Introduction
The best sporting movies are about more than the contest itself. Take Rocky (1976) – a million-to-one shot gets a chance to fight for the world heavyweight title. Rocky himself tells us, as he tells Adrian late in the movie, that it’s not about winning for him. It’s about mattering. It’s about a person who’s never had anything in his life finally finding his self-worth. The Karate Kid (1984), also directed by Rocky director John G. Avildsen, is a similar story. The tale of a character who doesn’t have much in life gets relentlessly bullied and struggles to maintain his self-respect.
When his sensei, Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita), challenges the antagonist dojo, Cobra Kai, at the All Valley Karate Tournament, it’s not about winning. It’s about showing that his protégé, Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) deserves respect. Miyagi knows that in this situation, respect will only be won in a combative arena. The only language Cobra Kai understands. This is a template for a lot of sporting movies. An underdog gets a chance to contest for something important, and learn something about themselves.
In that journey and in that sense, we can relate to the protagonist. They are a reflection of our own often unsteady journey in life. We’re all battling to get somewhere. We all are facing obstacles. There are many times that the odds seem overwhelming and out of reach. Yet we continue to endure the struggle. We fight the good fight and we keep striving because we’re always reaching for something greater. This is something the television series Cobra Kai understood. Well, at least originally.
The Series
When the series Cobra Kai was first announced, one might think that it sounded like just about the stupidest idea imaginable. Two rival dojos from a movie that’s thirty years old are at war with one another.? What happens after they fight? It seemed almost a desperate franchising grab in an industry that’s now predominantly about franchises and building off the marquee of properties with exploitable fanbases. Of course, until the goodwill runs out.
The promotional spots for the series were intriguing, however. They hinted at more than just a mindless fight. Some of the comedic moments captured The Karate Kid tonally. The characters, and the subject matter, were treated respectfully. The story was also principally told through the eyes of the original movie’s antagonist, Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka). As far as sporting villains go, Johnny was typically one-dimensional in The Karate Kid. Although one must admire how he seizes the trophy at the end of the climactic fight and hands it to Daniel himself.
Throughout the first season of Cobra Kai, we learn that Johnny’s adolescence wasn’t as pampered as we had thought it to be. Further, we discover that in adulthood he’s estranged from his ex-wife and his son, Robby (Tanner Buchanan). To make ends meet, Johnny works as a handyman. Although his surly defiance sees him drifting from job to job.
When Johnny begrudgingly saves teenager Miguel (Xolo Maridueña) from a beating, Miguel then pesters Johnny to teach him karate. This setup and outcome are a nice reversal from the movie. Johnny and Miguel bond and Johnny becomes a father figure for Miguel. As a result, Miguel becomes a surrogate son. Throughout, Miguel, who’s dealing with being bullied in high school, struggles with his own identity. The lessons Cobra Kai initially teaches him, infuse him with confidence that then grows into arrogance.
On the other side of the valley, Daniel is the owner of a car dealership who’s lost touch with his roots. He’s married to a confident, successful woman, Amanda (Courtney Henggeler), and has a teenage daughter Samantha (Mary Mouser), and a spoiled adolescent son Anthony (Griffin Santopietro). Daniel develops a relationship with Johnny’s son, Robby, and begins teaching him life lessons through karate. Robby, who’s involved in petty crime and has a couple of nefarious friends, finds a role model and father figure in Daniel, and an opportunity to make a life for himself.
Character Growth
It’s always tricky picking up any property years later. Audiences have fond memories of characters forever immortalized in a certain timeframe. The problem is if the new property’s projection for these characters is awry, such as many have stated, Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy – or unjustified, you risk antagonizing a portion of the fan base, which means they will not invest in your product.
Daniel and Johnny did not fit preconceptions of where they would be today, but you could still easily accept their portrayal in Cobra Kai. This is because the storytelling did such a great job of extrapolating from their pasts and building credible presents. They also found motivation (and justification) in who they’d become.
Arguably, the first season of Cobra Kai retrospectively appreciates The Karate Kid because we learn that Johnny’s not just some spoiled rich brat who always gets his way. He’s an insecure kid who lives on a façade. He’s afraid of losing what he does have. When threatened, Johnny responds antagonistically because that’s what Cobra Kai and his mentor, John Kreese (Martin Kove) have taught him.
