A Girl Without Parents Learns Karate

A young high school girl is struggling with problems. First, it was the death of her parents and then there was this power struggle with her grandmother who has custody of her. Third, she has to deal with these group of boys who do not seem to let up on her. They are constantly harassing her, if not with physical violence and she is getting fed up with it. She has no real friends, but she has become friends with this hawk that she rescued from the top of the school building because it had a broken wing and she was going to take care of it. She had the hawk placed in a janitor's cage where he keeps his equipments at. At least twice a day, she goes up to visit her friend who she named it Angel. It was suppose to be a female hawk. She would always have conversations with Angel and Angel would do nothing, but listen to her.

Anyway, the girl's grandmother meets the Japanese man (he's the one whose starred in both Karate Kid I and II). She meets him at a memorial place where the military men meet to have their reunion when the day they were discharged from the military. So, she meets him and then invites him over to her house for dinner. As she was speaking about her grand daughter, here she comes, right through the side door and the grandmother calls out to her to come and meet this nice man, but the girl only said hello and went into another room. Her grandmother was feeling somewhat offended about her grand daughter's demeanor and so, she excuses herself from the dining room table and opens the door to the room where her grand daughter was at and orders her to come out of the room to speak to the gentleman and the grand daughter tells her grandmother that she only said hello, but the grandmother insisted that she came out of the room so that the man could speak to her and the young girl reluctantly did. But by the look on her face, it was obvious that she did not really want to speak to anyone.

So, the girl sits down at the dining room table and the man begins talking to her. She tells the man that she does not need anyone to tell her what to do and that she was sick and tired of people doing that to her, but the man continued talking anyhow. Then, the girl gets up and walks away.

The man persisted though. He would always approach the girl to have a conversation. The grandmother would complain that her grand daughter was always so angry. She will not listen or will not do what her grandmother would tell her to do. This girl would run off at night and not return until very late.

The grandmother had to leave on a trip out of state and so, she left her grand daughter in the care of the man who she met and once the grandmother left, the young girl slowly came out of her nasty facade. Of course, in the beginning, she was very testy and when she got into one of her tantrums, she ran out into the street nearly getting hit by a pizza delivery man and when she saw the car approaching she surprised the man by jumping onto the hood. When I saw that, I nearly fell out of my chair because I have never known or seen anyone do this, even when a car is approaching at full speed. This girl was very lucky to be alive.

After that close call with the pizza delivery man, the Japanese man offered to teach the girl karate lessons after she told him that she learned some from her father when she was four years old. But she was willing to learn again. The man told her she would, but made a deal with her saying that she will have to pay for it if she wants lessons which shocked her and tried to pull out of it, but then she relented and agreed to have the man give her some lessons. He then came up with another ideal and that is baby sitting three children in the neighborhood and so, she did. What was to come, she did not expect it at all, but the moment she stepped foot into the house of the three little boys, she was greeted by balls being thrown at her, squirt guns being fired at, or other objects being thrown at her. She then decided that she was not going to be a scapegoat to their little games and so, the next time, any of them tried to throw something at her, she was ready and they did indeed continue their attack on her, but she got back at them by using one of their toy guns and shot them with them. Of course, they were little balls, but she wanted to show them that she was not going to close her eyes, nor be intimidated.

At school, the guys would always taunt her and this one guy had the nerve to approach her in one of the little rooms of the school and started to harass her and when one of the security guards caught them, the guy who harassed her twisted his story around saying that he just took a pack of cigarettes away from the girl because he caught her smoking, but the girl tried to protest that she did not smoke, but the school officials would not believe a word she said. It's because the fact she is a girl, they will believe that guy's story. Not only that, but they were also good friends with that air-head.

Later on, the Japanese man takes the girl on a long trip away from home to visit some very old friends of his who are also Japanese. The girl then, changes her attitude and becomes much easy going. She meets the friends and she is introduced to eating on the floor cross-legged and eating with a chop stick. Apparently, she is not used to eating with a chop stick and not only that, but here comes a roach on the table where everyone is eating. None of the men paid any attention to the creature, but the girl did and she had no clue that what she is doing is considered offensive and she takes one of her sport shoes and hits the roach, but one of the men plucks up the creature just in time before it is too late and then all at once, the men all got up and left the room. The girl started to feel that something was wrong and there was something wrong all right because the Japanese man told her that her manners were basically rude and that she will from now on not do such a thing like that and so, to make up for the mistake she did, she went out into the field to catch a grasshopper. Then, she gave it to one of the men that caught the roach. He seemed very pleased with the girl's apology. From that point on, all of the men began liking her very much and when it was time for both her and the Japanese man to leave, she told the men that they should come and visit them sometime later which they did. She got her wish. The men all gave her a little birthday surprise before she left and she was quite happy about it.

