In “Never Say Never,” the title track for his 2010 musical redux of The Karate Kid , Jaden Smith raps, “No pun intended, was raised by the power of Will.” It’s a multi-level easter egg for the film. After all, the remake was produced by his parents, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. As a consequence, it’s as if they treated their son to the ultimate Karate Kid fanboy experience, replacing Mr. Miyagi (the late Pat Morita) with one of the greatest cinematic martial arts masters of all time, the one and only Jackie Chan. And indeed, throughout the film there’s a recurring theme of shadows.

It’s almost as if this is an admission that the new version was but a shadow of the original.

At the time, loyalists felt that it paled in comparison to the original film. Nevertheless, the Jackie an

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