What makes a cliché a cliché?  Certainly the repeated use of ideas, concepts or expressions until the original intent or effect is rendered impotent is how clichés are forged. But why are certain storytelling elements used over and over again? It is a matter of intellectual versus emotional storytelling. The cliché is a natural outgrowth of emotional appeasance.  Clichés  became clichés because they are effective emotional elicitors.  As hackneyed as the critical community may consider them, the fact is, they work — at least superficially.

The original “The Karate Kid” released in 1984 was the master sensei of the cliché.  Although it clung earnestly to even the most diminutive details of the standard coming-of-age format, “The Karate Kid” was a monster success, both commercially and critically.  The overly familiar story took no chances, and therefore avoided disappointing audiences, and served mostly as an unoffensive bed under magnetic stars, Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita.  Robert Mark Kamen’s cliché-ridden script hit all the stock emotional milestones but was elevated by the genuine chemistry of its stars and a memorable supporting cast.

Considering Harald Zwart’s remake starring Jaden (son of Will) Smith is basically an exact carbon copy of John Avildsen’s original down to the most minute of details, it wouldn’t be surprising if it achieved a similar emotional impact. And at least marginally, it does. Although Jaden Smith is hardly an accomplished actor and doesn’t quite have the gravitas to carry a feature film, he does represent a sympathetic and likable character who enables the effectiveness of the emotional high points.  And he must have trained quite extensively for the role because he’s surprisingly significantly more believable as a martial arts champion than the much older and abler Macchio.

The martial arts legitimacy Jackie Chan brings to the story is invaluable.  The fight choreography is creative, intense, even brutal.  His authenticity as an aging Kung Fu master is immediately conspicuous — much more so than Morita’s untrained performance.  But what Morita lacked in martial arts prowess he made up for with emotional gravity.  Chan is a fine actor but this outing is monotone and less than moving.

And though not immediately critical to the overall quality of the film, the controversy over the title should nevertheless be addressed.  The martial art featured in “The Karate Kid” is not karate — a Japanese art — but Kung Fu, which originated in China where the film is set.  The discrepancy is briefly, but not sufficiently, attended to in a short scene wherein Jaden’s mother (Taraji P. Henson) is corrected after mistakenly calling Jaden’s new hobby Karate.  There is never an explanation for the title’s willing error, which only feeds Hollywood’s growing reputation of cultural insensitivity and deindividuation.

This note-for-note remake, while insensitive, overlong, inferior to the original and basically unnecessary, manages to justify its existence with some striking imagery of Beijing and the Chinese countryside and a few golden moments of emotionally interesting entertainment.