History Headscratchers / TheKarateKid

*** For the first question, he kicked Johnny in the chest with the crane kick, Johnny only grabbed his face because he landed head first on the mat. As for the second one, Miyagi had faith that Daniel wouldn't try anything crippling or illegal because of his own good nature.

* In the original (and I may be remembering this incorrectly), wasn't it against the rules to kick someone in the face? If so, how did Daniel win by kicking Johnny in the face?
** He actually glanced off his chest and connected solidly with his chin. The chest contact, however brief, would get the point. It also is perfectly possible that the referee was impressed enough with Daniel's effort, he gave him the benefit of the doubt and awarded him the point.
*** If i remember correctly, it never say anything about contact to the face with the feet, it seemed the contact (full contact one, not accidental one) of fist to face what was illegal (as is common in most traditional karate styles tournament)
*** This is correct. Remember that Dutch scored a point on Daniel with a kick to the face during their match.

*** I suspect Mister Miyagi isn't so much bad at speaking English as is a man of few words. He doesn't speak English like a native because he doesn't care to so he keeps his sentences short and to the point.

** For that matter, if Miyagi only knew about karate techniques that were applicable to life-and-death combat, and knew nothing about competition rules, why didn't Daniel foul out of the tournament early on? Miyagi's father would presumably have taught him the sort of potentially-crippling moves that would disqualify someone from an athletic event, not the safe ones of sport karate.
** For the first question, he kicked Johnny in the chest with the crane kick, Johnny only grabbed his face because he landed head first on the mat. As for the second one, Miyagi had faith that Daniel wouldn't try anything crippling or illegal because of his own good nature.

* What became of Kreese after the third movie?

** Isn't that the fight where Johnny's sensei tells him to extend the match (and thus Daniel's suffering) by fouling to lose the point he earns, over and over?
*** No, that's in 3 against Mike Barnes.

* In regards to the remake, who moves to [[PeoplesRepublicOfTyranny China]] to get a better life?
** Well, with China becoming the rising dragon of economic prosperity, perhaps there is good hopes for a new life. On another in movie note, several outside source materials depict this as a job transfer, so with their livelihood at stake, they had to move in order to keep and perhaps further develop their "better life".
*** China's economic power is a bubble caused by them intentionally inflating their currency to near-worthless levels in order to keep their populace poor and oppressed. Living conditions in China are sharply contrasted with that of the United States.
*** While China's economic power is indeed a bubble, its not messing with its currency to hurt its own people. Its messing with its currency to give itself an advantage economically, especially where investing and exports are concerned. Which is part of why its economic power is a bit of a bubble.
*** They were moving away from [[CrapsackWorld Detroit]]. Even UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}} has joked their motto is "It could be worse, at least we're not Detroit."
*** Makes even more sense thanks to some recent RealLifeSubtext with Detroit...
** Also, they didn't move to China for a better life. Dre says that his mother got transferred to China for her job.
** Actually if you're a foreigner who moves to China as part of a company deal, you can have an ''amazing'' life. The same amount of money that will keep you in a somewhat comfortable middle class lifestyle in America can make you modestly wealthy in China. Living in China mostly only sucks for common Chinese people.
** It's clear that OP has never traveled to China. In the major metropolitan cities, like Beijing where Dre and his mom moved to, life is relatively comfortable for most educated, middle class people ever since the government embarked on its economic reforms in the 1980s. Furthermore, not all of China's social and economic problems are caused by governmental policies, but are rather problems faced by developing countries as a whole. Statements proclaiming that China's issues with poverty are a conspiracy by Chinese government deliberately keeps the populace poor and oppressed are absolutely xenophobic nonsense and not based on any economic reality.

** It takes place over the course of several ''months'', although the timeframe of the chore part specifically is unclear. It really would take only a few days, though, for him to unknowingly get so much into the habit of performing those moves that they've become utterly second nature to him, which is the entire point of the scenes.

