Mr Karate (Arabic: مستر كراتيه) is an Egyptian sports drama film directed by Mohamed Khan and released in 1993, stars Ahmad Zaki as an originally naive out of towner who is brought down by the hardships of life in Cairo.
Broke and unemployed, Zaki's character gets a stint as a garage worker before graduating to the more lucrative, albeit less dignified, profession of illicit parking helper (monadi).
After an acquaintance with a local retired karate instructor (played by Ibrahim Nasr), Zaki's character is introduced to the world of martial arts through watching a series of old Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan movies which, at first, are picked out by his new friend (Nasr's character) but which he then picks out himself from a nearby video rental store where his love interest in the movie works (played by Nahla Salama).
He said it was misleading because it led many moviegoers and critics to believe it was a lighthearted martial arts spoof, when, in fact, it was about the troubles of a simple man trying to survive the vast city that is Cairo, Egypt.
Andeel, from Mada Masr, found it as, "an amazing mixture of cultures and references [that] cooperate to produce the joy you receive watching it", and, as he enjoys Tarantino movies, "an earlier experiment in the same field".