Daniel LaRusso (Macchio) and his mother Lucille move from New Jersey to California to start a new life. Daniel quickly finds that a black-haired kid with a New York Italian accent is a fish out of water in California blonde beach culture. Worse, the school bully Johnny Lawrence (Zabka) heads a gang called the Cobras and takes special delight in beating up Danny. They're all karate students, goaded by a teacher who's a Vietnam vet and encourages them to fight hard and dirty. It only gets worse when Johnny's beautiful ex-girlfriend Ali Mills (Shue, in her first notable role) takes a shine to Danny. An elderly Japanese gardener named Miyagi saves Danny from a beating and agrees to teach him some basic karate, although his methods seem a bit unorthodox: first he hands Danny a bonsai tree to take care of, then he saddles him with tasks like painting fences and waxing a car. But all of this will prepare Danny to face the bullies in the All Valley Karate Championship. This 1984 kid's version of "Rocky" is formulaic but satisfyingly stirring, and spawned three much weaker sequels.
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The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus