Cobra Kai - 10/10
Umm ... wow.
I started watching this because I figured it would be a decent little bit of 80s nostalgia to waste some time with for a little bit and then quickly forget about. What I got was an exceptionally well written show full of nuanced characters, great plot lines and engaging themes. It has enough nostalgia in it to do decent fan service, but not so much that it overtakes the new storylines or causes people who never saw the Karate Kid movie to really miss anything about what's going on. It was completely unexpected how good this show is and and I was not prepared to be this impressed.
Basically, it's a sequel to the Karate Kid movie, thirty years later with the same actors. The bully who Danny defeated in the tournament (Johnny) is the main character and his life has been pretty shit since then and he's still kind of living in the 80s, which was the last time that he was cool, but he reopens the old Cobra Kai dojo and helps a bunch of outcast kids learn self-confidence and how to defend himself, mainly focusing on one kid whom he takes on as his first student, who's dating Danny's daughter in a Romeo and Juliet type sub-plot. He doesn't do it well in many cases, since he's been a drunken bum for thirty years, but the journey he goes through while trying is just awesome to see. Danny is also in it and his life is a success and everything in going well, in stark contrast to what's happening with Johnny, but he still has some PTSD from the bullying he went through in high school and he doesn't want to see the Cobra Kai come back.
The conflicts between the two of them are done well in that neither of them is ever really the bad guy, but because they're two people trying to do good but the bullshit from their past funneled through very believable stubbornness and poor decisions keeps having them butt heads with each other and leads up to their two students facing off in the same tournament that they fought in all those years ago. It is an amazing continuation of the characters that's faithful to the originals and moves their story along in a very compelling way.
One of the best surprises I've seen in a long time and if you have a vaguely fond memory of having once seen the Karate Kid move a long while back, you will enjoy it a lot.
Umm ... wow.
I started watching this because I figured it would be a decent little bit of 80s nostalgia to waste some time with for a little bit and then quickly forget about. What I got was an exceptionally well written show full of nuanced characters, great plot lines and engaging themes. It has enough nostalgia in it to do decent fan service, but not so much that it overtakes the new storylines or causes people who never saw the Karate Kid movie to really miss anything about what's going on. It was completely unexpected how good this show is and and I was not prepared to be this impressed.
Basically, it's a sequel to the Karate Kid movie, thirty years later with the same actors. The bully who Danny defeated in the tournament (Johnny) is the main character and his life has been pretty shit since then and he's still kind of living in the 80s, which was the last time that he was cool, but he reopens the old Cobra Kai dojo and helps a bunch of outcast kids learn self-confidence and how to defend himself, mainly focusing on one kid whom he takes on as his first student, who's dating Danny's daughter in a Romeo and Juliet type sub-plot. He doesn't do it well in many cases, since he's been a drunken bum for thirty years, but the journey he goes through while trying is just awesome to see. Danny is also in it and his life is a success and everything in going well, in stark contrast to what's happening with Johnny, but he still has some PTSD from the bullying he went through in high school and he doesn't want to see the Cobra Kai come back.
The conflicts between the two of them are done well in that neither of them is ever really the bad guy, but because they're two people trying to do good but the bullshit from their past funneled through very believable stubbornness and poor decisions keeps having them butt heads with each other and leads up to their two students facing off in the same tournament that they fought in all those years ago. It is an amazing continuation of the characters that's faithful to the originals and moves their story along in a very compelling way.
One of the best surprises I've seen in a long time and if you have a vaguely fond memory of having once seen the Karate Kid move a long while back, you will enjoy it a lot.
