If you were a kid growing up during the 70s and 80s, the sight of Noriyuki “Pat” Morita in M*A*S*H (Captain Sam Pak), Sanford & Son (Ah Chew) and Happy Days (Arnold) was one of the very few times you saw an Asian-American on your TV in a role that was more than just a one-off brought in for comic relief.
Morita gave the characters he portrayed a sense of purpose and gravitas, even if those characters tended to be written by writers lacking in the cultural and racial knowledge that the characters deserved. For a lack of a better excuse, it was the “times” and Morita made the most of what he was given character-wise.
But in 1984 Morita was given the role of a lifetime in what would become one of the most iconic characters in film history, Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid. Morita’s portrayal of the emotionally complex “father figure” to Ralph Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso is a superb study of a man with a dark and heartbreaking past befriending and ultimately mentoring a young man in the art of Gōjū-ryū karate, not just to teach him self-defense but to give the young man a sense of inner balance and peace.
To get a sense of how the movie changed the cultural landscape all you have to do is to Google the words, “karate near me” and scroll through the countless schools and dojos in your area.
Yes, Mr. Miyagi helped to usher in the suburban martial art experience for millions of kids in the 80s and beyond.
In Kevin Derek’s documentary, More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story, Morita’s life is laid out in a tale that is just as worthy of being told as that of the character that ultimately came to define him.
Born in California in 1932, with spinal tuberculosis and unable to walk, Morita’s parents sent him to a hospital at the age of two where he would spend the next 9 years laying on a gurney. After finally receiving an experimental surgery (courtesy of The Shriners) that would allow him to become mobile, he was then taken from the hospital, by the FBI, and reunited with his family at the The Gila River War Relocation Center in Arizona (and then to Tule Lake War Relocation Center in California) where we would live until the end of WWII.
As Derek weaves in interviews from Morita’s friends, family, co-workers and even Morita himself, the path to stardom seems an incredulous one.
From Morita surviving an internment camp with a family who he had barely known after being effectively abandoned by them, to lucking into being represented by Lenny Bruce’s mom and hitting the stand up comedy circuit with steady success and landing bit parts in TV and movies, it all makes for a gloriously sanitized Hollywood fairytale of adversity overcome. Of course, as we know with any good fairy tale it’s all about the darkness and personal horror underneath it that really drives the story.
Unfortunately, even as he built a career in TV and film and received praise and award nominations for other roles (Golden Globe & Emmy noms for Tommy Tanaka in the TV film Amos with Kirk Douglas), Miyagi would always be the rock that Morita would forever be pushing up the metaphorical Hollywood Hills (along with his coping skills of severe alcoholism and drug addiction) and to which he would return to when other opportunities began to dry up.
The kiss of success is a double-edged sword and as much as Miyagi meant to Morita and the world, it also marked him in a lot of ways professionally that he couldn’t always shake.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not a depressing documentary but a love letter to a man who was beloved and whose career is worth celebrating, and Derek does a wonderful job of bringing Morita’s life and career into a much needed spotlight (there’s a wonderful story from Tommy Chong that goes to the heart of who Morita was to a lot of his friends and family) while still showing just how difficult it was for Morita to maneuver through the world with a past that weighed so heavy on him.
There’s a scene in The Karate Kid when Daniel finds Miyagi drunk and in emotional pain over the death of his wife in an internment camp while he was fighting for America, where it smacks you in the gut due to Morita’s raw, guttural performance. It is pain born out of personal experience and from knowing there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about any of it.
And for Morita it is that moment where film and reality collided, showing everyone who he really is and where he came from. It was a moment of truth and it showed just how incredible Morita really was as an actor.
Yes, he was more than Miyagi but if there was any character that got to the gut of who Morita really was, you couldn’t do any better than an old guy forcing a teenager to paint a fence, wax a car or sand a deck and this bittersweet documentary proves that beyond a doubt.
More Than Miyagi: The Pat Morita Story will be available on February 5 on
iTunes, Amazon, Vudu, Google Play, DVD and Blu-ray
*****
Executive Produced by Evelyn Guerrero-Morita, Greg Lai, Cindy Lai
Produced by Oscar Alvarez, Kelly Jackson
Co-Produced by Byrad Yyelland
Directed by Kevin Derek
Featuring Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, Martin Kove, Henry Winkler, James Hong,
Sean Kanan, Marion Ross, Esai Morales, Tommy Chong, Don Most, Anson Williams
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