[3] Kamen is a frequent collaborator of French writer and director Luc Besson, who co-created The Fifth Element, The Transporter, and the Taken series.
[5] He moved on to study Okinawan Gōjū-ryū Karate under a teacher who did not speak English but himself was a student of Chōjun Miyagi.
[5] As a Hollywood screenwriter, Kamen was mentored by Frank Price, who told him that producer Jerry Weintraub had optioned a news article about the young child of a single mother who had earned a black belt to defend himself against neighborhood bullies.
Kamen then combined his own life story with the news article and used both to create the screenplay for The Karate Kid.
The filmmakers received special permission from DC Comics in 1984 to use the title for the first film (and subsequent sequels).