Matcha To Bon Odori (Green Tea and the Spirit Dance)

I've always loved The Karate Kid Parts I and II, especially how the second film is so different from the first. While the first is an 80s 'you can do it!' rah rah kid against the bullies romp the second was more of a master and apprentice adventure to another culture, and exploring Mr. Miyagi's past was always the best part of the movie.

So to see this unexpected experimental short come together of editing together of just 15 minutes of spread out parts was really a wonderful surprise. It's not just about taking great parts of The Karate Kid Part II and making a short film, but rather something truly reflective on love and loss in the Japanese culture. I was moved and intrigued the whole way through, and I give MAJOR props to TM2YC for the effort made here-- and turning out something awesome in the process.

If I had anything I'd gripe about it would be that I wished somehow the ice breaking scene (or some parts of it) made it into the short. Sure, it has basically nothing to do with the overall theme of the short but that scene was BY FAR my favorite in the original movie, about believing in yourself and finding the focus to accomplish the impossible. No big deal though :)

Life, death, age, youth, and more are juxtaposed in this fantastic short - and love ties it all together. Aesthetically beautiful - nails that 50's Japanese look. Reframing seems perfectly natural. Excising the Karate from Karate Kid works better than it has any right to. I have a soft spot for the concept of TM2YC's other contribution, Birthday Presents - but the exceptional execution of this short wins me over to declare it my personal favorite short of this Consecution.

What a lovely short edit! The conversion to B&W along with the reframing really compliment the beautiful short film focusing on love (romantic, and family). TM2YC has a done a great job here, and it was nice to see something a little different done with the material instead of just truncating the source to ~15 minutes.

I watched streaming in HD on Vimeo, and there was some macroblocking to the picture. Whether that is a result of the editor or Vimeo's re-encoding I can't say, but I docked a couple points Also, the B&W was a bit too dark in some scenes, but overall convincing. The technical editing for both audio and video was top notch. Like that-one-guy noted in his review, the end edit felt abrupt, but I agree it was a stylistic choice.

Thanks TM2YC, this one pulled on the heartstrings a bit!

Action-packed! Between the whistle of throwing stars, the flash of sword canes, and geysers of arterial blood, this short is an exciting explosion of ninjitsu-on-karate mayhem.

Don't let the multiple meditations on love (between older lovers, younger lovers, between father and son, master and pupil) fool you. Nor should you let the gorgeous black & white presentation or the expert reframing of every shot fool you. This edit is all about one thing and one thing only: extinguishing the baddest-ass evil as if it were a tiny little flame.

A great example of editing, with what sounds like a lot of technical work for stylistic purposes. It's been a while since I've watched KKIII, but the narrative was just right. Visually and aurally it's excellent, as you'd expect from TM2YC; I'm in awe of the work involved in reworking the source to a different aspect ratio just to more accurately reflect a period style, and I'm a big fan of the idea of fanediting films into different styles, so I thought this was great.

The only thing that struck me as even slightly odd was the way that the music drops at the very end, but given the pairing with what sounds like a candle being blown out I think this is a deliberate stylistic choice. Great work, TM2YC!