PURISTS are already up in arms about the title of Harald Zwart’s remake of John G. Avildsen’s 1984 crowd-pleaser, which did much to popularise martial arts among children in the West. Strictly speaking, this new film has nothing to do with karate, so it should really be called The Kung Fu Kid. Or we could just bite the bullet and call it Will Smith’s Son Goes to China.

Yes, it was low budget. Yes, it was promoting China as a tourist destination!
A black kid - there has been skin-colour based racism in China for a long time. As a brown-skinned girl, I've seen it. But the Chinese know it's wrong, and what better way for the government to correct their ways than to make a movie promoting friendship between different skin colours.
Second of all, where did karate come from, I wonder? From whom did the Japanese inherit their martial arts? Could one argue that the original Karate Kid movies were little more than "Americans can indeed learn something from the people they obliterated in WWII? Peace, man!" propaganda?