Miyagi still speaks fortune cookie platitudes, he's still training teenagers to use karate as a means of self-discovery and he's still insisting that fighting is bad — usually right after he's kicked the tar out of someone.
And in "The Next Karate Kid" — the fourth entry in the series — Miyagi is still played by Noriyuki "Pat" Morita — who, lest we forget, received an Oscar nomination for the first "Karate Kid" movie a decade ago.
He's the best thing "The Next Karate Kid" has to offer, as it follows the formula of the first three movies, with a few minor changes and — one major one. Some plot points are different, the action has moved from Los Angeles to Boston, and Ralph Macchio is no longer the title character (Miyagi does make reference to "Daniel-san" at one point, but, after all, Macchio is now 32).
And that difference? A gender twist. Yes, this "Karate Kid" is a girl, 17-year-old Julie, played by lanky but agile Hilary Swank.
Julie is angry and upset, with a chip on her shoulder and a perpetual sneer on her face, having lost her parents in an auto accident. She's bright but is flunking most of her high school classes due to lack of interest, and her only friend is an injured hawk, which she is implausibly nursing to health on the school roof.
But under Miyagi's wing, we can be assured she will quickly mellow out and improve her studies, especially after he offers a trade — karate lessons for homework assignments. (As a bonus, he teaches her to waltz, using karate moves.)
There are two wildly ridiculous subplots at work here. The first has Michael Ironside as Col. Dugan, a coach/security officer at the school who has trained a small cadre of tough kids to be his own personal group of Nazi enforcers. They have the authority to violently control everything from truancy to littering. And, of course, the youth leader has his eyes set on Julie. ("She's mine!" he tells a rival, right after framing her for smoking in school.)
The other has Julie being spirited off to a monastery where Miyagi's friends, the monks, teach her the value of respecting all forms of life (after she foolishly attempts to kill a cockroach on the dinner table). And later, they come to visit her in Boston, where they wow the local bowling leagues by getting strike after strike — while blindfolded.
Eventually, despite his assurances that "fighting is bad — someone always get hurt" — Miyagi helps Julie in a kick-'em-up showdown with Ironside and his toughs.
The film does have a few warm moments and is at its best when simply developing the relationship between Miyagi and Julie. But, as you might expect, those moments are few and far between and overshadowed by all the ludicrous plotting.
"The Next Karate Kid" is rated PG for violence and a few profanities.