In defending some other terrible properties (which I won’t name), some have cited that The Karate Kid espouses an unlikely scenario: so Daniel LaRusso, with only six weeks of training, defeats the cocky defending champion, Johnny Lawrence, in the annual All-Valley karate tournament.
Amazing? Improbable? Unbelievable?
Well, not as much as people make out.
The story implies Daniel was learning karate before he moved to Reseda. Pre-Miyagi, we see Daniel practicing karate from a book. Obviously, this isn’t ideal, but it gives him a workable base that Miyagi can refine and build upon. It’s not like Daniel’s never thrown a kick or a punch before.
Miyagi also comments that he’s relying on teaching Daniel “quality”, rather than “quantity”, and given John Kreese and Cobra Kai’s offensive-heavy style, it’s no stretch to imagine Miyagi – who’s fought and beat the best Cobra Kai has to offer, so he knows their style – tailors Daniel’s program to expose their unrelenting attack.
Why’s this important, though?
Cobra Kai
The first season of Cobra Kai doubles up on this premise, taking two teens – Miguel Diaz and Robby Keene – with no background in karate and transforming them off limited lessons to become so good they make it into the All-Valley karate tournament final.
Already, this seems unlikelier. For as unsuccessful as he is pre-Miyagi, we do see that Daniel is defiant and will stand up for himself. Miguel is bullied. We can argue that both Johny and Daniel provide intensive one-on-one training, but to fast-track them both to this extent?
The showrunners do a phenomenal job in constructing the story, honoring the canon, and building this world, so it helps you just look past the unlikeliness of doubling down on this scenario in season one.
But then the series takes these exceptions, and commonly makes them the rule throughout its run.
We’re constantly handed part-time karate students who’ve only just taken up the discipline and match it with people who’ve been training much, much longer, if not all their lives.
The Canon
Every time Cobra Kai introduced any legacy characters, the showrunners were brilliant in extrapolating believable futures for what became of these people.
Johnny’s life unraveled after losing that final and Kreese attacking him in the parking lot? Yep. Daniel becomes a smarmy, yuppy car salesman? Sure. John Kreese has stewed over his losses and his life has lost direction? Okay. Chozen redeems himself? Awesome. Mike Barnes sees the error of his youthful arrogance? That’s a nice surprise. I happily buy it all.
This is Cobra Kai’s strength – they don’t rewrite canon (as some properties have done) to force the scenario they want, and/or as shock value (with shock value being a poor excuse for good storytelling) and they usually find ways to use it throughout that’s meaningful.
Except for one bit that irks the hell out of me …
The Unmentioned Canon
My favorite scene in The Karate Kid is that after Daniel wins, Johnny wrestles the trophy from the emcee, presents it to Daniel, and says, “You’re all right, LaRusso.”
I think this appealed to me because despite Johnny Lawrence being the antagonist, William Zabka comes across as so likeable.
By extension of that, I loved that Johnny offered the begrudging respect, which suggested that while he might’ve lost, he acknowledges that Daniel is the better competitor and deserves respect. It also shows that Johnny grows. You usually wouldn’t get that in movies where there’s a bully. They get their comeuppance and that’s it.
It’s annoying that Johnny’s gesture is something that Cobra Kai ignores until the final episode, and then only offers it as a homage, a cute little callback.
Prior to Cobra Kai, did you ever wonder what became of these characters? I had (decades ago), although I had Johnny the success with a disenfranchised son, and Daniel a school teacher with a happy family.
In my scenario, Johnny seeks guidance for his son, and entreats Daniel’s help, because Daniel’s all about humility and unorthodoxy. (Circumstances aside, this seems largely to be what Karate Kid: Legends is going to do.)
And I extrapolated this future because after Daniel’s win (in The Karate Kid), and after Mr. Miyagi rescues Johnny from Kreese in the parking lot (in The Karate Kid II), I believed Johnny and his friends would be okay with Daniel.
Not in Cobra Kai.
Maybe the showrunners felt Daniel and Johnny’s combative relationship couldn’t exist, and thus the show couldn’t exist, if they incorporated Johnny’s acknowledgement from The Karate Kid.
But it was something they could’ve addressed earlier, instead of ignoring because it was inconvenient to their narrative.
The Next Generation
Something Cobra Kai could’ve benefited from was some teen who’s just unrelentingly cocky, just as Johnny is in The Karate Kid, and run that character in that mode through the whole series.
It can’t be Miguel, because he’s the bullied underdog; and it can’t be Robby, because he’s just battling just to survive. Both are good people trying to find their way.
Hawk would’ve been an alternative, but never really elevated above supporting cast status. The best bet would’ve been Tory – she should’ve smashed Samantha in the school fight that explodes across the season two finale.
Instead, Samantha beats her, and despite this, loses her nerve. Having Tory win, then go full beast mode as the chief antagonist would’ve worked much better, and would’ve made more sense in justifying Samantha’s anxiety.
