The Next Karate Kid

The Next Karate Kid (1994) is the fourth chapter of the Karate Kid saga, and you can watch online on iFILM. This time Mr. Miyagi takes on a girl as his student — played by a teenage Hilary Swank, a full decade before her two Academy Awards.

Julie lost her parents and now lives with her grandmother, snapping at everyone in reach. Miyagi knew her grandfather, the soldier who once pulled him off a battlefield, so the old man feels a debt to repay. The training happens far from any dojo — in a Buddhist monastery and on a rooftop, all about breathing, patience and never throwing the first punch. Meanwhile a vicious instructor named Dugan runs a gang of cadets who make high school a daily ordeal.

Pat Morita returns as Miyagi, calm and dryly funny, and he is what holds the whole thing together. A young Walton Goggins turns up in a small early role. For anyone raised on the original, this one lands like a slightly earnest, good-hearted postcard from the nineties. Stream The Next Karate Kid (1994) online on iFILM.