I loved the first Karate Kid. Despite it's predictable script, it told an original sports story with great characters, an excellent cast, some emotional moments, great music, and not to mention some great karate fighting scenes.
Now, when the director of Rocky made a sequel two years later, I became shocked and rented a DVD copy of the film (just like the first) and watched it to see if it can catch my very interest. Then, after watching the whole thing, I was saying to myself, "Wow. That was one heck of a great sequel!".
Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita did a great job once again as the karate student and the Sensei master and the chemistry between them are as fresh as the first film. The rest of the cast did a great job as well with Chozen, who was by far the greatest villain in the franchise because he threatens to kill Daniel by any means necessary. The story in this sequel is also great, but it's even darker and sentimental (there's a scene where we learn that Daniel explains about his father's death which makes us feel sorry for him, thus adding a decent emotional core to the script despite it's schmaltzy moments, but I'll get to that in a moment) than the first with great music and fantastic karate fighting scenes.
The pacing was great in the first film. In this sequel, however, it showed the ending from the first and started out well, but it gets a bit slower. Also, the script has some schmaltzy moments, but at least the romance between Daniel and Kumiko were enjoyable though.
Overall, this sequel is as good as the first despite it's own problems and I'm shocked at the rating it received on this website because it's even worth watching as the first film. Go watch it! It's that good!
