Karate Kid Continued

Won't waste time explaining the reason for the delay between posts. Lets just pick up where we left off, shall we. Daniel Larusso, bumbling fool extraordinaire was trying to teach himself karate, annoy the town bully and rebuff advances from ms. popularity...

But this is the Karate Kid we are talking about. Daniel goes to school, gets picked-on, teased, and laughed at, but still manages to win the heart of Ms. Popularity, Ali with an I. He even gets a date with her, despite getting kicked off the soccer team, thanks to one of Johnny’s thugs, aptly named Bobby. Life goes on with Daniel, and he learns more about Mr. Miyagi, while continuing to “teach” himself Karate out of a book. In the midst of this, Daniel gets run off the road by Johnny and his thugs, wrecks his bike, and finds out his mom lost her job. This causes many scenes of our hero whining, complaining, avoiding the one girl that sees beyond all his numerous faults and just generally being negative and annoying. Daniel behaves in a manner that would suggest he is trying to avoid good things happening to him. But then Mr.Miyagi fixes his bike and teaches him how to prune Bonsai Trees.

Daniel now armed with his newfound manly skill of pruning baby trees, suddenly has enough self-esteem to go to the school dance. Not only that, he has enough moxy, to play a prank on Johnny. Needless to say, Johnny and the boys don’t take too kindly to the prank, run him down and beat him like a drum. But keeping with our theme here, rather than ending up disabled and embarrassed to the point where he can’t show his face in public, Mr. Miyagi shows up, defeats the gang, and takes care of our hero’s injuries.

As if this movie really is a sick experiment in seeing if Daniel’s good fortune will hold. Mr. Miyagi takes Daniel to the Nazi-dojo where Johnny and the boys learn their skills. Not only does Miyagi throw down the gauntlet for Daniel, he has the audacity to complain that it’s not fair that Daniel keeps getting beat up. What is even more amazing is that heartless-Nazi sensei, agrees to the terms. Life is pretty amazing, I guess that good things really do happen to everyone. Daniel, continuing to not see the good fortune beset upon him, continues to complain and whine, but Mr. Miyagi still offers to train him. Now our hero is in training, but not by anyone, by the greatest Karate mind since Bruce Lee. If life was really fair, Daniel would live out the rest of his existence as a nerd who gets beat up every other week. But no, in Daniel’s case we see that even the most unfortunate souls have greatness thrust upon them. Of course, Miyagi finally gives a little payback to Daniel, by making him do a ton of housework and upkeep. However, much to our amazement Daniel slowly becomes a Karate guru.
Meanwhile, Daniel still tries everything in his power to screw up his relationship with Ali with an I. He has his mom drive them to their date, including picking her up at her mansion in their broken down, rusty station wagon. Complete with Daniel being forced to push the car to get it started while Ali with an I’s parents stand by watching. In spite of that, and an uncomfortable moment where Daniel’s mom shows up in front of all of Ali with an I’s friends, she is still really into Daniel. Keeping with his m.o. of trying to screw up a good thing, Daniel now makes the ultimate faux pas. First, he dresses in all white, I’m talking white shirt, white pants, white socks. We can already see that he is dressed to impress so he goes to the fancy country club to meet Ali with an I. He grows impatient and enters the kitchen area of the restaurant to see if he can see her. He witnesses Johnny dancing with her. Well, we all know what happens next, Johnny notices Daniel and takes it upon himself to kiss Ali with an I. Daniel gets mad, although we don’t know why, even if she was cheating on him, why should he care? Anyway, Daniel runs into a waiter and creates a beautiful collage of spaghetti and meatballs all over his white canvas outfit. He then runs out of the country club like a scared little kitten, not noticing that in spite of this huge embarrassing act, Ali with an I, slaps Johnny further showing her desire to be with ultra-geek, I mean ultra-chic Daniel.

Join us next time for the climax---er--conclusion of the excitement that is Daniel LArusso's life and it just may give you a better outlook on your own life!