For one more trip back to ’84, let’s look at a rather defining film from that era that ended casting a surprisingly long shadow—be it waxing on or waxing off, here’s my take on the Karate Kid.
The general story is nothing too revolutionary now—new and slightly outcast kid Daniel (Ralph Macchio) moves to California with a single mom to end up with the usual high school struggles…except this time the bullies are specifically trained in all the arts needed to pound the snot out of him. That leads him to an eccentric old Japanese janitor Miyagi, played by Pat Morita, who may have some tricks to teach Daniel, and some inner demons of his own.
As straightforward as it all is, most importantly, it’s all played with sincerity—Macchio was in his early twenties when they made this but was still able to pass rather convincingly for a teenager, and puts a good job into it all. The real star, of course, is Morita—oh sure, his speech patterns may come off as rather stereotypical now, but it’s enough to suggest that there’s a lot more going on under the hood of Miyagi, and indeed, it turns out he’s wrestling with a lot more than his seemingly serene facade suggests. It’s those little touches that made what was going to be one of the inceptors of the 80s martial arts craze have just a little more to it.
There’s the girlfriend stuff with Elisabeth Shue as the love interest, and the eighties training montages—while everyone remembers ‘You’re the Best’, the score by Bill Conti actually holds up pretty well for what it’s going for. On the side, William Zabka is of course the main stooge to our ultimate bad guy Martin Kove, as the dark sensei foil to Miyagi—but more on them both later.
The sequel was actually a surprising step up, taking the action to Okinawa and really delving into Miyagi’s character, giving Morita more of a chance to shine. It’s still pretty straightforward but with heavier themes of revenge and family, it actually works even better, with some tenser fight scenes and all that. The third film…well, nearly everyone seems to forget, but more on that later.
Decades later, though, the film was revived as a web series bringing back Zabka as the bully Johnny, now grown up and resenting Daniel’s success, but finding a purpose of sorts by reviving his master’s dojo—Cobra Kai. At the time it was seen as just another eighties revival, but ended up on Netflix and spinning out into a sprawling series of its own that overshadows the original film series just for content. How so? Surprisingly simple, but in a way often forgotten—taking the source material, expanding it in a way that made sense, and being respectful to it all the way. Kove and even the antagonist from the third film all make returns at some point, in ways that delve into their characters pretty deep beyond the archetypes we had 40 years ago—proving that yes, all it takes for an actual successful reboot is some care.
Cobra-Kai seems to be wrapping up, thankfully enough after seemingly exhausting every possible conflict it could, and good on it--though apparently we have a new film crossing over it and the Jackie Chan reboot from 2010 many seem to have forgotten about! It is quite an amusing success story of taking what to some was a Reagan relic and bringing an entirely new life to it for a new generation—would other things be so lucky. The original, while perhaps a bit rusty to modern eyes, holds up fine enough for an afternoon watch—like Morita himself, there was a bit more to it all than would meet the eye…
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