pissed and well, and worse yet, embarrassing embarrassed.

1:13:10 Yeah, and these guys, I mean that even being embarrassed in front of nobody, you know, is enough to make them livid. And they already have it out for Laruso O. So LaRusso goes into a huge sprinting match through the gym. Luckily Ali trips them at one point, so that gives them some time, but trips the bad guys. And I will also say that this is the part where I lose a little bit of sympathy for Daniel because he totally causes a car accident right outside of the dance. No, Daniel is not He is a kid that is get emotional, but like he is teetering on becoming a really bad kid. Yeah, and which will become a bad man. Yeah, and that's important. Well. I also love this scene because it shows you how close the school is to his apartment, which I never picked up on either, which is basically like a fence like away basically because they go running outside, he jumps over a car car crashed into another one and him and his buddies are closing in on Daniel. He gets to the fence right where his apartment is on the other side, and he's climbing the top of the fence, but they get him, they pull him down, and they just start beating the shit out of him.

1:14:09 And there's i mean five of them, five. Until the point where one of the bobby is the guy and he's just like he's he's had enough, man, And he's just like, I'll tell him he's had enough. You know, no mercy in this dojo. And they're getting ready to spin kick Daniel like it's gonna it's gonna really fuck him up if they don't stop. And then right as this is happening, off in the corner of the screen, we see somebody climbing over the fence as Miyagi leaps into action. Nine seconds is all it takes for these bullies to be down. And and highly you know, it's important to point out highly defensive defense. He's not just running and punching it right face. He's dodging them, flipping, you know, us, using their momentum against them, Yeah, getting them to hit each other, getting them to fall over, getting them to hit the defenses. And hurts them. I mean, but they're hurting themselves because he, like I said, he's using their momentum, so like he is not he's not really throwing punches. He's just completely like, oh you want to do this, okay, well I'll throw you right down.

1:14:56 Yeah. He's a virtuoso in fighting. And these kids, they're not all the things we learn about Miyagi. They're just throwing fists out of anger. They have some training, but they don't have discipline, they don't have skill. Yeah really yeah. So this all leads to Miyagi taking Daniel back to his little little cubby thing at the hotel at the apartment and he you know, nurses him a little bit, gives him some teet to sip, and like makes like takes care of the wounds. And Daniel wakes up and he's just like, you know, how'd you learn all that? And he's just like, oh, you know, I've been studying for a while. He's like, well, can you teach me? Well, I look about my first favorite lize is. I didn't know, you know karate. He goes, you ever ask yeah, which I which is really great because Miyagi is so stoic and so to himself.

1:15:38 Yeah. Oh yeah. So that's when he basically asked him, you know, can he teach him to fight, and he's like, fighting doesn't solve anything. It's it's only good for defense, right, And if you're just wanting to do this, then you know it's not going to resolve the conflict. The best way to resolve conflict is by talking. So Miyagi and Daniel the next day. Well, Daniel Miagi says to go to Cobra Kai dojo and talk to them. Yeah, he asks me Aggi to come with him, and Miagi reluctantly agrees agrees. To do so, which one thing I did find out in the trivia. So you know how they're walking across the street and dodging traffic. They're really dodging traffic. They didn't shut down the street. Good old, good old nineteen eighties movie magic. So they get to Cobra Kai and immediately Johnny sees them and Crease is doing his class and everything, and he calls Johnny attention. He's like, you know, what's got you distracted? And he's like, oh, class, we have some visitors.

1:16:25 And he basically is like, I heard you attack some of my students the other night. And he's just like, well, five against one's not really fair, and he's like, well, that's what we teach here and everything, and he's like, you know, what's the best way to solve this And he's like, let's fight now. And he's like no, He's like, let me train the boy. Well, he doesn't say no, let me train him. He just says, no, a tournament. Tournament. He points at a poster for the All Valley. Yeah, and I love this because it dawned on me. Why why is that? Well, I'll tell you later. No, just kidding, right, next episode, on the next episode of do you even movie? No. But but when he says the tournament, if you take it at face value, that is a strange move to be like, I'm going to train you in multiple weeks and then you're gonna fight in a in a like a karate tournament, like a real tournament. It's a weird choice unless you think about it from what happens because of it, because Miyagi says, if we're gonna do this, we're gonna do it there and until then leave him alone.

1:17:26 They have to leave him alone, let him train, let him whatever, and Crease says, fair enough, you will leave them alone. And it's great because they're you know, like, yes, I'd say, like they they're they're terrified. Love, You're you're a stubborn old cow, all right. I like that. Yeah. Yeah, though there's there's an interesting the way Miagi stands up to Crease. He does kind of respect that. He's kind of like, ah, I appreciate that you'd walk like I'm mad that you'd walk into my dojo and talk to me like this, But also that's some balls. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they decide that they're gonna wait to the Old Tournament and this is where we start the training. And the training is tough, tire. Well, and so I'll tell you now because I mean, if you're listening to this, you must have seen the karate I hope. So, yeah, I believe that the reason he chose the All Valley was not necessarily so that Daniel could go and win and become this karate champion.

1:18:20 He wanted to buy Daniel some peace so that Daniel could start to live. That totally makes sense because when I look at it, when you look at it, what happens. Yes, he trains with Miagi, but he also goes on dates with Ali. He also just gets to make friends. He gets to kind of figure out where he fits in this due place. He also gets to test the bounds a little bit because one of my all time favorite moments is when they're in the courtyard of the school and that teacher comes by and he's just like, hey, you know, my friends and me wanted to hear about that story about the Indian and the horse, and like all of Johnny's buddies are just like, oh, well, I've got a classico. And then teacher's like, oh yeah, come with me, Daniel, and he's like, oh shit, this backfire. Yah. Yeah, man stuff because he was just trying not to get whooped. Yeah, because he does antagonize them. Yeah, because LaRusso is an angry kid. And I keep saying that because that's important. It is because what Miyagi sees is an unfocused boy, and a lot of kids get in trouble when they don't have anything to do with their free time or when they have a lot of energy to burn off. It's kind of like, this is a very this may be very controversial. Is having a really good conversation with my friend Barb about this, talking about how like in schools they'll say, like, you know, girls should dress modestly because boys will whatever. I understand the argument, like, well boys should learn to not do that. Yes, but boys are different than men. Boys are being against their will,

1:19:50 pumped full of testosterone NonStop. They don't know when it'll start, they don't know how much they're going to get because that's puberty, so they're I'm not saying that they don't deserve to be punished for doing bad things. I'm just saying you have to look at you have to expect. Different things from young boys because they're literally being pumped full of anabolic steroids, like and it makes them want to do all kinds of things. I mean when puberty, I don't know how it was for you, but like when puberty started for me, I mean like I wanted to scream, I wanted to fight, and I wanted to cry. I was an angry young man. I wasn't super well. I was depressed all the time. I wasn't super like angry. I was angry alone. But but my point is that, like, puberty is really hard, and it's hard on women in other ways as well. They feel awkward just like men do. They and puberty is a rough thing for everybody.