* In the tournament in the remake, when Cheng tried to attack his opponent and refused to let go of holds after winning, why didn't he get disqualified? I'm pretty sure that's against the rules of a normal kung fu tournament. Also, if Cheng was exempted from normal rules, why did his teammate get disqualified for the same thing? At least they could have been consistent and ignored what was going on flat out instead of being selective of who and who not to crack down on.
** Cheng was overly aggressive and severely tested the limits of the rules, but the argument could be made that he didn't technically break any of them. His teammate clearly and deliberately used an illegal move with an intent to cripple Dre's leg.
* In the original (and I may be remembering this incorrectly), wasn't it against the rules to kick someone in the face? If so, how did Daniel win by kicking Johnny in the face?
** He actually glanced off his chest and connected solidly with his chin. The chest contact, however brief, would get the point. It also is perfectly possible that the referee was impressed enough with Daniel's effort, he gave him the benefit of the doubt and awarded him the point.
*** If i remember correctly, it never say anything about contact to the face with the feet, it seemed the contact (full contact one, not accidental one) of fist to face what was illegal (as is common in most traditional karate styles tournament)
*** This is correct. Remember that Dutch scored a point on Daniel with a kick to the face during their match.
* In Karate Kid 3, why is Daniel so scared when he was fighting Mike Barnes? He already fought Chozen before in Karate Kid 2, A BATTLE TO THE DEATH MIND YOU, and he was scared when some big mouthed idiot was scoring points and getting illegal blows on him that wouldn't kill him?
** Terry Silver and his cronies spent a large part of the movie luring him to the dark side, then manipulated him into stepping over a line, ''hurting'' someone, such that at the time of the match, Daniel is a psychological wreck.
* In the remake, were the kids wearing ''sneakers'' in their Kung Fu Tournament? Why?
** Kung fu tournaments (and I think sanshou ones as well) are fought with footwear on.

*** No, that's in 3 against Mike Barnes.

** Isn't that the fight where Johnny's sensei tells him to extend the match (and thus Daniel's suffering) by fouling to lose the point he earns, over and over?

* It's been a while since I saw the original movie, but... I swear, every time I see the final duel between Daniel and Johnny, it looks like Johnny hits Daniel enough times to ''win'' before the climax, like there's a blow that ends a round but doesn't get counted. Is there something I'm misinterpreting here?

** Getting rid of an accent is pretty hard. If Mr. Miyagi was born is Japan, spent his childhood there and moved to the US as an adult, it is very reasonable for him to have an accent. Also don't forget that Japanese is COMPLETELY different from English. They even use a different alphabet. For a Japanese to learn English would probably be harder than say, a Spanish speaker to learn English.

* So Mr. Miyagi has lived in the US for about forty years, served in the army, and doesn't live in a Japanese-only community. So why is his English so God awful? It seems impossible that a man as brilliant as him wouldn't speak fluent English by now.

* What became of Kreese after the third movie?

* Daniel asks Mr Miyagi why he didn't kill Kreese and Miyagi replied that making Kreese live with his shame was a worse punishment. Really? Why didn't Miyagi say something like "Whoa psycho! You don't go killing someone just because they started a fight with you in a parking lot. I maimed Kreese's hands in that fight and I actually feel pretty bad about that now that I think about it. But after that he wasn't a threat and me killing him would have been murder. You don't murder people. Didn't I teach you that Karate is for defense? Have you learned nothing?"

* Daniel asks Mr Miyagi why he didn't kill Kreese and Miyagi replied that making Kreese live with his shame was a worse punishment. Really? Why didn't Miyagi say something like "Whoa psycho! You don't killing someone just because they started a fight with you in a parking lot. I maimed Kreese's hands in that fight and I actually feel pretty bad about that now that I think about it. But after that he wasn't a threat and me killing him would have been murder. You don't murder people. Didn't I teach you that Karate is for defense? Have you learned nothing?"

** See above: It's not illegal for feet-to-face contact in most karate tournaments, just fist-to-face.

** For the first question, he kicked Johnny in the chest with the crane kick, Johnny only grabbed his face because he landed head first on the mat. As for the second one, Miyagi had faith that Daniel wouldn't try anything crippling or illegal because of his own good nature.

** For that matter, if Miyagi only knew about karate techniques that were applicable to life-and-death combat, and knew nothing about competition rules, why didn't Daniel foul out of the tournament early on? Miyagi's father would presumably have taught him the sort of potentially-crippling moves that would disqualify someone from an athletic event, not the safe ones of sport karate.