Cobra Kai

[Silver Nemesis]

Finally, that LaRusso kid's gonna get what's coming to him.

[thecolorsblend]

I am so there. Holy balls, how did I not know about this?!

[thecolorsblend]

This series is coming along at a pretty opportune time, I must say. I just finished a rewatch of the Karate Kid trilogy. I'm the guy in the room who enjoys all three of them. I really dig the arc Daniel goes through during the movies. So news of this YouTube series is pretty much what the doctor ordered.

My abiding hope is that this is Daniel and Johnny's story. I never really get into "passing the torch to the next generation" stuff that Hollywood has had such a boner for lately.

[Silver Nemesis]

I rank the original Karate Kid trilogy just below the Rocky films as the second best sports movie franchise of the eighties. I never bothered watching The Next Karate Kid or the remake, though I've heard the remake is good on its own terms. But the original three films are gold. The second movie is one of the most underrated sequels ever and does a superb job of connecting the martial arts philosophy of the first film with the Okinawan origins of karate. I've always been a sucker for smirking over-the-top bad guys like Terry Silver, so the third one packs a lot of entertainment value too.

This web series looks like the ideal way to revisit that universe. Not as a big budget reboot, but as a character-driven comedy/drama centred around the original talent. And I agree about them focusing on Daniel and Johnny. The 'bring your kid to work day' trend for ageing action heroes was already growing stale back in 2008, so I can happily do without that here. Johnny is one of the most interesting characters in the Karate Kid series, as well as one of the more sympathetic antagonists in eighties cinema. I'm one of those people that views him as the misunderstood hero of the original film.

This is how it should have ended.

The new web series looks like it's getting the dynamic between him and Daniel just right. The latest trailer portrays Daniel as an arrogant bully, while Johnny seems to be the one striving to make amends for his bad life choices. Hopefully Martin Kove will make an appearance as John Kreese.

Right now this is shaping up to be my second most hyped TV/web series of 2018 after DD season 3. The release date is 2nd May, so we've not got long to wait.

[thecolorsblend]

I'm beginning to wonder that someone involved with the CK series didn't see that "Johnny is the hero" bit and think "You know, that's a good point!"

Speaking of, I get where that YouTube guy is coming from. But my evaluation of the first KK movie is that Miyagi and Kreese are at loggerheads with each other. Granted, that conflict is executed primarily through their deputies (eg, Daniel and Johnny). But ultimately the Miyagi and Kreese worldviews drive most of the conflicts of KK1.

Apart from being a defensible interpretation of KK1, that adds extra resonance to KK3. KK3 does everything the third chapter in a trilogy is supposed to do. It revisits the conflicts and themes of the first entry, often involving the same villain from that first entry, and shows the character getting torn down and built back up again. My view is that KK does everything a trilogy is supposed to do and it usually does them exceedingly well. I've never seen what the problem with KK3 was supposed to be.

Broadly, one thing KK1 in particular rarely gets credit for is portraying Kreese as sensei, Johnny as sempai and the other Cobra Kais as kohai. That same dynamic doesn't and can't exist on Miyagi's side since Daniel is his only student. But the hierarchy of Cobra Kai is depicted in a very traditional way.

What I enjoy about that is how it suggests that Kreese's understanding of true karate isn't flawed AT ALL. He has intentionally corrupted some things but left other things pure. It shows him to be a more competent and menacing villain when you realize that nothing he's done with his dojo is a mistake. Kreese isn't some idiot Westerner who doesn't understand what karate is supposed to be.

He understands perfectly; he's doing this on purpose. And Miyagi's implied moral outrage at Kreese is made even sweeter by the fact that Kreese is profaning something Miyagi holds sacred.

The KK trilogy has a lot to offer, if you ask me.

To answer the "Daniel as real bully" thing, there's merit to that. And my response is that Kreese isn't the only one being taught a lesson. Miyagi may have taught Daniel karate as a way of channeling his sociopathy. In fact, you could say those chickens came home to roost when Daniel ultimately decided to burn the All Valley tournament application in KK3 because he realized Miyagi is right; Daniel doesn't need this and shouldn't aspire to it.

[thecolorsblend]

I'll be the first to admit that maybe I'm reading too much into this. But after watching this phony commercial, I'm starting to wonder if Daniel's arc in the series won't be his disgust that he's living a completely artificial life. He's a karate celebrity (apparently), maybe he's had some success doing MMA or something and now he's car dealership bigwig. He's got money, success, presumably a wife and family... but he's cheapening the disciplines his sensei taught him for money.

And then out of nowhere here comes Johnny. And for the first time maybe ever, Johnny is locked in on something good and positive about karate. Daniel, meanwhile, is almost prostituting karate.

What if the resurgent conflict between Johnny and Daniel revolves around Daniel making trouble for Johnny because he subconsciously understands Johnny is on a good path while Daniel himself (successful or not) is on a negative path? What if Daniel is lashing out against an "enemy" who doesn't even stop to consider him anymore because he, Daniel, is the one who is desecrating the discipline now?

But maybe I'm reading too much into this.

[Silver Nemesis]

But maybe I'm reading too much into this.

No, I think you're on the right track. The price chopping is bad enough, but the free bonsai tree almost seems like a deliberate slight against Miyagi's spiritual outlook. One thing that elevated the Karate Kid trilogy above more schlocky martial arts films was the way they explored the philosophy of karate, illustrating that there's a right way and a wrong way to implement these skills. By divorcing the disciplines Miyagi taught him from their spiritual bedrock - and doing so for commercial gain - Daniel is treading on dangerous ground. Johnny might well be the one to straighten him out.

I like that it's unclear who the hero is in this show. Based on these trailers, the classic good guy/bad guy dynamic appears to have gone out the window. Instead we've got two flawed protagonists, each likeable and sympathetic in his own way, but neither emerging as the obvious lead. I genuinely don't know how this series is going to end, and that fact alone makes it more intriguing than 90% of what's out there.

[thecolorsblend]

Yep. If that's the direction this bad boy is going in, they have my respect. The easy thing would've been a Daniel/Johnny rematch. And who knows, that may still happen. And if so, I'm fine with it.

But a more complex tale about a fallen-from-grace hero and a risen-above-the-darkness villain is ballsy and I can't wait to see it.

[Silver Nemesis]

[thecolorsblend]

The LaRusso Auto Group commercial made me wonder that the show's meat and potatoes will be Daniel falling far short of expectations. But this new teaser looks like a "Let's give the keys to the kids!" concept.

Perhaps Johnny's arc will include not just a purer notion of karate but exemplifying it by teaching that philosophy to his students?

There are a couple of different ways this might play out.