Tag: Characters

The Karate Kid (1984)

I’d heard of Karate Kid growing up, but I had never given it much thought or attention, that is until recently. I was on YouTube and I get an ad over one of my videos. The ad was a trailer for Cobra Kai Season 2. Watching it, I actually thought that looked very interesting and I looked up the first Season and began watching it. I realized after a couple of episodes that the main character’s flashbacks weren’t just flashbacks, they were actual scenes from a movie made about 30 years ago. Googling it, I realized that Cobra Kai was a sequel to the movie series, the Karate Kid. Being backwards like usual, I finished the TV sequel before I went back to watch the original movies, which then caused me to want to rewatch the TV series after having watched the movies. Needless to say, I’m thoroughly in love with the franchise and I can at least blog about them in order. Here’s my breakdown.

Before I begin, here is a list of the characters in their respective roles:

  • Daniel LaRusso – Protagonist, Dynamic, Round.
  • Daniel’s Mom – Supporting, Static, Flat.
  • Mr. Miyagi – Supporting, Static, Round.
  • Alli Mills – Supporting, Static, Flat.
  • Johnny Lawrence – Antagonist, Dynamic, Flat.
  • John Kreese – Villain, Dynamic, Flat.

This is a brief overview/ refresher about what happens in Karate Kid, but shouldn’t be relied on as the entire experience if you’ve never seen the movie. Spoilers ahead.

In the Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso and his Mom move to California from New Jersey.
Daniel is invited to a party by a friendly neighbor and ends up meeting a girl named Alli, and the two begin flirting with one another. Daniel however quickly finds himself the target of Alli’s vengeful ex-boyfriend, Johnny Lawrence and his friends who study karate at the Cobra Kai dojo. Fortunately, Daniel befriends Mr. Miyagi, an unassuming repairman who just happens to be a Karate master himself. Mr. Miyagi takes Daniel under his wing, teaching him not just Karate itself, but the true meaning of Karate, which is used for compassion and self defense, instead of bullying and violence taught by Cobra Kai.

  • Daniel LaRusso is the protagonist because the story takes place from his point of view. A protagonist doesn’t have to be likable or “the good guy,” the protagonist is just who is telling the story. Daniel is Dynamic for a variety of reasons. The most obvious is that he learns how to fight using karate, but he also makes subtle changes due to Mr. Miyagi’s teachings. You don’t learn karate just for fighting, you learn karate for everyday life. This zin and inner peace style of teaching helped Daniel overcome his impulsiveness, anger, and fear. By the end of the movie, the Daniel beating Johnny at the tournament is almost unrecognizable compared to the Daniel getting bullied and acting irrationally on the beach during the beginning. Daniel would also be round because we are given a lot of information about him. We are given his backstory, hobbies, interests, romantic interests, etc. Daniel is believable and has all the makings of a real person, therefor, I deem him a “Good” character.
  • Daniel’s Mom is a supporting character because she frequently gives or at least tries to give emotional support to Daniel when is upset about moving and when he is distraught over the bullying. She is accurately depicted as a loving mother, but I would say she is still static and flat. She is static because she never changes throughout the film, and she is flat because all we really know about her is that she is a loving mom. That is it. We are given no hobbies or interests. The reason for her being a single mom isn’t explained, and I don’t think we even get her name. Despite being flat and static, I still think the mother fulfilled her role as a loving supporting character and she seemed realistic enough. Yes, it would help to know her a bit more, but since the story focuses on Daniel learning karate and life lessons with Mr. Miyagi, as well as Daniels confrontation with Cobra Kai, we do not need to know more about the mom. I wouldn’t deem her a “good” character because she lacks the depth that allows for the audience to really become attach to a character, but she isn’t a “bad” character, because she still seemed believable and fulfilled her role as a supporting character.
  • Mr. Miyagi is a supporting character because he consistently helps Daniel not only as a karate teacher and maintenance man, but as a mentor and father figure who teaches him life lessons. Mr. Miyagi is a round character because we find out a lot about him. We find out about where he came from, who taught him karate, his interest and hobbies, and we tragically find out that while Mr. Miyagi was away fighting the Nazi’s in World War II, his wife and infant child died during childbirth due to complications after being moved to an internment camp. Despite this, we also learn that Mr. Miyagi only expresses grief for their loss, and never anger or resentment towards the US government. That in itself shows tremendous character, but we also learn that during the war Mr. Miyagi was awarded the Medal of Honor, which he keeps hidden away and doesn’t display it, which shows humility. Mr. Miyagi also displays father like love for Daniel, by helping him celebrate his birthday with a cake, fixing his bike, giving him a car, helping him with dating advice and advice against the Cobra Kai bullies, while expecting nothing in return. Lastly, I’d say that Mr. Miyagi is a Dynamic character, because he shows great pride and happiness being around Daniel, and even though it was never shown that he was lonely on camera, the scene of him mourning his wife implies that he needed Daniel as a friend/son-figure as much as Daniel needed a mentor/father-figure. I deem Mr. Miyagi as a “Good” character.
  • Alli is a supporting character due to her cheering Daniel on during the tournament, and being the love interest which drives Daniel to beat his rival, Johnny, but she remains static and flat. Besides briefly becoming Daniels girlfriend at the end, which is never explored and ends off camera between the first and the second movie, she doesn’t change at all. She is exactly the same character as we were introduced to at the beach. I’m tempted to say that she is round due to us knowing she comes from a rich family, has previously dated Johnny, and likes soccer, but besides that I still feel like I didn’t know much about her at all, which is why I’m going to go ahead and label her static. Overall, Ali still fulfills her role as a supporting character to help drive Daniel towards his ultimate goal, and while I wouldn’t label her “good,” I also wouldn’t label her “bad,” because she still managed to pass as believable, although barely. I would have liked to have seen more about her and her personality/ why Daniel and Johnny like her so much, as well as I would have liked for the romance to have played more of an important role, but as is it seemed forced and was cut off screen.
  • Johnny is the antagonist to Daniel, who sees Daniel as a threat not only to his love life with Ali, but his chances at winning the All-Valley Karate Tournament. Despite being a bully and Daniel’s rival, Johnny is still depicted as human with good traits and bad. Johnny is a dynamic character because at the end he gains respect for Daniel, realizes what he was doing was bad, and seems disheartened by his mentor’s instructions to fight dirty. I would say during the movie at least, Johnny is flat due to the audience not getting enough information on the why. Why he was a bully, why he and Ali broke up, why he was in Cobra Kai, etc.
  • John Kreese is the villain of the karate kid because he was the evil sensei that taught the Cobra Kai students to fight dirty, inflict pain, and behave like bullies. He wanted to be feared, as well as his dojo to be feared, and he maliciously ordered Johnny to fight dirty and his other pupil to try and break Daniel’s leg during the tournament. Afterwards when Daniel won, he attacked and started to strangle Johnny out of rage, and was eventually stopped by Mr. Miyagi. He also lost the dojo and was banned from competing in the tournament. He was dynamic because he lost everything, his students, his dojo, his power, etc. He was static because besides being the evil bully maker, we never knew why he behaved this way or anything else about him really. The closest we got was a picture on the wall of his dojo that showed him in military fatigues, and since this was the 80’s I bet that may have been during the Korean or Vietnam wars. Although I would have liked to know more about him and why he acted the way he did, he was still believable and fulfilled his role as a villain.

