When you think of movies that inspired things that came after, there are a few that pop into mind immediately. Die Hard was followed by a whole bunch of copycats that were called “Die Hard in a…” movies. Jaws led the way for a bunch of animal, and one lawnmower, attack movies that followed. Porky’s kicked off a sex comedy craze, while Friday the 13th inspired a bunch of slasher movies set at summer camps. Then there was The Avengers, which made every studio think it was okay to build a cinematic universe.
One movie I didn’t know inspired so many others was The Karate Kid. It was a 1984 movie about a high school kid who moved to a new town, only to be bullied by a local karate student for befriending the bully’s girlfriend. The new kid befriended an old man who taught him karate, before the kid faced off against his bully in a tournament. It was a fairly simple story with some key elements.
The first step to having a movie that influences so many others is to branch off into a franchise. The Karate Kid had that. There were three sequels to the original that saw the mentor go to his home country, saw them essentially rehash the first movie with a new villain who worked with the original villain, and saw a new Karate Kid come in. Then there was the remake. And, finally, a legasequel that brought the originals into the same continuity as the remake. Oh, and the show, Cobra Kai. That’s out there, too.
After the franchise has been established, the other movies can happen. People either consciously or subconsciously write a story with the same beats. Maybe they moved some stuff around. Maybe they removed something or added something else. But the same story is the same story. I always say that originality comes not from the story but from how the story is told. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s the same story.
Look at a movie like Showdown. This 1993 flick had Ken Marks (Ken Scott) move to a new town and enroll in a new school. He immediately fell for Julie (Christine Taylor), the girlfriend of martial arts student Tom (Ken McLeod). Tom violently bullied Ken, but Ken befriended Billy (Billy Blanks), a former cop turned school janitor, who taught him martial arts. Ken eventually went on to fight Tom in a martial arts show, and earned his bully’s respect.
That was the same story as The Karate Kid. They even had the bully’s sensei be a needlessly violent teacher who only cared about hurting the enemy. They didn’t even try to hide it. Some of the movies changed details that blurred the lines a little bit. They tried to repackage the story of The Karate Kid to make their retelling feel a little more unique. Showdown didn’t care to do that. The people behind it basically took the story, added more violence, and called it a day.
Let’s break it down in more detail. Ken was the new kid in school. He just moved to town with his single mother. This was the same start as The Karate Kid, where Daniel moved from New Jersey to California with his single mother. The schools were a little different. Daniel’s felt like a regular middle-class, bordering on upper-class movie high school. Ken’s felt like an inner-city high school that needed a new teacher to come in and clean it up. It was a stark difference that only helped to build the violent atmosphere of Showdown.
There was a little difference with who Ken met when he got to the school. Ken got a best friend for comic relief and exposition that Daniel didn’t have. After that, things went about the same. Ken met Julie. Her jealous boyfriend, Tom, was a star martial artist at a local dojo. He began tormenting Ken for talking to his girl. He relentlessly beat Ken multiple times throughout Showdown. Put a pin in that. I’ll get back to it later. Now let’s look at The Karate Kid. Daniel went to a beach party where he met Ali. Her jealous boyfriend, Johnny, a star student at a local dojo targeted and tormented Daniel for talking to Ali. He bullied and beat Daniel throughout the movie.
Before I get into more detail about the beatings, I want to get into the dojo. John Kreese was the sensei in The Karate Kid. He was an emotionally abusive Vietnam veteran who only cared about winning, at whatever cost. He went as far as to tell his students to intentionally injure Daniel during a tournament. “Sweep the leg,” he said. Compare that to Showdown. Lee ran the dojo. He was a troublemaker whose brother had been accidentally killed by police during a house party he was harassing. Yes, he and his brother harassed an entire party. He opened a dojo where he taught his students to use violent force against others. Students who slept with his assistant, but that’s beside the point. Lee wasn’t just emotionally abusive, though. He set up sanctioned matches where he would beat up his own students. He was such a great role model for Tom. No wonder Tom was messed up. That’s two abusive sensei for you.
The bullies in both The Karate Kid and Showdown each had abusive mentors. The main characters also had mentors. However, their mentors were much less abusive. Daniel had Mr. Miyagi helping him throughout The Karate Kid. Mr. Miyagi was the handyman at the apartment complex Daniel and his mother moved into. He taught Daniel the ways of martial arts through waxing and painting and sanding. Menial tasks helped Daniel build defensive habits. And let’s go back to that pin that I put in the beatings a little earlier. Mr. Miyagi jumped in and fended off the bullies when Daniel was being attacked. Protector and mentor. The same could be said for Billy in Showdown. He was the janitor at Ken’s high school. He taught Ken some basic martial arts and had Ken do some cleaning. Those two weren’t related this time, outside of the cleaning being a payment for training. However, it did lead to a direct reference to The Karate Kid. On the protection front, Tom and his friends chased Ken into the school gymnasium for a beating. Billy jumped in, fended off the bullies, and ran off. Aside from how the chores connected to the training, the story beats were essentially the same in both movies.
