As I have stated before, right here on this very site, I love The Karate Kid! And make no mistake about it, I mean I love the 1984 one, not that the remake that I protested and refuse to watch. If I wanted to, I could pick parts of that movie apart and do a whole week of nothing but Karate Kid post..but I won’t do that, not yet anyway. Today I do however want to shine some light on a very good part of the film, that’s Elisabeth Shue in the role of Ali Mills, the love interest of Daniel.
The Karate Kid took elements from 1983′s Vally Girl and had the underlying conflict of a poor boy who likes a well-off girl and while that is always an issue between the two during the film, I find the most stand out-ish element to the relationship is that Ali at times seems to be more ballsy than Daniel.
Throughout the film the biggest proof of an almost woman/man role reverse (which was waaay different than Hollywood would usually play it), is that Ali is the one out of the two between her and Daniel that wants him to actually stand up for himself and stop being a wussy when it came to the Cobra Kai. While Daniel would usually run or avoid Johnny and his crew all together, Ali would stand her ground, talk smack back to them, and encourage Daniel to do the same. You may even recall at one point in the film while Daniel sees something and totally overreacts, Ali earns cool points for women everywhere by slugging Johnny and hurting her poor cute wrist in the process..My kind of woman I tell ya!
If one were to really think it over, it’s hard to see why a bad ass like Ali would even want a wimp like Daniel, who might I add was a bit of an over dramatic drama queen at times. But none the less, there she is putting up with his crap and even standing right by his side, along with Miyagi, as Daniel finally mans up and defeats The Cobra Kai, winning the tournament.
Now of course one line from Daniel is used to pretty much waste away the great character of Ali and intended to make us all the sudden dislike her and forget her in the sequel, but I think Ali is still the best love interest Daniel has in the whole original trilogy. And for being the bad ass she is in part one, here’s to you Ali Mills, aka, Elisabeth Shue! You were a really hot trail blazer!
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