After 'Rocky', it's Rocky Junior.

Director John G Avildsen has taken the same basic elements that made his boxing film such a success and cunningly crafted them to a seven-stone-weakling-style yarn about Danny (Ralph Macchio).

He's a 15-year-old whose meagre karate training is of no use against the local motorcycle gang, whose leader (the ex of the girl Danny fancies) doubles up as the school bully.

As he and his friends are members of the 'no mercy' local karate school, Danny's education is proving a painful one until he meets Mr Miyagi, the repair man at his flats, who proves, not unexpectedly, to be a karate expert and helps Danny train for the local championships.

And guess who he meets in the final?

Still, it all works very well, and will please younger audiences especially.

Attractive Elisabeth Shue seems a trifle mature for our teenage hero, but the film is in any case stolen by veteran Pat Morita as Miyagi, who makes the most of the film's good lines.

Telling Danny to win back his girlfriend, he advises: 'To make honey, bee need young flower, not old prune.' Ah, Charlie Chan would have been proud of that.

Two increasingly derivative and repetitive sequels appeared later.