But everybody flip-flops sides so often, friendships are made and broken and made again, that it’s impossible to have one credible long-term next-gen villain, and thus that position itself is depreciated.
The showrunners recognize this themselves, because they belatedly introduce Kenny to be an antagonist … and then flip him.
Some might suggest this is irrelevant, but throughout the series run they kept posing Kreese and Silver as the villains, while their champion is constantly some transient.
And, as already highlighted, it was always some transient who’d just taken karate up.
The Miyagi-Doh “Defense”
In season five, Cobra Kai introduces the concept the Miyagi-Doh is a “defense-based” karate. They did this so they could suggest a combination of Miyagi-Doh and Cobra Kai would provide the perfect balance: attack and defense.
I hate this idea sooo much.
Is Miyagi-Doh defense-based when Miyagi teaches Daniel the Crane Kick? Or when Miyagi chops the heads off beer bottles to intimidate a couple of rednecks? Or when he teaches Daniel the drum-based roundhouses in The Karate Kid II? Or when Miyagi chops the beam that falls on Sato?
Is it defense-based when Miyagi beats up Johnny and his Cobra Kai buddies? When he beats up Chozen and his goons in The Karate Kid II? Or when he beats up Mike Barnes, Kreese, and Terry Silver in The Karate Kid III?
Let’s also highlight that this implies that Miyagi-Doh is superior offensively to all these other karate brands.
Miyagi’s view was that karate should be learned as a means of de-escalation, rather than the karate itself being only defense-based.
But it could be used for attack – and successfully – when needed, as the overwhelming evidence shows.
The Antagonist
Cobra Kai’s biggest weakness is the conflict’s built on the rivalries from The Karate Kid and The Karate Kid III, and that Kreese and Silver still nurture unresolved anger that’s become pathological.
Kreese is given a nice arc, at least, and the character gains some satisfaction in season six. But somehow, Silver, who’s rich, needs to win at all costs to the extent he develops an Austin-Powers-like scheme to populate the world with his karate brand.
As much as I enjoyed most of the show’s run, we keep seeing the same recycled grievance, the only difference being that everybody else is moved around to orbit that premise until they crash in a final battle.
The show’s strength is when it strikes out on its own, e.g. showing Johnny’s problematic relationship with his stepfather, as well as his relationship with Robby; or exploring how Kreese and Silver met and why Silver grew indebted to him.
There’s great storytelling when that occurs, but it becomes regressive when it’s yet another Daniel/Johnny/Kreese/Silver feud over a thirty-five-year-old grievance.
The Final Season
So, in the final season, Daniel and Johnny take their belated karate bloomers to the Sekai Taikai, a prestigious global tournament to determine the best dojo in the world.
Somehow, Miyagi-Doh, which is made up of all these short-term karate afficionados, qualifies – and, again, I just want to qualify that while it might be improbable applying this formula to an exception, it is possible. But applying it to such a big group just seems impossible.
In any case, the final season’s needlessly split in three:
Part One: involves all this fodder where Daniel and Johnny choose who their team’s going to be. There are several subplots introduced here involving the flipflopping conflict, and none of it ever feels entirely necessary. This first/third of the season could’ve been reduced to a thirty-second scene where Daniel and Johnny announce their team. We know who it’s going to come down to. The supporting cast are just filler at this point.
Part Two: this involves the Sekai Taikai tournament, and is excellent – it throws in a new dojo, the Iron Dragons, and several twists and surprises that generate and sustain tension. This brings a freshness to Cobra Kai that hasn’t been there since the first couple of seasons.
Part Three: this is amazingly bland, featuring pretty much all the pay-offs you’d expect, with lots of the supporting characters fading so far into the background that you’d think they (and their arcs) had been written out of the show. It’s especially egregious given how much time is dedicated to them in part one.
The thing that would be of most interest here is if the showrunners already had this conclusion in mind when the show started.
Was this always meant to be a redemptive journey for Johnny Lawrence?
Where to Now?
I loved the first season of Cobra Kai, liked the second season, but while I sporadically enjoyed elements from that point, I often just wanted somebody to walk in and tell everybody to get over this.
The introduction and use of legacy characters is mostly brilliant (the reappearance of Ali, who recontextualized her relationships with Johnny and Daniel, was one horrible misfire), and the story plays best when it looks forward, rather than recycles the Miyagi Doh-Cobra Kai conflict.
I’m glad it’s finally signed off, because it was growing tired – some of the actors also looked like they were going through the motions in the last few seasons. Miguel, for example, hasn’t had an arc in four seasons. He’s just there dealing with the same relationship issues.
There’s the new movie, Karate Kid: Legends, featuring Ralph Macchio and Jackie Chan, from the 2010 kung-fu soft reboot, now being advertised.
I’m unsure there’s much more to do in this universe, since the story’s always only going to be some rag-to-riches plot that results in an underdog triumphing against the odds.
But I’ll no doubt watch it.