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Sunday, December 6, 2009

Music That Matters: Top 50 Movie Symphonies (#41 The Storm by Bill Conti)

#41 on the countdown is a song that I thought I already had in my collection but I was wrong. No worries, I downloaded it pretty quickly and determined that it needed to be on this countdown. The song is The Storm from The Karate Kid Part II from Bill Conti. Without this great piece of music, would the actual movie moment in the movie be as intense? If you remember, Miyagi could not and would not fight his former best friend Sato, so he agreed to return to America with Daniel so that Sato would no longer wreak havoc on his village. How ironic that the night before they are ready to leave, Okinawa is hit by a crazy storm! Sato's house is destroyed, and he is hanging onto life with a large piece of wood on his sternum. His old friend Miyagi comes to his rescue even though Sato thinks he has now come to fight when he has no defense. Miyagi instead breaks the wood with a karate chop and helps his old friend towards safety. As everybody is running for shelter, a ten year old girl who has rung the bell to let the town know they need to join together hangs on for for her life to a pole that is about to tumble. Daniel has to be the hero and runs out of the shelter to help her. As the town looks on in fear for the little girl, Daniel struggles to rescue her. Sato orders his nephew Chozen to go help as he has realized that all of this drama was not worth losing a good friend and they need to rebuild the relationship. Chozen feels his honor has already been taken, and refuses. Miyagi is ready to go help Daniel, but in dramatic fashion Sato says in his his gruff voice, "LET ME GO!" (a movie quote that I always seem to repeat in certain situations!). Sato and Daniel rescue the young girl, and afterwards Sato tells Chozen that he is now dead to him. Now you are reading this, and probably think this is too descriptive, but you would love it if you had the actual music plays as you read.

The Storm actually made it on The Karate Kid Part II soundtrack, which is surprising considering most of Conti's other compositions were left off the album. It's a truly dramatic piece of music and totally enhanced the drama that was happening on screen.

Ladies and gentlemen.....#41 The Storm from Bill Conti

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