This is the first 'Karate Kid' movie I have seen in the 5 versions of the movie so I can't judge this remake to the one that it is remaking, so I will just review it as a movie alone.
The film follows Dre Parker (Will's son, Jaden Smith) who's mom (Taraji P. Henson)is a car factory worker in, you guessed it, Detroit and moves to Beijing, China to resume duties in a new place (the mom appears to be broke if she doesn't move to China much to the delight of Dre) and Dre meets a girl named Wenwen Han (Mei Ying) and they become close friends, but bullies from a strict Kung Fu academy run by a rough teacher that wants no mercy against his students' opponents. While running into bullying, Dre meets a maintenance man named Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) who teaches him the art of Kung Fu. While training for a Kung Fu tournament, Dre has to learn quickly the art and master it before he takes on his opponents and bullies.
The acting that evolves mostly around children, but also adults is pretty rock solid, whether it's Jaden Smith who did some major well earned workouts for the role to the always great, Jackie Chan (who is perfect for a movie like this.) to some of the younger actors like Mei Ying and Zhenwei Wang (main bully)to the adults Yu Rongguang (Master Li, the unforgiving kung fu instructor) and so on. The cast is well rounded with different personalities, different ages, and different races (Asians, black, and white all represented - which is good for culture - not racist at all.) So no flaws with the cast at all. The action is pretty good - it's karate and kung fu for the most part other than the bullies beating up Dre which isn't pretty, but at the end, you get a better idea at why they were bullying them, but I won't go far into that if you haven't seen this yet. Some of the reflexes for Jaden were obviously tough workouts such as the splits and the classic signature "karate kick" in the air. Jaden played his part great as well as everyone else, and as mentioned, Chan is incredible yet again in a perfect role for him.
With all that being said, the movie isn't perfect, but it certainly is quite entertaining and even pretty funny at times. This movie gets a 4.5/5 for me - definitely worth a watch in my opinion.