The Karate Kid

The Karate Kid (1984)

31 corrected entries

(13 votes)

Corrected entry: There is no face contact allowed in this tournament but Daniel wins the championship after kicking Johnny in the face, he should have been disqualified.

Correction: I am pretty sure that the rules is that there cannot be contact to face with a hand, or open fist. Kicks from feet are permittable, as the referees let kicks to Daniel's face from both Dutch and Johnny, and kicks to other particpants' faces, be rewarded points earlier on.

It is only a theory, there is nothing that would confirm it.

Correction: When Ali is explaining the rules to Daniel, she says everything above the waist is a point; "you can strike to the head, chest, stomach, and ribs."

Corrected entry: When Mrs. Laruso is driving Daniel on his first date, when they pull up to her house, you can see she uses a column shift to put the car in park. When they attempt to leave and the car won't start, Mrs. Laruso asks the girl if she can drive a stick. This car is not a stick and can't be roll started.

Correction: Not all column shifters are automatics. The car she was driving actually had a 3 speed manual transmission with a column shifter ("three on the tree") which was common when that car was made. In this case his mom was simply using "stick" as shorthand for manual transmission and so that car could be bump started.

Corrected entry: When the referee is going over the rules to Daniel and Johnny, he tells them both that kicks to the face are illegal. However, when Daniel is in the Crane position, Johnny charges and gets kicked right in the face. This should have disqualified Daniel immediately and made Johnny the winner.

Correction: Because the referee never told both this. This affirmation is not in the movie.

The referee actually says it in KK3 instead, where the rules are different.

In fact Ali instructed Daniel before the first match "Everything above your waist is a point - the head, the sternum, kidneys, and the ribs."

jimba

Corrected entry: After Miyagi beats up the Cobra Kai gang, the next day all of the boys are shown training in their dojo with a few scrapes and black eyes. The following day or so, Daniel sees guys again at school and one of them has his arm in a sling.

Correction: Actually, the guy with the sling also wears it in the dojo. It can just hardly be made out, as everybody is wearing a white training suit. In the scene, the guy is standing in the front row.

That first reply is correct - I watched it again last week, and I did see that Tommy was wearing the sling in the dojo.

Corrected entry: Mr. Miyagi goes to get the bucket & soap for Daniel to wash the cars. We see a shot of Daniel admiring the yellow car, and it's broad daylight. Then we see a shot of Mr. Miyagi holding the bucket and smiling, and it's pitch black outside. He meets Daniel at the yellow car and we're in broad daylight again.

Matty Blast

Correction: It is not pitch black. In the new widescreen version you can see the sunlight hitting Mr. Miyagi. It is also early in the day when the sun is not up very high yet so the black you see is the shade from the trees.

Corrected entry: Daniel and his mother supposedly moved from Jersey to LA, but the opening travel scenes are desert, palms, and tumbleweed, nowhere near Jersey.

eaglegrad16

Correction: They first show them leaving the city in New Jersey, crossing middle American farmland, a desert area (likely the Chihuahuan Desert in southern Texas and New Mexico), the Canyon Portal Hotel (which was a real hotel in Arizona before being torn down), a mountainous desert (likely the Mohave in southeast California) and finally the apartment complex in Reseda. They travelled across the country by car. They were bound to see multiple types of landscapes, including the American deserts.

LorgSkyegon

Again, this is the very opening of the film when they are DEPARTING New Jersey. Not the traveling parts following minutes later.

eaglegrad16

Here is the opening scenes for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK1xslvKteE&ab_channel=LightningBoyXXX You can see them traveling exactly how I described: city, farmland, sand desert, motel, mountainous desert, apartment complex.

LorgSkyegon

Corrected entry: The first time Daniel goes into the Kobra Kai Dojo, when the camera is behind him, you can see a cameraman dressed in black in the mirrors at the other end of the room.

Correction: This supposed "camaraman" is John Kreese (the sensei). He's wearing black and can be seen in both mirrors (which is probably why this mistake was mistaken).

Corrected entry: In the scene where Daniel is training in the sea, Mr. Miyagi asks a couple of drunk guys to move their bottles. It is very clear that the bottles explode before he hits them.