1:20:34 Everybody. Yeah, but with boys, like having something to focus on is super valuable. And again also gives meaning to the fact of having a mentor like Meagi, Like anybody that has that person that takes an interest, like you said, is going to absolutely invest their time and hopefully I can change him. Well, really, Miagi was an angry kid, and they allude to it a tiny bit in this movie, but in the first their lore between the movies and Cobra Kai, especially in the movies because when they talk about what he was like in Okinawa, you realize he was constantly getting in trouble with his father, who he speaks of with this incredible admiration and respect, you know, whenever he's like, how did you learn this my father? How do you know?

1:21:17 How did you learn to do how'd you learn to do the trees? My father? How'd you learn kroaate my father? It's all about his dad and the time he spent with him. But LaRusso, his father died when he was young, and kids and boys without fathers tend to struggle with finding their place. And I know very well so having an adult, especially a man, look at your situation, look at you and be like I remember being a boy and not knowing what I wanted to do, but knowing I was mad and I had no focus. You look at him, and the Bonzie treat is a metaphor for not just Laruso, but for your life. And that's the that's the big thing because as the training starts, one of the most famous things about this movie is that he makes Laruso just do chores because he takes him to this neat little house and you realize that Miagi has a home, a full on house that he basically never wants to be at. Yeah, because it reminds him of his wife, who's got him.

1:22:19 In beautiful garden. He's got a boy an auto body or yeah, I mean maybe he's got a garage. And he's got a bunch of cars as well. He's got a bunch of classic cars that he that I restored, that he's restored because that's Miyagi's favorite thing. He likes to fix things. Yeah, and with Daniel, Daniel's another project. But if you look at how how the training works, he's doing household chores. What do you need to do when you're when you're a kid with your parents, you have to do chores, right, So Miagi, I would guarantee was taught karate by his dad saying like, you have to clean this, you have to do this, you have to take care of all these things. Yeah, and you'll learn. Well, that's a beautiful thing about the more that I watched this movie is the the incorporation of the chores and what it all leads to because we just we'll break down the chores because I mean, we could talk about this part for a little bit, but I mean mainly what it is is he's waxed.

1:23:10 He's waxing the floor, so wax on, wax off. He's doing sanding, he's painting a fence, he's painting the house. All of these things incorporate the movement to the point where he's painting the house one day, like and he goes, Daniel goes to the house, and Miyagi's left the note because basically every time that he's gone so far, Miyagi's shown him and then like, you know, hey do this, and then all right, good job, come back early tomorrow. We'll keep going. So he's been doing these chores for I would guess probably about a week now. Yeah, and I love the part where he's like I painted the fence. He's like, both sides sides, and he's like and he just gets back to painting the fence, and there are a few times he gets frustrated. He's like, why are you You're just making me clean up. That's my favorite. That's that's one of my all time favorite scenes because this is when he's painted the house and Miagi has come back from fishing and Daniel sees this and he's just like, wait, you went fishing and he's like yes, and he's like, why don't you ask me?

1:23:56 He's like, well, you had work to do. And he's like I'm no, I'm being your goddamn slave basically, and goes off and like he's getting ready to storm off. And that's when Yagi calls him back and he goes, Daniel Son, go ahead and show me wax on and I love it because he keeps wanting to drop to his knees or and do it exactly. No, no, stand and then that that's when you start incorporated. And he shows him that, like when your hand moves like that, I catch it. And when hand moves like that, I catch it. Now do the fence stopping it? Stopping it? And you realize that he's been learning motions and muscle memory. But on top of that, he's been learning that if you want to be a good man, you need to have discipline to do the things you don't necessarily want to do but that are constructive. And I think this is important too. He needs to because they where do they train? Mostly they train at this little.

1:24:43 Little house house where Daniel. Is surrounded by the place looking better because he's done it, because he did it, so he's getting he's giving himself esteem and he doesn't even realize. It, and giving him pride. And also with that pride's the perfect word. He's keeping him away from the outside elements of Johnny and any else they could get him into trouble, because any any kid that's left to his devices will find trouble even even if they've had this compromise. I strongly believe that if Daniel would not have had this, he would have gotten back into it with Johnny, no. Doubt, and and and and obviously if he couldn't sand the floors and paint offense, how is he gonna learn karate, especially the type of karate that miyagi do. Is miyagi do is for defense only. But that's that's why I love this movie so much, because he just he gives him something to do, somewhere to be, and something to aspire to the bond.

1:25:37 The bond develops to a point of you really start to see that Daniel Daniels always respected Yagi, but then it becomes more of the father figure that he never had. Well, Daniel's not a particularly disrespectful young man. No, that's that's one thing he isn't. He gets in trouble with kids, like he's not a few. He gets a little mad at his mom, but he never like says like shut up mom. He never like just disregards what she says. He's just he's just full of anger. You know, he's left his home. His mom is gone all the time. Again, I lived that. I lived having you know, an empty house to come home to a lot. And it wasn't because you know, even I'm very I'm very fortunate that when I was growing up, it was a it was a negative and a positive. I was a very intelligent young kid, and that's not a brag. I mean I was very depressed and stuff like that, but I always understood that my mother was doing things for us, so I never resented her for being away a lot because I knew that she was not out having fun. She my mom worked for a long portion of my childhood two jobs, and I mean two jobs. She worked an office job till five and then she'd worked six to eleven o'clock at night at the mall.

1:26:54 Yeah. Yeah, And and I remember never resenting my mom. There was a there was a little while back because we'd try to eat lunch together, like every week, and we talk a lot. I'm very close with my mother, but like my mom one time was telling me how embarrassed she was that I spent so many nights asleep at my babysitter's house and my mom had to come and get me at like ten or eleven o'clock at night. Yeah, pick me up, put me in the car. And she was always like, I'm sorry that you know that we couldn't just be like everybody else, and like, you know, I'd come home and I would just make you dinner. We got there though, ye, because she was putting that time in. Yeah. But it's funny because she would say like, I'm sorry, and I would be like mom. Some of my fondest memories of being a little boy, were you coming and waking me up in the guest room at my babysitter, picking me up, put me in the car.

1:27:44 Those are like they. Make me so happy, Like I'm crying. These are very happy tears. Yeah, because it was, like I still will think about it because I used to fall asleep watching out for Ditchcock presents and then Mom would pick me up and I just to me it was good. Yeah, it was wonderful. And then on the weekends she would sell tupperware or mary Kay. And my first job, I think I've told you this, My first job ever was entertaining the other kids my mom had. We had an old Nintendo, and my job was to get the kids to play the Nintendo so she could get the moms to buy some friggin foundation because look at your face, like you could be so much prettier. But my mother grew up with very little, and we started out with very little. And my mother she never would admit this because she's too sweet, honestly, but like she went without a lot as a kid because her mother just didn't care to work hard enough or to try to make their situation better. She was just like, well, we're we have a place to live, and you meet. Most of the time. My mom had those stories about like wearing the same clothes for days on end, and kids would make fun of her because they would notice you were wearing the same clothes. And my mom, you know, when she was ten eleven years old, had to learn how to make her own clothes so that she could have something new to wear when she could scrounge up material for it. I don't understand that because my mother would sacrifice everything to make sure I had enough food and I had food I liked, and that I she really

1:29:14 gave everything to me. It's just it, But this is the kind of stuff I think about. Well, no, no, it's it's uh, It's like again, these are happy tears. I'm just I might not have cried, but I've had a really long week. Yeah, and but no, these are beautiful things. You said You're gonna cry on the show last week. Oh, because Karate Kid always makes me cry. And I'll tell you why, because I'm already crying, right, so why not? But uh? When I was uh, so, my mom worked so hard and her goal in life, the thing she wanted more than anything in the entire world, was for us to have a home, not an apartment, not a townhouse. She wanted us to have something because she had never had anything.