The final thing worth mentioning about the similarities between The Karate Kid and Showdown was the ending. The Karate Kid built to a tournament where Daniel would be matched against Johnny in the finals. Through that match, Daniel earned the respect of his rival. Showdown saw Ken join a martial arts showcase at Lee’s dojo, where he would be in a match against Tom. Through that match and what directly followed it, Ken earned his rival’s respect. Yeah, they essentially had the same ending.
Now you can see all the similarities between The Karate Kid and Showdown. That’s because The Karate Kid made such an impression on people that they couldn’t help but make their own versions of that story. Showdown was the extreme version. What other versions are out there? Two come to mind immediately.
Never Back Down was a 2008 movie that shared numerous similarities. A teenager moved to a new city with his mother and brother. He discovered an underground fight club involving a bunch of students using MMA. A local gym owner from Brazil trained him so he could face off in an MMA tournament against the school bully. That bully was in a relationship with a girl the main character liked.
The story of Never Back Down was a slightly reworked version of The Karate Kid. The characters filled the same roles. The new kid was there, as was the bully, the girl, and the mentor. The only one that was really missing was the bully’s mentor. The biggest difference was the personality of the characters. The main kid was aggressive in a way that The Karate Kid didn’t feature. He was much angrier than Daniel. It was understandable, though. His father died in a drunk driving accident, and he hadn’t handled his anger over that situation well. So that was probably the biggest wrinkle in this retelling
The other movie clearly inspired by The Karate Kid was the 2006 entry into The Fast and the Furious franchise, Tokyo Drift. A high school kid was charged by police for street racing through a construction zone and sent to live with his father in Tokyo. He was introduced to underground drift racing and soon met the girlfriend of the best drifter. The rival then went out of his way to embarrass the new kid and make his life hell. The new kid found a mentor who taught him to drive, and he eventually earned everyone’s respect.
Tokyo Drift was essentially The Karate Kid with cars. There were a few major deviations in the plot, though. Some important characters died. That didn’t happen in other tellings of this story. The main character moved in with his dad instead of moving somewhere with his mom. And, yeah, cars instead of hand-to-hand combat. Yet the essential beats were still there. The main character was a fish-out-of-water who joined some sort of battle scene. He made rivals with the boyfriend of the girl he liked. He got a mentor. He gained people’s respect through a final battle. That was the story of The Karate Kid told through a street racing franchise.
I’m sure there are more movies out there that told the same story as The Karate Kid. There are only so many stories that can be told. These were only three of the subsequent versions of this story, the three that came to mind. What I can say is that The Karate Kid was influential enough that they got made. It managed to inspire a few different filmmakers to make movies with essentially the same story to tell. They told it their own way, though, which is the important part.
Think back to when you were younger. Not necessarily when you were a child, but it could be back then, too. Think more about your formative years. Those pre-teen and teenage years where you took in as much as you could. You learned social skills from the people around you. You listened to music, watched television, played video games, and watched movies to find your tastes. You built yourself into the person you are through what you took in. Surely, some of that inspired you.
Movies inspire a lot of people. They might push you to change the course of your life. A movie might inspire you to act a certain way, talk a certain way, or do certain things. A road trip movie could inspire you to travel more. When it comes to filmmakers, a lot of their style comes from the different movies they watched. A story might be inspired by something a character said, or it might be inspired by a whole movie itself. What’s important is that the newer generation doesn’t only take from one thing. They take from multiple inspirations to turn what built them into something that feels new. Kind of like what these movies did with The Karate Kid.
And here come the notes:
- The director of Showdown was Robert Radler. He also directed The Substitute 3: Winner Takes All and The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option.
- The principal of the school in Showdown was played by Brion James. He was previously featured in Cabin Boy, Return to Frogtown, and Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.
- James Lew returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in Showdown, after appearing in Savage Beach, Martial Law, and Guns.
- Patrick Kilpatrick was in The Toxic Avenger, The Substitute 4: Failure is Not an Option, and Showdown.
- Finally, Billy Blanks played the good mentor in Showdown. He also popped up in Jack and Jill.
- Have you seen Showdown? Are there any other movies that used The Karate Kid story that I missed? If you have any thoughts, leave them in the comments, on Bluesky, or on Threads.
- Bluesky, Threads, and the comments are good places to suggest movies for me to check out for future Sunday “Bad” Movies posts. Let me know about them.
- The last thing to do is look ahead at what’s coming up for Sunday “Bad” Movies. I already have a post for God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust written, but it needs some work. It should drop next week. Then I’ll write a little something about a 1989 movie called Teen Witch. After that, I’ll probably do a little something about the 2025 remake of War of the Worlds. I have no idea after that. We might be into October by then, so probably a little bit of horror. We’ll see. And I’ll see you when I get the next post up.