Correction: The bottles do not "explode".the tops are knocked off, and there is nothing to indicate it happens before Mr. Miyagi hits them. Pat Morita simply knocked the tops off of 2 prop bottles that were prepped to break easily.

Corrected entry: When Daniel plays the Joke on Johnny in the bathroom at the school dance he runs out of the bathroom before Johnny knows who it is but yet Johnny runs right past the kid dressed as spider man and out of the bathroom. How did he know it wasn't the kid who was dressed as Spider Man who sprayed him with water?

sunday33

Correction: These people all go to school together, they know each other well. Johnny knows that "Spider-Man" wouldn't have done something like that to him. Either out of fear or friendship, we don't know. Most people at that school would fit into either of those categories as Johnny is an extremely aggressive bully. Only Daniel, the new kid, would have had the nerve to do something like that.

Phixius

Correction: And the kid dressed as Spider man goes to cobra kai.

Corrected entry: In the dojo, one student is instructed to give 60 pushups on his knuckles. He goes to the side of the ring and starts them slowly while the small match starts between two other students. By the time Kreese talks to Miyagi only seconds later after the short match, the kid doing pushups on the side is completely gone although not enough time went by for that many pushups.

Correction: After Kreese and Johnny talk, Kreese says "Class, we have visitors. Fall in behind me." This includes the kid who was ordered to do the pushups. It's just as well, the kid was struggling to do 10 pushups, there's no way he would have been able to do 60.

BaconIsMyBFF

Corrected entry: The way the leader board is arranged it's obvious the tournament is single elimination, you lose, you're out. During the montage, Bobby eliminates the same guy twice; you can tell its two different matches because the referees are not the same.

Correction: The tournament is only single-elimination after the quarter finals. Most of the montage shows qualifying or preliminary rounds to determine who fights in the tournament, where a loss wouldn't prevent a person from still making it to the quarter final round. The 2nd match between Brown and Hall was the quarter finals, where Hall was then eliminated.

Bishop73

Corrected entry: As Daniel gets out of his mom's car for his first date with Ali, his shoes are white. When we see him being introduced to Ali's parents, his shoes have changed to brown.

Correction: Actually, his shoes are brown with a white Nike swoosh during the entire scene. When he got out of his mum's car, the white bit is the Nike Swoosh logo which led you to believe that the whole shoe was white.

Corrected entry: When Daniel is about to hose Johnny down in the bathroom during the Halloween party, Johnny only has one glove on. When Johnny chases Daniel (and eventually beats him up), he has two gloves on. With all the commotion, he would not have taken the time to put another glove on.

ACertainShadeofGreen

Correction: He could have easily taken it out of his pocket and put it on while they were chasing Daniel. Especially if he knew they would be hopping fences etc.

Correction: He was rolling joints in the stall and wanted to have a hand without a glove to make it easy to roll them.

Correction: I'm watching the movie right now and Johnny twists the joint while wearing one glove and then right before the scene ends he reaches for his other glove... after Daniel hoses him down he runs out of the stall wearing both gloves.

Corrected entry: When Daniel and Mr. Miyagi are on their way to the part of the arena where Daniel will have his 1st match, you see a group of Kobra Kai's, led by Johnny and his boys, running by them and shoving Daniel. However, as soon as Daniel gets to his circle, you can see Johnny and his boys already there and looking on.

SAZOO1975

Correction: All this is done to intimidate Daniel. They jog by and shove him, then jog to his first match. Since he doesn't even know where it is initially they have plenty of time to beat him there.

Incorrect because just a few feet away you can see his opponent kneeling down waiting for him. When Daniel gets there, the bullies who shoved them were already there.

lartaker1975

Corrected entry: When Daniel fought Johnny on the beach, all of Johnny's attacks were to Daniel's left side but his right eye was black in the morning.

Correction: Actually Johnny lands a crescent kick to the right side of Daniel's face during the last barrage of attacks.

Corrected entry: When they first show Daniel waxing and cleaning the yellow 1947 Ford convertible, the rocker panel has a significant amount of rust and peeling paint. In the rest of the film, the car is completely rust free and has show quality paint.