1:29:57 She'd come close. She had me in her thirty me when she was about your age. Yeah, which is always blow my mind because you know, when I would when I would, especially when I first started making movies for a living, and it was it was it's still hard, but it was so hard in the beginning. I mean, like, sometimes I have to stop and laugh at my problems because I'll be like, I'll be like, man, this is so hard, and I'll be like, dude, eight years ago, this was hard, Like you were literally eating beans and rice and not because you liked it, Yeah, you were, you know, you were sacrificing a lot. And sometimes when I would get overwhelmed, my mom would be like, well, just remember, like I was a year older than you when I had you.

1:30:38 And that always gave me this incredible perspective because I'd be like, man, my mom's life had barely started because I was I was her second kid, so I mean she'd had a life before that, but she'd been married and you know, they got a house and then it went bust, and then they got divorced, she went bankrupt at one point before I was born. All of that was before I was born. In fact, what I was growing up in was her fixing all of the mistakes and missteps of her whole life so that I didn't have to live with them, which is wild to think about. And you know, my stepdad was around but I and I loved talking about him, but he wasn't around that much. He would go away for long periods of time to do work. Their relationship was rockier than I than I was aware of, which was a testament to them. They did not let me see that they were. I never saw them fight, I never saw them argue. But every now and then, you know, he'd be my stepdad'd be a little quiet, and then he'd go back and work in California or Alaska or one of those places. He'd go and work for a while and he'd come back, you know whatever months later, and things would be a little bit better, you know, they gain some perspective. But eventually he did one of those and when he came back he moved out that that you know that eventually happened.

1:31:47 Yeah, so uh. But to get back to my point about the actual movie because I could talk about my mother for forever. No, because she's my hero, the greatest, greatest human being. And uh, when we got out of living a rough life, yeah, well give or take, and we got our little piece of the suburbs, I all of a sudden had a substantially nicer life, like just the neighborhood. I could go out and play, although it took my mom forever to stop being afraid of me going outside because where we lived before, you didn't want to do that that often. And I remember I loved movies so much and the only thing I wanted in the world was a camera.

1:32:35 And I think I've told the story on the show before, but my mom put went on layaway for me because we did not have a lot of money and the house we bought needed a ton of work, which is one of the things that always blows my mind when people complain like I can't even buy a house, and then it's like, oh, well that cheap house, like you got to do a bunch of stuff, hey man? Was I that was just life? Man? You know? We moved into a place with yellow wallpaper and shag carpet and the roof wasn't quite good and yeah, so anyway, but my mom saw I had an interest, and she was always trying to get me to chase interests and be a kid. And one day I ended up at the Miami Valley Cable Council, which was our cable access place, because I had seen it on TV, and I was like, I want to learn. I want to be around this stuff, which is very you know, telling, because I was twelve years old, and I was like, all I want to do is like learn how to use a camera. I want to do all that stuff. And I'd been filming everything and making little videos in my bedroom.

1:33:31 I would sit. I was talking about this lunch literally last week. I asked her. I was like, how did you feel about the fact that I could go in my bedroom on a Saturday after like filming the dog and stuff, and I would sit and edit from a VCR to another VCR for like six hours straight. I would just be that laser focused, which is just not normal for little boys, you know, they want to run and jump and skin their knees. But I was like into this. But then when I went to the Cable Council and I started learning these things, I met Miamiagi. Yeah, yeah, you did, so this one's hard. But there was a guy that worked that worked there named Andy, and Andy saw this awkward kid with a lot of person I was shy, believe it or not.

1:34:18 I was a pretty shy kid, I believe. And you're the only one. But Andy saw the shy kid who had like a ton of interest. And it felt when I was watching this, it was like, man, it was like him when I would he you know, first saw me in the edit bay and he sees me like trying to edit a scene, and he's just like, it was like Miyagi seeing like you're reading a book on karate. He was like he would sit down and just be like, you know, if you do this and you do this, it'll, you know, it'll come together to be a scene. And he was the only person that I knew had made a movie he made. He was creative all the time, and he took a major interest in and changed my entire life.

1:35:00 And that's one of the reasons I I really, I really can't overstate how important it is. And it's it's. No shade to like a guy like you had who had two parents who were freaking really great people, and you had a dad around as much as he could be. I mean, he was running a thriving business. But you're still around, You're still doing this thing, you know, right, I mean I don't want to know. I mean it was It's it's funny like the you you talking about your miagi, because I I kind of had my own too, and it wasn't necessarily my parents actually, because the one that there's there's two things in my life that I'm that I'm grateful for, and that is the fact that I do have the relationship with my parents that I do. But also yeah, but also that I found another family in it to show me things that that that my parents couldn't and and that were that was the great people at around about books of course know they're there.

1:35:51 They've been a massive part of your life for as long as I've known. Yeah, exactly. And they not only so like I would stay with them when my parents would go out of town like or so stuff like that sometimes too. But more so than anything was there was a safety place with that bookstore. So like if I was being harassed, because I would walk home to the to the shop sometimes, right, if I was being harassed, I could go in there and I knew that I was completely safe. But also on top of that, you say the thing about investing, Mike invested into me as just being the kid who came in and would talk movies with him for a little bit and then you know, buy something and leave. And then I remember, literally the one thing which ties right into you and you're gonna love this was I'd heard about horror Rama.

1:36:33 It was and Andy was one of the event organs exactly. So I literally went into a round about books one day and I was like, Hey, I know Horoma is coming up. Do you guys care if I ride with you? Because, like I was, I was like thirteen at this. Point and my first horrorrama I was thirteen. Yeah, so Mike was like, yeah, we could totally do that. So like him and Dave took me to Horrama, and yeah, I met Andy, I met Rick and then that like meeting Andy that night, then you know, obviously went back for hormas and whatnot. And then Andy started Independent Shadow Cinema, So I got to spend time with Andy to a point of that I can I wouldn't necessarily call him a mentor to me, but like, but I mean, it was just I got to see that side of him that you're talking about, where it's just like he did he did invest in people. Well, and he was very so one of the reasons I cry he's passed away. Yeah, and a little over ten years ago.

1:37:19 I can't believe that, I know, I believe me, I know. But he was so loved because he was so good at finding misfits and yeah, and pushing them to be social and to be excited about the things they cared about and to open up their their worldview a little bit to these things. And he was an odd guy, a really odd guy. I mean the funny ironies. I mean, I met you because you were at Andy's events. That's literally how he became aware of each other's existence. Yeah, and I think, you know, I'm not a religious person, and I think if Andy could could watch, he'd be so happy to. See the way we go to the movies every Tuesday and and stuff like that.

1:38:02 But to go back to being more like the karate kid, it grew from oh yeah, edit this, to oh yeah at this, to to like sitting down and then being like, so, what are you up to? And then it would be like, oh, you know this kid, you know shoved me into a locker and bah, I'd be like, well, you know, like at the end of the day, like they're you know, they're going to shove you around. He went to a really rough school, and he was like he was like, he was like, if they're not pulling a knife on you, just like you know, you got to go along to get along. And all of a sudden, it was like very naturally he was giving me advice on how to grow up and how to be and how to be a young man that I didn't even realize he was doing.

