Fourth and final entry in the series is a mess from start to finish, one that never should have been made. I never got the fact why they kept making films to the original; they constantly recycled ideas with every sequel, and never did anything new with the formula. With this final entry, we get a change of a lead character, who is a girl played by Hilary Swank. Swank would go on to star in far better films, and this among her worst. At least it was during her time when she was honing her skills as an actress and was still a rising talent. Luckily she would become one of Hollywood's greatest actresses. The franchise by now has clearly run out of ideas, and this final entry has nothing to show for it. I think that The Karate Kid should have been a standalone film, and each sequel simply didn't offer anything good or original. I think the filmmakers overplayed the themes of previous films far too much and it lost its meaning and made it uninteresting to watch. Hilary Swank is a great actress, however this is a film where she doesn't deliver, and you see how she's struggling with the bad, predictable and recycled material. Stick with the first film, and avoid all these bad sequels. Luckily, The Next Karate Kid was the final entry in the series and with good reason. The remake would be much better, and offer something that was missing since the original, which was a compelling, truly inspiring story. The New Karate Kid is a film that should be forgotten after you've had the misfortune of seeing it.

The same kinda story but with a new apprentice, enter a girl who needs Miyagi's help with the usual bully problems. Yes its the same but it still works well, Morita makes it really but Swank is very good and looks like she can do the moves. It is one story too far really but it just gets by, the plot involving Morita's background and Swanks father being old war buddies does actually work, in the end its a kids film but much much more and soo much better than most. Better than you would expect.