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The Next Karate Kid

1994 American martial arts drama film by Christopher Cain

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

The Next Karate Kid is a 1994 American martial arts drama film directed by Christopher Cain, produced by Jerry Weintraub, and written by Mark Lee. It is the fourth installment in The Karate Kid franchise and serves as a standalone sequel to The Karate Kid Part III (1989). The film stars Hilary Swank as Julie Pierce, and Pat Morita reprising his role as Mr. Miyagi from the first three films, with Constance Towers, Chris Conrad, Michael Cavalieri, Walton Goggins, and Michael Ironside in supporting roles. Bill Conti, the composer of the previous films, returned to score the fourth. It is the first installment in the franchise not to feature Ralph Macchio in the lead role as Daniel LaRusso, and the first film not to be directed by John G. Avildsen, who directed the first three films.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Next Karate Kid” is 1994 American martial arts drama film by Christopher Cain. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Next, Karate and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1994, 1989—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Next, Karate and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1994 American martial arts drama film by Christopher Cain” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1994 and 1989.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Next Karate Kid”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Next Karate Kid primary sources, The Next Karate Kid archive and Next research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Next Karate Kid”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “The Next Karate Kid” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.