1:38:43 He was just listening and he really gave a shit to hear it. And eventually he left that job and moved to Tip City, which is up by you, And I think that's when he really got tight with your with your your friends that are around about books. Was when he was up that way, because he will he connected with Tip people real fast. There were some really cool He basically told Mike and Dave any class that he was teaching at the school that they were welcome to come sit in anytime. Oh yeah, I audited his Sinclair class on cult movies one time. Andy was always up to something, and when he moved up there, he gave me his phone number, and he stayed a part of my life. He would drive all the way from Tip to pick me up.

1:39:24 My mom liked him enough, and she really loved how I just I never got in trouble. Yeah, I really didn't. Like I mean, like, I really just didn't. It's weird because I am a troublemaker in many ways, but I just I wanted to make my little movies. I wanted to watch movies. I wanted to talk about him, and Andy gave me this outlet without ever being you know, asked to do it. And I remember, and then we'll get back to the movie. But I remember. I it kind of hit me when I was like sixteen or so at seventeen that he had made such a huge impact on my life already and I couldn't tell him. So I wrote him a letter. I wrote him a card and just told him like how much of a difference he had made in my life. And he wrote me an email back and he was like, that's it's so weird because I never thought about it.

1:40:20 But like you, he Andy believed he had a lot of problems himself, and he believed that he should never have children and He followed that and he was, like I was he said something just basically said like I never thought I could do the things that were done for me when I was young, when people took because he his father wasn't around. You know that they had in part of me. I never really realized that I had done it to you. But I'm so glad I did, and like, thank you for writing that. You're a very intelligent, in an emotion and emotional young man and I'm proud of you. Yeah, and uh, that was like everything. So I don't want to make this all about Andy, but he, I mean he I would not be where I am.

1:41:10 I don't know where I'd be professionally or personally. Yeah, without a guy like Andy. And and that kind of feeds into with Miagi. He's kind of becoming a confidant and an example. He opens up to Daniel. That's that's what I love is he shares. He shares with Daniel about his life, including that he had a loss of his wife and his son and childbirth at the Menanzer Interminent Camp while he was serving in the four hundred and forty second Infantry. He was fighting for the US yeah and World War War two. Yeah, and that is where he received his Medal of Honor as well. So we get that, we get the side of him and this tragic side of it. And this all starts with Daniel coming in and he's just drinking, which is in such a great scene, such a great scene.

1:41:51 He's drinking, he's drunk, he's singing, he's looking at he's wearing his Airman uniform. Yeah, and Daniel, you know, Daniel immediately like goes to his side. He's just like and and Miyagi's just like, ah, I have a drink with me, and like, you see this this camaraderie that he's building even with this tragedy. He's just like, I want to share this with you because I can't describe it. Like camaraderie is not a bad way to put it, but I would say it was that Miagi was willing to be vulnerable with Daniel and let Daniel see that again. A good example for a kid is to see he's not a perfect person. He hasn't had the easiest life. See how kind he is, how thoughtful he is, even as he every now and then he just needs to mourn and grieve and laugh and be drunk and be a little stupid because he's a human being.

1:42:42 Well, it's like one of my favorite training moments is when he has him stand on the on the edge of the boat because you know, as we we're kind of talking about the training a little bit, but like there's there's a whole scene with the infamous crane. He's learning to stand in the crane thing. Well, I love that too, because he's like he's like, get up over to the boat to the get up. And then he starts boat the boat so he has him balance and then he rocks the boat back and forth, laughing while he does it, and Daniel falls in starts like freezing. So they go back to the They go back to the shore, and that's when we have these two drunk assholes, one of which is Larry Drake. Yeah. Yeah, very like baby Drake. Baby Drake. Buba didn't do it, Bubba did this. They were just drinking next to Miagi's car and their empty beer bottles are on the car. Yeah, and they make some racist comment about Miagi, and Miagi does Miyagi it's it's you know, uh, water off a duck's back.

1:43:30 One stepis move takes these bottles out well, first he just politely asks them to move to take the bottles. Yeah, And he doesn't even say like, hey, that's my goddamn car. Yeah. He just says, the boy is very cold. I need to take him home. Would you please, you know, clean up your bottles. Yeah, And when they laugh about it, yeah, he he just wants karate chops and cuts the bottles, the tops of the bottles off. The guys pick it all up, but he goes, how did you do that? And they'll know, they'll know first time. And that's again a great example of like you thought Miagi had every single thing figured out that he was the person. Yeah, And it's not that he has knowledge entirely. It s that he has wisdom. Wisdom, and they're different. And he also he gets he uses the tools that he learns from Yagy with you know, the selflessness and just getting into this wisdom and everything to patch things up with Ali. And that's one thing I picked up on watching it a couple of nights ago.

1:44:18 I was just like, their relationship is is just kind of I don't want to say it's just in the movie, but like it's it's not a it's not a very big primary focus, because like they could they kind of just do this scene that I'm going to, which is where he runs into alliot an arcade and you know, he's just like, hey, you know, I'm here, and she's like, oh cool, that's fine, and like he immediately, like it, starts apologizing to her and trying to explain everything and wins her back because he had this calmness because he could have been Laruso and been like, oh, okay, well well fine, fuck you then. But he realized that calmness is important. Yeah, and I can't overstate like Miyagi being drunk and kind of dumb and but laughing with LaRusso, yeah, that's an example that he doesn't even realize he's setting. Because you know, of all the examples you could have of how to deal with grief and maybe anger or sadness, if the example you have is just every now and then you get a little drunk and get a little silly, that's not a bad exams not about I mean, you know, there are way worse things he could have, you know, gotten drunk and shoved Larrousse away or something.

1:45:11 Like I hate you. I don't even want to teach you. He doesn't do that because he's a good example. Yeah, he's a good example. And the one thing too that I'll say with the whole thing of his stillness with Ali is the main conflict they have is that they're on opposite sides of the track. Ali is from a rich family, has a bunch of you know, has the country club and everything like that. Daniel literally goes on a date with Ali and their mom is driving them and they gets to the point where they get to the house and they have to push the car to get it to start. Yep. So there's this whole thing of two sides of the track and that's kind of the main thing. So when he patches things with Ali, we get to his eighteenth birthday, then Miyagi gives him a karate gee which is the Bonzi tree. Well, so the patch he puts a patch on it. Yeah, and he says like, wow, it's amazing. He says, missus Miagi made that patch and he's like, I want you to have it, and he tell and oh my god, he says like, I just want you to know, I'll understand if you ever want this back. Says, I know.

1:46:06 And that's that. But just the fact that Myagi is like, no, I'm giving this too because you you unders understand how important it. Is to me, So I need you to have And is this where they explain the Bonzi tree with the two branches. Basically, yeah, about Miyagi's fan the fishermen, Yeah, because all Miagi's do no fish and fish and karate and he was he was a fisherman and a karate man, and he like saki. Yeah, like saki. One night the fish were not biting, but the saki strong. You wake up on the shore of China. So the whole Bonzi tree concept is basically two branches on the tree strengthen the stink, strengthen the branch together. I'm trying to remember the phrasing of it exactly, but it basically that you have You can't be one thing.