The girl learned some more karate while visiting with those Japanese men and by the time she arrived home, she seem to be more in control of herself and when she returned to school, she demonstrated that to the principal of the school and he had no clue as to what she was telling him. But she did not care and kept on walking. Then, she was greeted by a guy who she wanted to go out with and while she was away, that guy took care of Angel and when they both went onto the roof of the school to see Angel, they discovered that the cage door was opened and Angel was missing. She almost accused the guy of not taking care of her friend while she was away, but the guy truthfully told her that he had just finished feeding Angel and that maybe someone unlocked the cage and that is why she's missing. Then the guy who was harassing the girl approached both the girl and the guy and started in on the guy instead of on the girl. It's because when the Japanese man stopped to get some gas while on his way to visit his Japanese friends, that air-head and his buddies were beaten up by the Japanese man because they began giving both him and the girl a very hard time. The air-head now knew not to mess around with this girl any longer, but his focus was now on that guy who was once one of his friends. The guy who was once a friend to the air-head wanted pretty much to get the hell away from him because he was nothing, but trouble which he was. When the guys were fist fighting, the young girl told both of them to stop and they did. Later on, Angel was found at an animal shelter and was safe and sound. Nobody harmed her in any way, shape, or form.

Then, the Japanese man goes to a shop to buy a nice dress for the girl who was to go out on date to a dance at school and so, he did. He picked out a real nice white dress for the girl, something she would exactly wear. She was very pleased when she saw the dress. Then, the Japanese friends of the Japanese man arrived at the house. The girl was so over-joyed to see her new friends that she showed them inside the house. Then, her date came and picked her up for the dance. They were not there very long because the air-head and his equal buddies spoiled the evening for them by behaving like idiots. They jumped down from a beam that supports the ceiling and they jumped to the floor and tried to beat up the guy, but he and the girl got away and he took her back to her house and when they stopped in front of the house, the air-head also pulls up, but around a corner where both the girl and guy did not notice at all. They tried to kiss, but that air-head approached the car and used a baseball bat to shatter out all of the windows. The girl takes off running for the house, screaming for help and the Japanese man came out to see what was going on, but that air-head had already jumped into his jeep and took off. The guy who she had a date with, also took off. As he was taking off, he told the girl that he was going to finish where the air-head had left off and he did. When he arrived at the dock, the place that the air-head and his buddies always hang out at, the air-head and his buddies were already waiting on him to arrive so they can continue fighting, but the guy the girl went out on a date with, was no match for the air-head. His equally air-headed buddies poured gasoline around the car of the guy's and set it on fire. Then, several minutes later, the Japanese man and the young girl showed up. The Japanese man told the air-head to let up on the guy and he did and that is when the young girl told the Japanese that she wanted to fight this air-head and at first, he did not want to see her do it, but she insisted, and she did. The air-head who harassed her at school was even surprised to see that this scapegoat wanted to take him down and he dared her to. She did get him down in the beginning of three times, but then, he grabbed some mud and threw it in her face, trying to block her from challenging him, but the Japanese man reminded her to concentrate, the method he had just taught her and so, she did. She finally gets that stupid air-head down once and for all. I was so proud to see that she was not going to allow him or anyone to mess with her any longer. Then, that older man who sided with that air-head tried to encourage the air-head to continue to fight, but the Japanese man told the older man that there was no need to do that anymore, but the older man refused to listen and so, the Japanese man stood up to him and decided to enlightened him which did not work at all and the older man then, tried to beat up the Japanese man, but he was not match for him period. End of that scum-bag!

Anyway, this movie is very good and I watched this for the second time in six years this evening. I completely forgot about seeing this when it first came out, but here it is, right here in my house and I'm only renting it. All of the memories came back to me and I felt good watching it again. I tell you, this is a good movie to see, especially, if you are into martial art movies. This is as good as the other previous three Karate Kid movies.