The Karate Kid Part II

Back to where karate began

Two years after The Karate Kid, John G. Avildsen and writer Robert Mark Kamen brought back Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita and moved the story from Los Angeles tournaments to Okinawa, the birthplace of karate and Miyagi's home. Competition gives way to a matter of honour between two men who learned the same art in the same dojo, run by Miyagi's father.

Practitioners will recognise ideas about the art rather than the sport: karate as family heritage, walking away while there is still another option, and the gap between a refereed bout and a fight to the death. The "drum technique", which Miyagi teaches with a den-den daiko, a small handled drum whose beads strike both faces in turn, sums up the hip rotation that links a block to a counter.

Okinawa in Hawaii

The film was shot from 23 September to 20 December 1985 on Oahu's windward side, with seven replica Okinawan houses and some fifty Okinawa-born Hawaii residents as extras. Yuji Okumoto's Chozen is far more menacing than any Cobra Kai student.

Reception

Reviews were mixed, but Pat Morita won near-universal praise; the Los Angeles Times called him the heart of the movie. Audiences turned out: the film passed $100 million worldwide, and Peter Cetera's Glory of Love went to number one in the US and earned an Oscar nomination. Chozen and Kumiko returned decades later in Cobra Kai.