1:46:53 No person is one thing. You have to let the multiple elements of yourself be strong together. You're sometimes your weaknesses can become your strengths if you cultivate, which is the entire point of a Bondie tree. You sit and you cultivate it. So now we have reached the tournament, Yes, we are at the end of the film. And there was one line I wanted to point out, Oh, I forgot about it because I was getting all emotional. But like when he signs up at the tournament, he says, we're going to do the tournament right at the beginning, and he says like, I'm gonna get my I'm gonna get my. Uh, they're gonna kill me or whatever. They're gonna beat the crap out of me. Yeah, he goes going to beat the crap out of you. Anyway, It was like, I just that's such a great part because he says it so simply and stoically. He's just like, well, they're going to beat you.

1:47:37 Well, then we've also got the great scene where they straight up steal what is it that they take to get into the tournament. I'm trying to remember a black belt, yeah. Because they say brown belts are higher. So he says he distracts them, and then he says he explains that they misspelled his name and has Ali steal a black belt from the bag right next to the guy who's signing up with But we we almost forgot So Miagi, I just want to because this is the last really great moment. But beyond the ending, Miyagi gives him the gee with that special. He gives him his own headband that he wore fighting. Yeah. He also mentions a way he's like, I don't know anything about tournaments. He's like, I know I fought. I thought I did not I did not compete. I fought.

1:48:17 And we find out, you know, and when they expand ma AGI's stuff in later movies and TV series, we find out that it's more. He wasn't very proud of when he was fighting for Pride, so he didn't want to talk about it very much because he was a complex guy. But he gives him a birthday cake. And then and this is why I love this movie. After all of these wonderful things, Yeah, he looks at his clock. He's like, oh my god, Like, I've got to go because mom made me a cake. It's supposed to be surprised, but I know she made me a cake. Miyagi's reaction is, of course, like you need to be with your mother. It's your birthday. And then he's like, last gift, and he tells him to pick take a car, one of those hot, those awesome old cars. That Magi fixed up. That's his, that's his. Yeah, So he picks the yellow car, which sticks with him pretty much throughout the series because we even actually saw it in Karate Kid Legends tonight. Oh yeah, which is such a good little thing.

1:49:07 No, it's it's a wonderful a wonderful thing, and I love what he says, Remember, license not as good as mine. So they get to the tournament. They've stolen the black belt by this point, they're in the tournament, and that is when they Johnny advances to the finals after scoring three unanswered points against Darryl Vidal, and Crease instructs his second best student, Bobby Brown, who is going against LaRusso, to injure him to a point. Of no return to damage his legs so that he'll he'll be disqualified with leg or at the very least easy for Johnny to defeat. And this is a moment that's pretty evil too, because when they're telling him to, you know, sweep the leg when he does and he really hurts LaRusso.

1:49:48 It's an a legal attack. But one of my favorite things I never I mean I knew it, but it really hit me this time I was watching is the second he does it in Sorry Daniel, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, like the moment he does it, he realizes. Because this is where Crease really comes out to be a ship because the most of the movie, of the first movie especially, he's just he's just that asshole that owns the dojo and and has that whole now mercy thing. This is where he literally we're seeing how he uses his students to enact his own revenge in assent and. Because he's a bad example, yeah, of how you can mold mines. Yeah, for your own ego and your own because you don't value the right things. Yeah, and that's so so important. Yeah, I mean, he's he he is venomous to these kids because even the entire thing with Johnny and his gang is they are always talking about Cobra Kai and you know, Chrese says no mercy and all this stuff, like they have this instilled in him, and that's what he's done to these students. So, yeah, he instructs him to do an illegal attack to the knee and he Bobby does it severely injuring Daniel, and this is also gets Bobby disqualified for the illegal move. So Daniel's taken to the locker room because he is He's in really bad.

1:50:52 Shit and he's going to be He's going to not fight anymore. Yeah. And this is also one thing we forgot to mention is when Miagi was initially showing Daniel that the chores have given him the defense movements, Daniel complains about his shoulder and Miyagi rubs on it and actually frees up the pain. He basically does a kind of of Eastern touch healing. Yeah. I forget the name of it, but I always always used to joke because not a huge fan of alternative medicine practitioners never have a. Favorite scenes and Man in the Moon, Oh my god. Uh but I met a I met a reiki master once at a at a at an event, and I was like, and I remember just going, Wow, you've gotten to a point where you don't even have to touch the gross sick people. Huh, you just I'm not touching you.

1:51:32 I'm not touching you, Like this must have been invented by like schoolyard bullies in third grade. I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you. Do you feel better? Give me money? But so, yeah, he rubs his hands and just kind of massages him, yeah, and helps so as LaRusso is sitting there and his leg is really hurt. He's still hurt too. Yeah. He asked him like, can you do that to fix it? And megis like, you don't need to fight, Yeah, you've proven yourself. Yeah, and this is and Miyagi's right, Yeah, because dave Daniel the tools to not have to win, because now he has been able to, you know, get the girl, but more importantly, have the confidence in himself to have friends, to have a girlfriend.

1:52:13 Chriese had to cheat in order for him to win in this. That's one thing I always that I've always picked up on, is that Chris who you know, Oh yeah, well we'll join you at the fight and everything. Then the first chance he has to to sweep the leg, does it well? And I'll see that point, but I want to I want to alter it a little bit. Okay, it's not that Chris has to cheat. Is that Chris cheat cheats? He just is a cheat chee. He is just that guy. Yeah. And and the fact that he's like, I don't want to have I don't have confidence you can actually, you know, beat him for sure. I want to make sure you win because winning is all that matters, not being the best you can be, which is the complete opposite of what Miagi is teaching him. So I love that more. He says like, you don't have to fight anymore, because he's right. But this is the big turning point because he says, I want to fight. Miyagi slaps his hands and then they come out and LaRusso is still going to fight.

1:53:03 Yeah, and the reason I love this fight. But think about the symbology of this. He just he turned eighteen, Miagi gave him the car, Miagi celebrated him becoming a man, and then Miagi treated him like a man. At the end of the day, it was Larusso's choice to go out there and fight even though he was hurt. So whether or not the magic rubbing of the leg actually makes a big difference, or if all LaRusso needed was Miyagi saying like, I'm going to give you the excuse to be as strong as you can possibly be. That's up to debate. Who cares. Yeah, I mean it doesn't because it the point is that he goes out there barely able to stand on one leg. Yeah, he's basically on one leg. Johnny is kind of pissed that he's not going to get to fight LaRusso fair, but at the same time, Creases like, you win, you win, that's what we do. We win, and they and he he had won what to tow or one or two of them previously. Yeah, so he's already the reigning Valley All Valley champions, I mean.

1:54:05 And Johnny also, Johnny has such a great character arc, which I mean goes to Cobra Kai obviously too, but like this movie, especially for his for his introduction everything, the whole like where we'll get to in a second, but the whole, like you're all right, LaRusso, Johnny has that whole, that whole realization that what he thought of Crease and everything is not at all what he actually wants to be, right, And I think that's that's really good. So the matches, the matchres zooms, they they go back and forth for a little bit and then it's halted when Daniel uses a scissor leg technique to trip Johnny and so this delivers a blow to the back of the head, giving Johnny a nosebleed. That's when Crease tells him no mercy and this and Johnny's like, no, I can I can win this, Like I don't have to do this unethical move, and he's like, no, go ahead and do it. So they're tied to and two. By this point, Johnny sees Daniel's leg and just takes an elbow right to it, just right where it hurts. So now and now Daniel is forced to do the infamous crane plat.

