I’m the only Asian American writer at OTI, and I’m one of those Asian Americans referred to in the previous post Reclaiming Miyagi that has beef with this character. Specifically, mine is with that (in)famous phrase, “Wax On, Wax Off”:

In a fit of Angry Asian Male Rage, I did a little video editing and voice-over to see what would happen if Mr. Miyagi lost the Asian Accent. See the remix, and what inspired it, after the jump.

On paper, Never Back Down looked like a sure thing. Take The Karate Kid, replace karate with Ultimate Fighting™, replace Pat Morita with Djimon Honsou, throw in a bunch of crappy pop-punk and some PG-13 T&A… it should be a license to print money, right?

Not so much. Oh, it wasn’t a colossal flop or anything. They recouped their shooting costs with the US box office receipts, so the foreign markets and DVD release should put the production comfortably in the black. But I don’t think Hollywood is going to be banging down the writer’s door, hungry for more of that sweet sweet MMAsploitation.

People like The Karate Kid. People like remakes. (They don’t, actually, but they keep shelling out money to watch them, which amounts to the same thing.) So what went wrong?  Read my diagnosis after the jump, if’n you want.

“Hey, wax on, wax off! Hey buddy, wax on, wax off!”

If I’d heard that all the time as a kid, I’d probably get pretty damned tired of it, too. Especially if I were hyper-aware that I was hearing it because I was an Asian kid. And not Japanese either, Goddammit! I’m not, but I sympathize.

There’s no question that Kensuke Miyagi occupies a special place in the pantheon of Asian-American stereotypes, and that he’s a locus of cultural antipathy, especially among Asian-Americans.

But that antipathy is unfortunate. Not just because it is born of pain, but also because Mr. Miyagi as he appears in The Karate Kid (and not as he appears in the larger cultural phantasmagoria, or for that matter, the latter Karate Kid sequels), is not nearly so narrow or offensive a caricature.

A defense of Miyagi, and more on why that defense is important, follows…

[Today we begin Karate Kid Week, an extended consideration of the seminal work of 1980s cinema. --Ed.]

It pained me to type that title. Really, it did, because I love that scrappy kid. He moved to a new town, got the girl, and wore one of the greatest Halloween costumes in history. But I’ve watched his final, dramatic Crane Kick over and over, and I’m convinced that any decent karate judge would have kicked him out of the tournament for it.

Read on, and judge for yourself.