Could we possibly see Daniel owning a car dealership? Nope. But you can certainly understand it, and guess this vocation grew (conceptually) out of Mr. Miyagi’s yard full of cars. The use of bonsai trees is also a recurring theme throughout Daniel’s universe. This ranges from their appearance in The Karate Kid to Daniel’s ill-fated Mr. Miyagi’s Little Trees business venture in The Karate Kid III (1989).
When we first meet Daniel in The Karate Kid, he’s a smarmy brat bragging about his karate expertise. He’s at his most earnest when threatened. So, in a life where it seems he’s regularly succeeded, we can reconcile that he becomes this smug yuppy who’s grown complacent as he’s moved further away from his roots.
For the most part, Cobra Kai does a wonderful job with all the legacy characters. One major query, however, would be with regards to Ali (Elisabeth Shue), whose cameo retcons her respective relationships with Johnny and Daniel. Moreover, she acts as some moral arbiter over their animosity and the decisions they’ve made. This is one appearance that did feel gratuitous.
Still, the rest of the legacy characters are all fantastic, ranging from Johnny’s former Cobra Kai teammates to Kumiko, Chozen, and Mike Barnes. We learn more about each and find they’ve all grown in different ways. What was particularly well done is that Chozen and Mike Barnes weren’t just one-dimensional (adult) reincarnations of their movie portrayals. Those experiences provided valuable life lessons for each of them. They’d grown and evolved.
Kreese and Silver are different matters. Cobra Kai does a brilliant job building their pasts through flashbacks. As a result, this helps motivate who they’ve become. Yet they still really haven’t changed much from the characters we knew in the movies.
The Antagonists
Johnny reopens Cobra Kai because karate’s the one thing in his life that gave him structure and purpose. Ironically, his students aren’t the popular alpha teens from The Karate Kid. Instead, they are different. The sort of kids that Johnny would’ve picked on once upon a time. Given Johnny needs a job and being the sensei behind Cobra Kai gives him the identity he’s sorely lacking in the present, one can fully appreciate Johnny’s actions. He’s just a guy trying to pay the bills in a world where he’s struggling. He reverts to what he’s good at.
When Kreese returns, he has a similar motivation to Johnny. His life has been lacking since the glory days. Cobra Kai offers Kreese the purpose he’s struggled to find. Kreese also nurtures his grudge against Daniel LaRusso and Miyagi-Do. To portray one person holding onto an obsession this way so that it clouds their judgment shows that Kreese was never the most temperate guy.
Soon Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) is roped into the fray. At this point, we’re now being asked to believe that this incredibly wealthy shark is so lacking in his life (and has been for thirty years), that he’s going to cling to this obscure karate dojo and petty rivalry for validation to the extent he’ll frame Kreese and take over as the dojo’s sensei.
Silver’s so wealthy he could buy (and rebrand) any dojo. He could probably buy the LaRusso Auto Group or even set up a rival next door. He could employ the best ringers in karate (as he did with Mike Barnes). He’s about as dishonorable as you get, but ultimately he’s going to revert to settling this all on the mat with one crooked official?
The Escalation of Violence
In The Karate Kid, Daniel is bullied relentlessly. To this very day, a lot of bullying in schools goes undetected. So one can appreciate that bullying unfortunately won’t necessarily draw the attention of parents or school faculty.
As a story device, we can accept that Daniel goes to Mr. Miyagi, or that Miguel goes to Johnny. We can accept that these battles are then fought and resolved at school, or through karate tournaments, and the bullied wins the respect of his bully. However, as Cobra Kai has gone on, the level of violence has escalated into felonies. How exactly do these crimes go unnoticed or unchallenged? They are not small nor dismissible crimes. Among the crimes are:
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Cobra Kai beat up Bert (Owen Moran) and steal the car wash money
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Hawk (Jacob Bertrand) breaks Dimitri’s arm
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Bert is thrown through a window at the LaRusso household
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Cobra Kai invades the LaRusso household and attacks the inhabitants
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Robby steals a snake from the zoo.
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