The inspirational classic The Karate Kid was first released to theaters in 1984, but I don’t believe I caught it until the following year on VHS or cable, right about when I turned 11. Of course, the movie became a cultural touchstone for anyone of my generation at that point. In this week’s Film at 11 podcast, I wax on about that subject to my own 11-year-old son, who has started to catch on that I’ve been showing him an awful lot of movies from the 1980s.

I watched The Karate Kid a bunch of times when I was growing up, but hadn’t actually sat to watch it again in quite a while. Over time, the film’s triumph-of-the-underdog formula and sometimes heavy-handed messaging (hammered home by numerous sequels, spin-offs, and remakes) came to seem all a bit much, and I hadn’t really felt any great need to revisit it. However, I have to say, in this viewing sitting with my son, the movie really worked for me almost as much as it had the first time I saw it. I was reminded that The Karate Kid is an iconic movie for good reason.

Title:	The Karate Kid
Year of Release:	1984
Director:	John G. Avildsen
Watched On:	4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Movies Anywhere
Also Available On:	Blu-ray Hulu Various VOD rental and purchase platforms

The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray + Video Streaming

Sony released The Karate Kid on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray for the film’s 35th anniversary in 2019 and then reissued it for the 40th anniversary in 2024. The latter disc has some new bonus features, as well as distressed cover art (on both the slipcover and underlying sleeve) amusingly designed to look like an old VHS tape with a lot of shelf wear.

I recently bought the 40th Anniversary disc from Amazon because, at the time I ordered, it was the cheaper option. It turns out that may have been a mistake. Much to the annoyance of my son, the defective disc froze up on us and wouldn’t play past the 48-minute mark. We had to switch to Roku and finish the film by watching the provided Digital Copy on Movies Anywhere. I’m currently in the process of trying to get an exchange for another disc.

From what I saw of it, the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray has nice picture quality. The 1.85:1 image is pleasingly sharp with well-rendered but not obtrusive grain structure. HDR is subtle, but colors and contrast both look very naturalistic. For what it’s worth, the 4K Digital Copy comes from the same master and looks very similar, though a little softer due to extra compression.

On disc, soundtrack options include a recent (from 2019) Atmos remix, a DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix, or a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track that I suppose is meant to represent the original Dolby Stereo theatrical mix. We started with Atmos and, as far as reworkings of old movies go, this one is pretty tasteful and restrained. The audio remains primarily front-focused, with occasional (mostly subtle) directional effects that extend to the surround channels, and nice breadth to the musical score.

When we had to switch to the Digital Copy, the only audio option on the Movies Anywhere app is Dolby Digital+ 5.1. It sounds fine, but dialogue during the climactic karate tournament sometimes gets buried under the crowd noises. Unfortunately, I can’t say if that’s inherent to every version of the soundtrack or is just a streaming issue. (I only discovered later that I could’ve gotten Atmos if I’d watched on the VUDU/Fandango at Home app instead.)

The menu system on the 40th Anniversary 4K disc is awful. Navigation is confusing, and the menu blares loud music that has nothing to do with The Karate Kid. Supplements include a new audio commentary by the creators of the Cobra Kai TV spinoff, some deleted scenes, a 10-minute retrospective featurette (from 2019), and a trailer.

The standard Blu-ray in the case is a copy of an older release from 2010. It offers a different audio commentary (by the director, the screenwriter, and stars Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita) that must date back to the DVD era considering that Morita died in 2005. The Blu-ray also has a two-part documentary (45 minutes in all), as well as shorter featurettes about karate, the music, and bonsai trees. “Blu-Pop” interactive picture-in-picture trivia and interviews can play along with the movie if you remember to turn on Secondary Audio in your disc player, but the link to Sony’s BD-Live portal is long since disabled.

Note: All screenshots on this page were taken from the standard Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.