Overall, all the characters were believable and fulfilled their roles, and Daniel and Mr. Miyagi were fantastically written characters the audience could really become attached to. I’d love to discuss with any of you potential passerby readers of my blog whether or not you agree with the labels I’ve given the characters and I’m always open to new insight. For my future posts I might just focus on the “Good” or “Bad” characters and just simply label the others without an explanation. I might also leave out the description of what happened in the story since it wouldn’t make much since for someone who hasn’t watched the movie to read my blog.

My Blog: An Overview

Hi, so I figured my first blog post would serve as kind of a road-map for the things I’m going to talk about when evaluating characters within certain movies, TV shows, or video games.

First off, when talking about characters, I should clarify that there are special types or subcategories that the characters belong to that define (or at least should define) their role in the movie, etc. Here is a list with their explanation below:

  • Dynamic Characters – These characters are characters that change at some point during the story. They turn from skittish to brave or from brave to skittish. They turn from a millionaire to homeless or vice versa. Usually this change is with their personality but it can also just be material.
  • Static Characters – These characters are characters that remain the same throughout the entire story, from beginning to end.
  • Flat Characters -These characters are characters that aren’t very thought out and don’t have a backstory or much of a personality(at least not that has been revealed to the audience yet.) These are characters we know little to nothing about.
  • Round Characters – These characters are characters that have a backstory and a personality. They’re fully thought out and have their own feelings, thoughts, history, and goals.
  • Protagonists – These characters are the focus of the story, usually the main point of view on how the story is told. There can be more than one protagonist, but other characters’ role might change based on which protagonist is currently telling the current part of the story.
  • Supporting Characters – These characters are friends, allies, mentors, or anyone that has a relationship with the protagonist and helps him/her in some way.
  • Antagonists – These characters often get confused for the villain of the story, but sometimes not every story has a villain. Antagonists are just characters that come between a protagonist and his/her goals. They cause tension, conflict, and rivalry. An example would be two stories that take place within the same world. Story one is a hero going on an epic quest to get a magic item that can be used to save his dying and starving city. Story 2 could be hero 2 going on a diplomatic quest to ask for help from neighboring cities to give them supplies to save his dying and starving city. Story 3 could be after each hero accomplishes his/her goal and brings help back to the city, but their methods get in the way of the other hero and it causes problems or rivalries. Hero 1 could be the antagonist to hero 2 and vice versa. In this scenario, there is no villain.
  • Villains – These characters are the ones that are actually evil and not only hinder the protagonist from achieving his/her goal, but also threatens the entire world, whether that world is just a high school, a town, a country, or the entire planet. It depends on the story. An antagonist for a high school story would be a bully or even a competitive jock aiming for the protagonist’s #1 spot on the team. A villain would be an evil business man trying to bulldoze the school to make a coal mine or something.
  • Stock Characters – These characters are characters that only show up for a brief instant. They’re the crowd you see at the mall, the random cashier, nurse, or police officer that doesn’t really have much of an impact on the story other than filling it up. Without stock characters, the world in most stories would seem lifeless. They are the extras in a movie.

When evaluating the characters of a movie, TV show, or video game, to determine whether or not that character deemed “Good” or “Bad,” (Good as in well written, not good or bad morally) we will need to look at what role that character is supposed to be filling and whether or not their role matches their representation. If a character is supposed to be important, say an antagonist, we need that character to be “real” or as real as fictional characters can be. We need that character to be believable and genuine with his or her actions, reactions, and state of mind. If a high school student is rude to a high school teacher and suddenly that teacher starts to laugh manically and vows to murder the student’s first born son, and make his/her life a living hell, then we as the audience would be extremely turned off at how unbelievable that was. No one is going to react that way. If the teacher did do that in the story, there had better be a strong reason behind it, like demonic possession or mental illness, otherwise how are we as the audience suppose to accept that the teacher would suddenly behave that way.

Going forward, we will be looking at two things when evaluating if characters are well written not.

  1. Are they believable?
  2. Do they fit their role in the story?