Was the critical and commercial failure of "The Next Karate Kid" due to ism?

No. It was just a p**s-poor movie. The plot was terrible and the fact that the girl who played the main character was moving through the martial arts moves with the rapidity of my 90-year-old grandma didn't help either. Maybe they would have been better off casting a girl who could actually handle the training instead of a girl with just a pretty face and a hot body. But still, the plot was awful.