The ’80s were a heyday for the underdog. Whether the arena was the corporate workplace or the hormone hurricane of high school, bullies and their respective comeuppances were ubiquitous in the decade’s cinematic offerings. 1984’s The Karate Kid was one of the most popular David vs. Goliath offerings on the big screen, and its legacy goes way beyond fly-hunting with chopsticks, or beachfront training montages, or its litany of catchphrases. Through sequels, reboots and small screen re-invention, the legend of The Karate Kid spans decades, and continues to inspire and delight each new generation as they meet life’s great challenges.
So, given that the first four films have been given a splendid Blu-ray release (as well as the release of Cobra Kai on DVD) and in anticipation of the forthcoming shared universe blockbuster Karate Kid: Legends and the advent of our current giveaway for The Karate Kid on 4K UHD, we taking a look at why The Karate Kid endures, and how its legacy gave rise to perhaps the most unexpected success in the continuing adventures of Cobra Kai.
Back in the early eighties, and keen to repeat the success of Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky phenomenon, Columbia sought Robert Mark Kamen to write a script for John G. Avildsen to direct with a similar theme to the pugilistic passion project. It made a lot of sense, as Avildsen had directed Rocky to Oscar glory and Kamen’s script (who had found a real life ‘Karate Kid’ to base his story on) hit all the ‘coming of age, painfully’ notes.
A cast was assembled, with a few notable names such as Charlie Sheen, Toshiro Mifune, Crispin Glover and future Oscar winner Grant Heslov falling by the casting wayside, and the film went into production. Here I’ll defer to the excellent Oral History of the making of the first Karate Kid film from SI.com – it’s a fascinating read, not least for the various injuries that were endured.
Once released to rapturous success, The Karate Kid’s legacy began in the playground. I have memories of kids (yes, all right – me) trying to replicate the Crane Kick and fight dummy karate in break time. Martial Arts lessons were all the rage, Joe Esposito’s ‘You’re the Best‘ was on constant replay, and a thousand teenage hearts were lost to Elisabeth Shue (my co-editor’s being just one). Whoever had the film on VHS was king for the day. It was a genuine moment in time.
Forty years on, and the film still resonates. Yes, ‘Sweep the Leg’ has inspired countless products to ape the Cobra Kai mantra of No Mercy, and yes – every time a Gen Xer has to wipe anything from a greasy window to a spill on the floor they will tear up as they hear the words of Mr. Miyagi confidently command the movement. They will wax on, then wax off.
This is not the reason the Karate Kid legacy endures however. Mentorship, inner strength, balance in life, resilience are all tenets of self-improvement that the film espoused. As kids we were primed to receive this wisdom, especially if it meant we could kick things at the same time. But the lessons learned, and the necessity to re-learn them across the span of our lives is at the heart of why The Karate Kid has never left us.
A number of sequels to the 1984 original appeared, including Hilary Swank’s Next Karate Kid adventure a decade on. None of the films captured the magic, even the successful Jackie Chan-starring reboot which appeared in 2010 updated the story, and was most powerful in its character-based moments, but it wasn’t until 2018 that the magic returned.
Enter Cobra Kai.
Nostalgia alone isn’t enough to propel and sustain the rapid success of Cobra Kai. Hollywood has become adept at distilling the thrill of resurrecting familiar characters on screen, and using our memories and expectations to set out a compelling path ahead. The bait is the ‘Whatever happened to…’, with the hook following, ‘Oh, wow – that happened to them?’. Johnny Lawrence’s deadbeat dad with a liking for the inside of a liquor bottle was an unexpected, yet completely understandable return for character. Likewise Daniel LaRusso’s gaudy but unsatisfying success, heavily propped up by his own ‘Karate Kid’ popularity from decades past, gave Cobra Kai a relatability and a new dynamic. Both losers in their own way, looking to reinvent themselves, and both needing the other to show them how.
The first series of Cobra Kai was as much a retooling of the first film as with previous reboots, and it benefitted greatly from the additional time a TV series allows. As we’ve seen from the Creed films, whose Rocky origins greatly inspired Robert Mark Kamen’s script for the original Karate Kid film, the fight against time is the ultimate battle. Life humbles all of us, and a fighter’s true purpose is to pass on their knowledge to the next generation.
Cobra Kai’s teenage ensemble are as much a ragtag collection of misfits and meatheads as the original film. There is more understanding from parents perhaps, and a more diverse cast (and, finally, some central female characters), but the reason Cobra Kai stayed in the spotlight once the glare of nostalgia waned was that the fight never truly ends.
A hard lesson in life is that no-one really knows what they’re doing. It’s all made up as best you can, and the reflections cast by the middle age actors and the school kids going through these motions are plentiful. What lies at the heart of The Karate Kid, beyond the catchphrases, the kicks and the schoolyard power struggle, is the discipline and focus on the self – the other eternal battle. Following the excitement of the young protégés of Miyagi-Do and the rekindled Cobra Kai dojos as their knowledge and confidence grows mirrors the journeys of their respective sensei.
While this makes for a fecund emotional foundation, Cobra Kai would have remained an interesting experiment for the fledgling (now forgotten) YouTube Red platform. Instead a move to Netflix and the twin infusions of cash and a vastly increased audience gave the showrunners the impetus to deepen the stories being told. There was, admittedly, an increase (no pun intended) in returning characters, however they too were treated with respect and were woven into the tapestry with care.
Cobra Kai’s success is both a blueprint for reigniting a ready audience with its nostalgic fervour, and an example of how to use society’s increased sophistication for its entertainment to tell a timeless story.
You can buy The Karate Kid 4K UHD, The Karate Kid 4-Movie Collection on Blu-ray™ and Cobra Kai Seasons 1-5 on DVD to watch at home now.