RJR99SS

Correction: Most likely, Miyagi had the car painted before giving it to Daniel as a birthday present.

Corrected entry: When Daniel and his mother pick up Ali to go to golf and stuff, the car battery died and they were going to push start the vehicle by letting out the clutch. In previous scenes, it is obvious that the vehicle has an automatic transmission.

Correction: Many standard-transmission cars were built with the gearshift on the steering column. They could be either "Four on the floor" (4 speed standard with a floor mounted shift) or "Three on the tree" (3 speed standard with a column mounted shift). The position of the gearshift alone doesn't tell you everything.

Corrected entry: In the tournament you see that in the match between Daniel and Dutch, Dutch scores a point, but Daniel scores the next point and wins, yet Dutch scored the first point.

Correction: It's a montage. The entire fight isn't shown.

Corrected entry: Bobby was disqualified in the semi-finals for "deliberate and intentional contact" when he kicked Daniel in the knee, but Johnny grabbed Daniel's leg in the final match and dropped an elbow on the same knee without any penalty.

Correction: Johnny was not disqualified for this attack, but he was given a warning by the referee. This can be heard over all the commotion if the sound is put loud enough.

This is somewhat strange that Johnny wasn't disqualified but only got a warning. Bobby was immediately disqualified after he reluctantly hurt Daniel's knee. Everyone knew that Daniel's left knee was hurt so they would think that Johnny wanted to further hurt Daniel.

I'm guessing it's because Johnny counterattacked Daniel's kick whereas Bobby went straight for the leg.

Correction: Johnny was given a warning because it could be seen as a form of defence, considering Daniel tried to kick him. When Daniel swung his leg, Johnny caught it and used it as a way to get Daniel to the ground. Because it was intentional, he was given a warning. Bobby, even though he reluctantly kicked Daniel, he did it as soon as the match started, therefore proving it wasn't done in defence.

Corrected entry: After Daniel is thrown down the embankment on his bike, damaging it and hurting his head, he is seen the next day walking with Ali and her friend. He explains that the plaster on his head is due to a bike accident. "What kind of bike do you have, Daniel," says Ali's friend, "Honda, Suzuki, what?" "No," he says, "it's a Miyagi Turbo, actually." However, Mr Miyagi has not yet fixed his bike, and Daniel barely knows him. He does not discover the mended bike and make friends with Mr Miyagi until the next scene. (00:26:50)

Correction: Even if he barely knows Miyagi, he knows OF him (since Miyagi is their janitor, and fixed their sink earlier on). When the girls believe he drives a motorcycle he does not want to admit it is a pedal bike, and so he makes up a name for an MC, using the first Japanese name that springs to mind. After all, it sounds cooler if people think you drive a rare motorbike than an old 10-speed racing bike.

Twotall

I think you missed the point of what the person pointed out. The point is he ties Mr. Miyagi to his bike before Mr. Miyagi had even fixed it. It's out of sequence.

Continuity mistake: In the final fight between Daniel and Johnny, there is a time when Johnny's head band falls off (after Johnny scores his second point). Right after it falls off, if you look quickly you can see it back on, then it goes back off. (02:00:50)

Upvote valid corrections to help move entries into the corrections section.

Suggested correction: That right unless there were a few bits of the scene cut where the referee gave it back to him.

More mistakes in The Karate Kid

Daniel: You're the best friend I've ever had.
Miyagi: You... Pretty okay, too.

More quotes from The Karate Kid

Trivia: Ralph Macchio has almost no sense of smell at all. Just for fun, he makes it a point to smell something at least once during every movie he's in. In this movie, he smells a french fry at the restaurant, and he smells his underarm before approaching Alli.

Matty Blast

More trivia for The Karate Kid

Question: Why does Daniel lie to Freddy Fernandez about his mother's job? He said that she worked with rocket computers, yet we see her working in a restaurant.

Socks1000

Chosen answer: He didn't lie. That was the company she was supposed to be working for. However, the company went bankrupt and she lost her job. She showed up at the restaurant at the same time that the hostess quit and was hired immediately.

More questions & answers from The Karate Kid

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.