Synopsis:

Mr Miyagi and Daniel go to Japan to learn about love, life, and loss during the Festival of the Dead.

Intentions:

1986's 'The Karate Kid: Part II' has many strengths and a few weaknesses. The main Karate plot is a bit formulaic and cliched but the subplots about love, loss and Japanese culture are stunningly good. It seems to me that these were the elements that the filmmakers were really focused on and the Karate stuff was just to satisfy the title and the audience. Bill Conti's score is also gorgeously romantic and mysterious (Probably one of my all-time favourites). So this short focuses only on those strengths and removes all the Karate and the villains. I've rendered it in grainy, high-contrast Black&White to give it more of the feel of a 1950s Japanese movie (As Japanese cultural is a focus and the score is very Japanese). To further this idea, I've included a vintage 1962 'Shochiku' Studios title-card at the beginning and removed overtly modern (1980s) elements to make it more timeless (The 1950s influence on clothes from the 1980s helped with this a lot). Finally, the short is presented in a more intimate 3:2 aspect-ratio, instead of the original wide 1.85:1. This entailed re-framing and Pan-and-Scanning every shot individually.

Change List:

- Reframed every shot to 3:2 - Regraded to grainy high-contrast B&W - Removed first American set act of the movie. We now start as the plane is landing in Japan, with Mr Miyagi's words about the trip playing in Daniel's mind - Removed all plot elements involving Karate, the threat to the village and Mr Miyagi's rival from the past - Reworked in more, or different tracks from KK2's score. The more the music could tell the emotional story and less dialogue I could use the better - I employed quite a few slow crossfades to give things a dreamlike quality, when we move through time - The timeline of the original film is condensed and rearranged. So several nights and days are brought together as one.

Additional Notes:

I won't list all the cuts as I used footage from all over the movie and it would just be too confusing to list but here are things I did beyond just visual/audio trims and rescoring... 00.00 - Added vintage 1962 'Shochiku' Studios logo. I liked that it has clouds, which thematically link to the first scene 00.12 - Slow fade up from black on Daniel's face. Out of context, hopefully it just comes across as Daniel feeling restless 00.14 - Added very cut-up and rearranged pieces of dialogue over the new credits to explain the reasons for being in Japan. Added plenty of ghostly echo to the vocals. Hopefully it's clear that these are conversations that Daniel is remembering 00.27 - Added new titlecard over cloud footage, as if this is what Daniel is seeing out of the window. As far as I know, the Kanji are correct (Fingers crossed) 00.49 - Almost totally remade soundscape of new title sequence. New music, cars, planes, wind, chatter etc 00.55 - Added new onscreen credits to the major players in the short. Bill Conti gets the final credit, as his music is so important to the short 00.04.20 - Added slow crossfade as Miyagi is singing to Yukie 07.20 - Added slow crossfade from Obon dance to Tea Ceremony 07.37 - Added slow crossfade into Bon Festival (This originally took place at the very end of the movie) 09.16 - Added slow crossfade from Daniel smiling at Kumiko, to Daniel getting ready for bed. Hopefully it conveys that he thinking about her 09.39 - Added slow crossfade and new framing so Daniel sleeping appears to echo Miyagi's father dying 09.53 - Added slow crossfade from Daniel contemplating to Miyagi's fathers death, to Miyagi honoring his father during Bon 10.00 - Added slow crossfade from Miyagi's lantern, to a long shot of everybody's lanterns 10.17 - Added slow crossfade from lanterns, to Miyagi contemplating his father 10.22 - Brought in the sound of the ocean from the next scene early 10.30 - Added slow crossfade and new framing so the head of Miyagi as a child, appears to fade into head of Miyagi as an old man 10.49 - Inserted shot of Miyagi's symbolic tree, as if he is contemplating it. This also allowed for the removal of a chunk of the original scene 12.06 - Added slow crossfade from Daniel and Miyagi, to Daniel walking on the harbour 12.56 - As I've heavily recut the tea cermony, it is partly rescored and the soundFX are recreated 14.43 - Added sounds of a building storm and the candle being extinguised slowly into the soundmix 14.50 - Added end titlecard 14.54 - Added rumble of thunder to the end.

Other Sources:

The Karate Kid: Part II (Blu-Ray) The Karate Kid: Part II (Soundtrack) Harakiri (Blu-Ray) www.freesound.org (Various SoundFX).

Special Thanks: