The Little Dragons

Brothers, Zack and Woody (portrayed by real-life brothers Chris and Pat Petersen) are young karate students who embark on a weekend camping trip with their grandfather J.J. (Charles Lane). Along the way they meet a new friend, Carol Forbinger (Sally Boyden) and her parents (Rick Lenz and Sharon Clark). When the Forbinger family encounters a tough-talking backwoods mother (Ann Sothern) and her two bumbling sons (Joe Spinell and John Davis Chandler) who decide to hold Carol captive believing they can collect a sizeable ransom, the "karate kids" must find a way to use their martial arts skills to rescue the Forbinger girl with a little help from their grandfather and some new friends they meet along the way.

Casting included Charles Lane, a "sharp-featured character actor... one of the most familiar faces in film... though he is one of those ubiquitous players, whose name is known to only a few."[3]

Director Curtis Hanson was hired, in part of what he referred to as his "chequered early career."[4]

As of October 1978, the film was scheduled for release "this Christmas."[5] Copyright on the script was filed in May 1978.[6]

Chris Petersen and Pat Petersen

The film was released gradually, from 1980 to 1981, initially with a roadshow and later with mildly wider releases:

• Arizona by July,[7]
• Missouri[8] and Louisiana[9] by August,
• Texas[10] and South Carolina by September.
• October 1980: Connecticut,[11][12] Massachusetts, New Hampshire[13]
• November 1980: Corpus Christi, Texas[14]
• May 1981: Tallahassee, Florida[15]
• June 1981: Indianapolis, Indiana[16]
• October 1981: Victoria, Texas[17]

The film's original release advertising included the tagline "Karate Kids to the Rescue!!!"[7]

The film stars the Petersen brothers, Chris (born in 1963),[18] and Pat (born in 1966).[19]

The film aired on American television, Showtime, and Canadian television by 1981.[20] The film would eventually air on The Disney Channel.[21]

The Little Dragons was released on Beta and VHS home video by Active Home Video,[22] in 1984. As The Karate Kid was released in June 1984, the packaging continued to use the tag line: "The karate kids to the rescue!"[23] The film was later re-released on VHS by Magnum Video in 1991, this time retitled as "Karate Kids U.S.A.".[24] Subsequent DVD releases in the U.K. and the U.S. used shortened versions of both titles, retitled simply as "Dragons"[25] and "Karate Kids" using the tag line: "Before the Karate Kid, there was The Karate Kids!";[26] however, the most recent 2009 Music Video Distributors DVD has been released under the film's original title, "The Little Dragons" this time with the tag line: "Meet the REAL Karate Kids...".[27]

Although intended to be a "family film", by the time of the first VHS release in 1984, some of the language used by the children in the film was deemed inappropriate for a young audience, and was "cleaned up" for the 1984 Active Home Video VHS release.[28] The Petersen brothers having grown too old to re-dub their childhood voices, the decision was made to simply remove the "offending" dialogue altogether, resulting in the actors' mouths moving, but without the audio.[28]

A critic at the Abilene Reporter-News prefered the demonstration of a local karate school to the film itself. She shared that it held the attention of few kids in the theatre, with "stilted acting," saving most of the "good stuff" until the end. "The adult actors and actresses act in the same listless manner," as the child actors. "Even veteran actress Ann Southern, the only big name in the movie, looks bored as she sleepwalks through a role as a fat, sloppy-looking moll."[29]

Variety wrote "A rather lackadaisical, if amiable, suspenser clearly intended a palatable antidote to more violent action fare, The Little Dragons might be more at home on the tube than on theatre screens... a stronger script and deeper characterizations could have broadened its audience."[30] A book from the same publication dubbed it "a watered-down Deliverance, with moppets but sans river, a chipper yet hopelessly dated story."[4]

• The Little Dragons at IMDb
• The Little Dragons at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Little Dragons on YouTube
• The Little Dragons at AllMovie
• The Little Dragons is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive