In the update, the setting is not Los Angeles but Beijing, and the self-defense technique not karate but kung fu. Why not The Kung Fu Kid? Because in Hollywood, the brand trumps accuracy-in-titling.
As the film opens, Dre Parker (Smith), a wiry 12-year-old, and his mother, Sherry (Taraji P. Henson, whose sunbeam smile warms the film), pack up their Detroit apartment and head for Beijing. They leave behind the penciled scrawls on the bedroom-door frame marking Dre's growth, along with corresponding events, from his soccer wins to his father's recent passing.
Smith, so cuddly as the young boy in The Pursuit of Happyness, is suitably prickly as the forlorn tween terrified of an unknown country and an unknown language.
As soon as Dre and his mother arrive in Beijing, he is slammed by the cultural differences. During a pickup basketball game, Dre learns that the American values of diversity and individual achievement are not shared in a nation that prizes teamwork.
When the youth chats up Meiying (Wenwen Han), a fetching violinist practicing on a park bench, her schoolmate Cheng (Zhenwei Wang) thrashes the American interloper. Naturally Meiying and Cheng attend the American school where Dre's mom has enrolled him.
While Meiying helps Dre with Mandarin and chopsticks, Cheng and his posse do everything they can to terrorize him. One afternoon Dre's bacon is saved by Mr. Han (Jackie Chan), a grizzled janitor, who, like a slugger swatting dingers, swiftly dispatches the preteen assailants one by one. To avoid future reprisals from the bullies, Dre must face his enemies at a kung fu contest.