1:55:00 And I love this not only because it's it pays off to everything. Yeah, you know, because when he says, like, can you teach me? Early on he says, can you teach me to the crane kick? He's like, I have to learn to run before you can fly. Yep. So he literally, you know, stands up with his bad leg off the ground yep, and just waits for Johnny to come to him. Miyagi do is for defense only only, so there's no offense. And as Johnny runs up, ready to just clobber him, one kick right one face. And I do love that. Throughout Cobra Kai, Johnny keeps went out, which was an illegal legal We weren't allowed to kick me in the head technically, you know, but they kind of let it go, probably because of what had happened to Lariso before. Yeah, and they were a little loose on the rules. They were like, well he hit a winning kick.

1:55:45 Yeah, and we also have the infamous get him a body beg a body bag. No, it's it's it's such a memorable moment. But also I wish I could remember the name of the guy. But there was this I'm not an MMA guy, Yeah, but I had heard that there was this interesting fighter who was one of the very who karate was his key thing. Yeah, and he won a match with the crane kick by literally just standing. Like that might be in my notes. Oh really, it might be. I'll check because I remember watching him. Holy crap, that was just like the movie though, like he didn't he didn't do it a million times, yeah, but one time he did do it. That's fair. So it was just a fascinating side note. So, yeah, he scores the tournament winning point, becoming the new champion. Johnny has now gained respect. We get the whole year, all right, LaRusso and like he gives him the trophy and Daniel was hoisted up. He tells Yagi, we did it, mister Yagi, and we see the one single tier fall from Yaggi's eye, and that is the Karate Kid from nineteen eighty four.

1:56:34 Baby God damn right, and again, I because I'm so karate kidded, I always thought that the end, the beginning of part two was also in there because there's a whole confrontation. Which I'll talk about in a second. Yeah. So, Wow, budget was eight million. I mean that's decent for that time period. Opening weekend takes in five million, thirty one dollars June twenty fourth, nineteen eighty four. Not bad. Grossing in the US and Canada ninety one million dollars. They really were the best around. Grossing worldwide one hundred and thirty million, holy shit, eight million dollar budget, one hundred and thirty million dollars of the box office. And four three sequel sequels, one smash hit like five six season series.

1:57:16 Ten the TV show. Well that's what I was talking about. Yeah. So filmed in Harrison, New Jersey, Los Angeles, California, as well as Arizona. There's a really cool shot through this drive through the canyons. Filming began October twenty fourth of nineteen eighty three and ended on December eighth of nineteen eighty three after forty five days of filming. Wow. Yeah, the idea for The Karate Kid came from producer Jerry Weintraub, who heard a news report in nineteen eighty three about a scrawny team being bullied who became a martial artist. The story and movie is based on the life of its screenwriter, Robert Mark Cayman. At age seventeen, after the nineteen sixty four New York World's Fair, Cayman was beaten up by a gang of bullies. He thus began to study martial arts in order to defend himself. Cayman was unhappy with his first teacher, who taught martial arts as a tool for violence and revenge, so he moved on to study okanaw goujiu. That's what it says.

1:58:03 Karate under a Japanese teacher who did not speak English but had been a student of Chojun Miyagi. Really no shit that I did not know. That's epic. The movie was more or less shot in sequence, which is very unusual. Yeah, but on a movie like that, I could see how you could mostly do it. Jerry wine Traup didn't want Pat Marina to audition for Miyagi because he didn't think a comedian would be taken seriously in the role. Marita wasn't even allowed to audition at first, but wine Traub eventually relented after he was unable to find anybody who he was satisfied with. That's fascinating because I mean he became I mean, he became that character so well. In real life, Pat Marina did not talk with a heavy Japanese accent that he uses in the film as mister Biagi. He can be heard talking in his regular voice on many of the DVD featurettes. Yeah, the role of Daniel LaRusso was allegedly initially offered to Sean Penn.

1:58:52 Penn turned it down because he was trying to do more adult roles. Penn later said in an interview that he thought Ralph Machia was one of the greatest living. Actors, especially for his age. I mean, to play such a complex character so well. Charlie Sheen turned down the role of Daniel LaRusso to starring Grizzly Too. Revenge a film that started filming in nineteen eighty three but didn't complete and release until twenty twenty due to several production and financial issues and release. Is a strong word on how it actually came out. That was a that's a fascinating whole thing. Well, and it's a fascinating story. Oh yeah. Ralph Maccio was twenty two during filming. Some of the cast did not believe him when they asked him about his age. Elizabeth Sho was twenty, Rob Garrison and Tonio Delhi were both twenty three, Chad McQueen and Ron Thomas were twenty two, and William Zadka was the only real teenager of the main cast and the youngest at eighteen. Yeah.

1:59:37 No, he really, I mean I even in the later ones, I still think he looks like he's very, very young. Yeah. According to Pat Marina, he is credited with Noriyuki Pat Merita because the producers wanted to promote his Japanese heritage. I mean, I get it, because they wanted to be They wanted to come across as authentic. Yeah. Pat Marina's portrayal of mister Viagi was heavily influenced by karate master Fumio du Mura. Marisa spent a lot of time with Demira, who doubled for him in his fight scenes and translated not only Dmra's attitude towards martial arts of the character, but also his mannerisms and speech. Oh wow, okay, that's awesome. When miss Miyagi is drunk in celebrating anniversary, he reveals that he served in the Army in the four hundred and forty second Regiment Combat Team. The unit, composed mostly of Japanese Americans, many of whom who had been in internment camps, fought in Europe during World War II. It became the most highly decorated unit in the history of the United States military. Wow. In the opening scene, the kids chasing down the car the street waving goodbye are all from the neighborhood. They were hanging around the set and interfering with the shoot, so the director offered to put them in the movie if they would leave the crew alone.

2:00:36 Hey that works, Yeah, that works really well. Director Albotson had to climb on top of a factory in the opening shot to achieve the angle of Daniel and his mother driving away. Pat Marita himself designed the Bonzi logo that was sewn into Daniel's gee. Really yeah, Oh, that's awesome. The fly in the scene was attached to a fishing line and was being moved around by a crew member. Yeah, we forgot it. So when he catches the fly. Oh yeah, he's been trying his whole life and LaRusso just does it and he's a big good luck. And that's another great little hint that he's a he's a guy. Yeah. You know. The yellow Classic automobile that Daniel polishes and the famous wax on wax off training scene, then later offered by Miyagi as Daniel's birthday gift, was actually given to Ralph Macchio by the producer and he still owns it. The car is a nineteen forty eight Ford Super Deluxe.

2:01:21 That's fucking bitching. And you know, I just realized though, and he picked the car that he put the work on. Yeah, see it. This is such a phenomenal piece of storytelling. It is. The skeleton fight endured numerous takes because the actors complain that Fumio Dmira Marita stunt double was hitting them too hard, which caused the scene to loose some of the choreography and authenticity. Fumio told the director that if he could use his own students, that would get the shot in one take. The director agreed, and they shot the fight scene successfully in one take. One of the doubles is a descendant of the legendary King of the Frontier Davy Crockett. Oh that's a hell of a piece of trivia right there. The last spinkick that Daniel was hit with before he is saved by mister Biagi actually hit Ralph Macchio. It hurt him, I bet. According to the commentary track on the home video versions of the movie, William Zadka came with the loose backstory for Johnny Lawrence's character in order to get a better feel for playing the character. He states in the commentary that he envisioned Johnny as having no father and that creases the closest thing to a father figure he had in his life.

2:02:16 Which was pretty accurate to what they built on later. Yep. William Zadka had no karate experience prior to being cast of the film. However, he was an accomplished wrestler. Zabka continued his karate training and became a second degree green belt. Really yeah, Zabka still owns the red leather jacket he wears in the film. Well damn right. According to williams Zabka, the director he portrays still irks many people. According to William Zaca, the character he portrays still irks many people. Some have tried to start fights with him, and he's had to convince them that the role was specifically written for the movie. Oh my god. Yeah, people are stupid. Well, you know, but you got to remember the time period two movies were still kind of mysterious. Yeah, and people still kind of believed in a weird way. The climactic karate tournament involved over five hundred extras. Extras were so caught up in the tournament scene that they would boo William Zadka even when the cameras were not rolling.

2:03:04 Zabka's mother was in the crowd and kept trying to tell people that he's actually very nice in real life. That would be my mother, What my mom would do too. The referee in the final match is Pat E. Johnson, a karate expert and former student of Chuck Norris. He instructed many moves of many movie stars in karate. He is credited as the fight instructor a choreographer for the film. He choreographed all the fights in the tournament. Some of the movies he taught actors were beyond their normal skill or moves he taught actors are beyond their normal skill, so he asked to remain close by in case he had to adjust or at worse, stop the scene. The producers made him the referee. Nice yeah. William Zach had revealed in an interview that during rehearsals, Martin Cove delivered the sweep the leg line in a calm manner, but when they filmed it, he said it in such a cold voice, which shocked everyone, including Zapka, who shocked expression on screen was genuine. Yeah.

2:03:50 Cove is a goddamn amazing actor. He is, according to Martin Cove and the DVD commentary. He had gotten a call from John g Alpason stating that they wanted him to audition for Crease, but he he was told to wait. Cove wanted the role so much that he turned down other prospects in order to get his part, but when the waiting dragged out for a few weeks, Cove became annoyed as he kept turning down the parts. Finally, Abdson called Cove into audition, and Cove was so annoyed with Avidson that he berated the director and channeled his anger into an intense audition. Ultimately, that intensity got him the role. I believe that that's awesome. The scene where Daniel was dumped into the water on the boat by mister Biagi was filmed in late December in Chatsworth, California. The water was so cold that Ralph Macchio didn't need to act when he portrayed how freezing he was when he got out of the water. In years since the film's release, the iconic crane kick came to be mocked as an implausible and unrealistic It's a jump kick, and even the second film had Daniel try it against a new opponent who was able to defeat it. Then, at UFC one twenty nine, Leido Makita knocked Randy Kature clean out with what was effectively a crane kick. Makita didn't lead into it theatrically raising his hands above his head and balancing one leg, but he hopped off the ground after faking with his left and smashed Katuur's face with a front kick from his right. The commentator shouted out the movie and even the match record lists the finishing move as crane kick. In the opening scene of The Karate Kid two was meant to be the ending to this film, although it was shot until After the second film's production began, and it Crease attacks Johnny for losing the tournament. Miagi confronts Crease, who passively immobilizes him, and Miagi threatens to strike a deadly blow, but instead

2:05:21 comically tweaks Cresee's nose and walks away. Members of the Cobra Kai then drop their belts around Crease. Both bebe Hiller's novelization of the film, and early copies of the script have this as the ending. Okay On How I Met Your Mother in two thousand and five, Barney insists that Johnny is the real karate kid and his personal hero. A real life fan theory states that Daniel is the real bully while Johnny is the real karate kid. The argument includes the fact that Johnny only uses his skills for defense or de escalation, while Daniel was always the attacker. It also suggests that Daniel wanted to learn karate not just to compete with Johnny, but to take revenge. Daniel even states that he wants to learn karate for revenge until Miagi criticizes the view. This theory conveniently ignores Johnny's more villainous aspects, of course, including the treatment of Alley.

2:06:02 Well, yeah, no, but I but I do. I mean, Johnny is definitely a victim as well. That's that's kind of the how real. Have you seen that scene in How I Met Your Brother? No? Oh god? So it's great. So Barney is having his birthday party and the one thing that he wants is a visit from the Karate Kid. So Ralph Maccio does stop by along with some other people, which includes this one clown, and at the very end he's just like, you know, I'm sorry, Machio, like you're not. The karate Kid goes into this whole Zabka like you know what I just said, And Zabka is the clown. So he starts taking his fun makeup off and I'll show. It to you. We're off the show. That's so funny. The studio wanted to drop the drunk Biaggi scene, feeling it slowed the pace down. Director John G. Alvinson argued for it, and he has felt that the scene was what got Pat Marita nominated for an Oscar, even though he did not win.

2:06:45 I mean, I believe that one thing I was very impressed by rewatching the movie is the pacing is brilliant to really make you believe the transformation is happening. Yeah, so I love that it's two hours and six minutes long. The film was also a commercial success, grossing over one hundred and thirty million world wide, making it one of the highest grossing films of nineteen eighty four and the Hollywood's biggest sleeper hit of the year. It was the top video rental of nineteen eighty five, and lastly, Ralph Macchio paid tribute to the late Pat Marita by calling him my sense during his uology eulogy Uology you blew it, You blew it eulogy. No, that's that's wonderful. So what are your final thoughts on nineteen eighty four? Is Karate? Yeah? Stream it? No. I mean, it's one of my favorite movies of all time.

2:07:26 I think it's a really important film that teaches you how to be so many better versions of yourself. Yeah, And I think it's a it's a movie about trying to be your best. It's a movie about how pretty much everybody's flawed. I mean, you could say, like it's hard to sometimes Ali, it's hard to sympathize with Ali because she makes weird choices. They're all just teenagers. Yeah, the characters are just teenagers, so they're all stupid. Yeah, they're all figuring things out and making dumb choices. That's just that's that's just life, basic life. Yeah, it's a it's a buy it for me. This movie is so important in the pop culture. It's in important with a lot of the themes it has, and also it just still has a staying power to this day that's still relevant even though it's an eighty four movie.

2:08:06 I would agree one thousand percent. I mean, it is the number one movie that when you think of a martial arts film, this is the one that comes to mind. Obviously. Yeah, god it. I mean it's just a perfect piece. So since we've talked about how we felt, should we check in with our friends Ciskel and Ebert to see what they think about the movie. I mean, I didn't know we were on like a first name basisrhythm, but we can check that out. So this is Ciskel and Ebert talking about Karate Kid. Boy and Pat and Marita. There is the Old Man and also Randy Heller is Daniel's mother. She's very good portraying she is a single parent. Under pressure. The performances go a long way toward making this predictable story interesting. But there is one big problem with the movie. For me, it's just too long, maybe by twenty or thirty minutes.

2:08:48 There's no reason for a film like this to run who semi doesn't have that much to say, and it says it too slowly. That criticism aside, though, the Karate Kid works because it sees the problems of the new kid in school quite well and I think quite accurately. And Ralfmacho is quite winning as Daniel, So marginal thumbs up for me. Somebody pat Marita is that Japanese American janitor is going to teach him all the moves. I thought it was a great performance, and I didn't think that the training scenes were predictable. In fact, just the opposite I've seen predict In other words, most of the movie isn't predictable. I think most of it is the training relationship with that guy. I think most of the movie is predictable, predictable that they will have a karate fight, and I don't want to go beyond that.

2:09:30 Well, we know this is the director of Rocky. That might help you to kind of guess what's going to happen. But the fact is when karate, he does it in so many different ways. Polish the car, paint the fence, paint the house, work out on the boat, and so forth. And this is the first karate movie I've seen where the philosophy of this karate, instead of just being a fighting technique, it becomes a whole place of life really kind of was part of the whole thing that was going on. Well, that's sort of I think that's sort of predictable. I mean, even the TV show, you know, with the Carroty had a little bit of the karate is more than just a kung fu what I like the individual characters in the time. I think that's very well. I just would have he's a movie critic. I like this. Okay, we're more or less than Greened Pat Marita. I think if possible for an Oscar nomination, if the movie does it at the back, come that's right, okay, I'll see you.

2:10:15 I'll hey, you know what, at least he had opinions. Now there is that. Yeah, we always like that in the show. With a couple of recommendations, of course, and I have two this week, starting with nineteen ninety two s Three Ninjas, currently rentable on Prime and fan Dango. Each year, three brothers visit their grandfather for the summer. He is highly skilled in niu jitsu and for years he has trained the boys and techniques, which come in handy when they have to face an organized crime ring. Ridiculous movie. I mean, I'm more of a high newon on Mega Mountain guy. But yeah, you like you like hul Cochon being suchually assault constantly. Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's pretty much a five star for me anytime. The other one, I'm gonna go with going with more So, first off, it's the same year that this came out, but also kind of goes into that childhood element of maturing and also like having a mentor, and that's going to be nineteen eighty four's Cloak and Dagger, currently available on Prime and are currently rentable on Prime and Fandango.

2:11:07 A young boy and his imaginary friend end up on the run while in possession of a top secret spy gadget. I was so thrilled to show this movie too, Child Fight Club, Child Fight Club. So it's a fascinatingly weird and great movie. It is, so, what's your pick this week? So there was another film that had a big effect on me when I was younger that I've always felt did not get the do it deserved. And it is a karate kid knockoff to an extent. Yeah, and that is nineteen ninety two's Sidekicks Go Damn Right, starring Jonathan Brandis and Chuck Norris. And the description is a bullied teen who fantasizes about being Chuck Norris's sidekick, trains in martial arts to fulfill his dreams. And one of the things I think is incredible. First of all, it's available on Prime and Fowsome, maybe a few other spots that I'm.

2:11:56 Not currently a beautiful four K from Vincent as well. It's on TV the Roku channel. Yeah, I highly recommend watching it. It was unavailable for so long that I used to watch my tape of it. Yeah, I don't. I don't think it ever got a DVD release. It ever went straight to Blu Ray. Yeah, and uh, straight to by Way of like twenty years years. But while there is a lot of cheesiness to it, the idea that he has that there's this kid who has asthma. He has no he has no confidence. He's being raised by a single dad who is just trying his best. Yeah, and he really is played by bow Bridges beautifully. It's it. Brandis is perfect in it, and his sense is a little bit more. He's played by Mako, thank you, who plays mister Lee. He is a Chinese American immigrant who is running a restaurant in Houston. I believe texas he teaches Brandis not to really fight, but first to believe in himself. And there's a line in it that I couldn't believe when I rewatched it with you guys recently, where he taught points to a liquor bodily, this is either a crutch or a thief. You have to decide which.

2:13:05 And then he points to his asthma inhaler because earlier there's a reference to the scarring and his lungs is barely there, and it seems like whenever he gets anxious he has an asthma attack. Yeah, he says, we got We're going to figure out if that is a liar or a crutch. And I think about that and think about that and the way Mako teaches him by throwing dumplings at him until he learns to catch them and he's got this great he's a lot more sardonic. I think the movie gets an unfair rep because of Chuck Norris with it, like because I feel like it's easy to be like, oh, it's a Chuck Norris movie, like a Chuck Norris kids movie, but like there's a lot of really great themes and elements of that film. Yeah, No, it's it's a great movie about and it's again it's just about believing in yourself and that film.

2:13:47 One thing I think it does very different from Karate Kid that makes it very interesting is it really isn't about beating the kid spoiler alert. The ending is not them fighting face off. Yeah, it's not. It's it's it's all about Brandis's character really understanding his potential as a person and realizing that if you work hard and you believe incredible things that you'll never you could never imagine will happen to you. So, while it is a I think I would not say it's not a Karate Kid knockoff, it has a lot to say that's different, and I identify a lot more with Brandis's character personally than I do with Ralph machio because I wasn't getting into fights and stuff. I was getting beat up, and I didn't have a lot of confidence, and I did daydream a lot, and I lived in the movies.

2:14:42 So all of those things. But you were John Connor every time. You're goddamn right, I was, I'll lead the Resistance. But no. So Sidekicks from nineteen ninety two, Oh my god, if you haven't seen it, please just fucking watch it. And I think it goes to that saying. We've said it numerous times in this episode already. The Karate Kid sequels are all worth a watch. Oh, definitely, one hundred percent, even even the Jackie Chan remake and Legends definitely worth a watch if you are into the movies. Two, I cannot overstate enough is just a fucking perfect film. It's so good and and Cobra Kai TV series is just amazing. So do we have an emails this week? I'll double check. We didn't last I checked, Oh, no, one likes us. Also that Nica Porro whooped by bit but with nicotine. I guess it hadn't melowed up that much after all, and neither have I. We no emails today, so we're not loved this week, and that's fair enough.

2:15:32 That's okay. Maybe we'll be loved next week as we continue listener Request Month with one that has been requested multiple times again, we are going to play a game with twenty nineteen's Ready or Not? What a great what a great film, and what a great surprise came to the theaters, what a great time. So yeah, we'll be talking about that next week. And if you want to email us, we do love to hear from you. This do you even Movie pod at gmail dot com. It's in the show notes of the description. You can also go to dooeven movie dot com for everything about our little program here. If you're watching us on YouTube, make sure you subscribe. Leave a comment. We'd love to read those, yes, And if you're listening on your favorite podcasting app, make sure you're subscribed there and leave us a five star rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Absolutely, it makes a really big difference. And if you don't, I'll just cry some more on the show and we'll see how you feel about that.

2:16:20 That's fair, I mean we can. We had definitely a lots more sad movies for both of us. Start Sad, I cry it happy movies, man. I think I think the episode so far that we have both cried together on was just another Christmas and I think that's been the only episode we've cried together. Yeah, that's a hell of a film. The hell of a film. But yeah, we're gonna talking about Ready or Not next week on the show currently available rentable on Prime and Fandango and has a sequel coming out soon. So yeah, I think, like the summer, Ready or Not and here I come, so good, great, great. I cannot wait for that. So we'll be back next week with that. So until next time, I guess all that's left to say is, uh, you next sweep the leg? Johnnie body Man saghm