In the finals of the All Valley Karate Tournament, the culmination of the groundbreaking classic The Karate Kid, Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence’s fierce rivalry is all but settled. Daniel is injured, with an illegal punch that sprained his leg. Determined and a little apprehensive, he hobbles onto the mat. Johnny, his rival and bully, looms over him like an animal waiting to strike. Daniel wears a pristine white Gi while Johnny is black. A smaller film would have left it there. but The Karate Kid uses one of his final moments to introduce nuance into an otherwise black-and-white story in just three words: sweep the leg.
Johnny’s sensei, John Kreese, sees Johnny falling behind and orders him to capitalize on Daniel’s injury. William Zabka’s performance is impeccable. His face screams confusion and anger as he sees his teacher’s ruthless philosophy being used against him and by him at the same time. When Kreese tells him “No mercy,” unlike at any other point in the film, he doesn’t respond. He is heartbroken and angry as he follows orders. His attacks range from decisive to frenzied. He screams through his punches, eyes wild, like he’s on the verge of tears. As he capitalizes on LaRusso’s injury, the crowd’s boos grow louder with every move. At the start of the last point, he spins up to finish his somber task, but in just milliseconds he’s humiliated with a kick to the face and sent to the ground cowering.
Still, this could be an opportunity to show, through a loss, that Johnny was as bad as the audience wanted him to be. The Johnny we’re expecting would be far more likely to throw a cheap shot or a nifty insult. Instead, he loses with dignity. Suddenly, the villain we’ve had to hate throughout the movie very briefly turns out to be just an angry kid with a pain in his heart. These rivals are more alike than they think, with the biggest difference in their lives being the direction their anger is directed. Daniel found Mr. Miyagi and his stoic pacifism. Johnny was taken by Kreese, which would have served him better as a cautionary tale.
The rivalry between LaRusso and Lawrence lives on alongside the original film, but as is the case with so many stories, nuance has become a victim of time. Johnny’s characterization focuses on his cruelty and the complex emotional journey portrayed in his defeat is forgotten. The heartbreaking delivery of ‘Sweep the Leg’ is reduced to quote fodder for unlicensed novelty t-shirts. Input Cobra Kai.
While a multi-year sequel series certainly wasn’t part of the plan for the Karate Kid franchise, the show’s surprising quality (and subsequent success) has brought the rivalry between Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence back into the cultural conversation. As the series begins, we see Johnny, now in his early 50s, living in the shadow of his own wasted potential. Meanwhile, success abounds for Daniel, who has become the owner of a luxury car dealership in the Valley. Johnny is limping from his defeat and Daniel is more than happy to smugly tell of that defeat to anyone who will listen. The tables are turned and Daniel sweeps the leg without thinking twice. From the start, the show makes it clear that this is a story about rivalry.
In the end, Johnny reopens the Cobra Kai dojo, this time with the interesting twist of using his merciless philosophy to empower kids who feel like failures. Daniel, believing the Cobra Kai philosophy is dangerous, takes on two of his own students. The two repeatedly bump into each other, while Johnny’s “hit hard, hit first, no mercy” attitude is always at odds with Miyagi-do’s more thoughtful, pacifist approach. The show’s first season culminates in another All-Valley Karate Showdown, this time with audience sympathy on both sides.
Cobra Kai could have stopped its narrative development there and still been an entertaining remix of a story that was always satisfying to watch. But by the end of season one, Johnny’s star student, Miguel, wins the tournament by taking advantage of his opponent’s injuries. Johnny questions the philosophy that made his star student the kind of person he regretted growing up, as the show introduces a new central tension in the form of a familiar villain. Johnny’s former sensei, John Kreese, smokes a cigar in the shadow of the empty Cobra Kai dojo and reveals himself.
From then on, the story pours gas into the open fire. Kreese feigns regret and persuades Johnny to let him teach alongside her. Cobra Kai students leave the dojo for Miyagi-Do. Miyagi-Do students drop out for Cobra Kai. Friends become rivals, rivals become friends, all as virtually every possible romantic permutation the show could possibly explore is explored. The show becomes less of a nostalgic retread of old ground and more of a shonen anime. The fact that these students are school children takes a backseat to their love of karate and the all-consuming rivalries it inspires in their lives. The second season ends with a karate brawl on campus so large that Miguel is left in a coma. The third season ends with another one taking place at LaRusso’s home (in one of the show’s best deliveries, Courtney Henggeler fearfully points to the rubble of her home and says, “A little boy was thrown through our window!”). Each season takes our characters further and further away from the world they inhabited in the original films and deeper into their logical progression: a city where battles can solve any problem and daily life is constantly derailed by sudden teenage bouts of karate . In hindsight, Mr. Miyagi’s pacifism feels justified.
By the end of season four, the show itself appears to be an exploration of the silliness of violence and rivalry itself (albeit one that still uses both to great effect). The focus is on the “villain” who started it all. Zabka plays Johnny with the same complex mix of pain, charisma and anger as back then The Karate Kid came out in theaters, but this time it seems audiences are more willing to get used to the nuances. If there is a message that Cobra Kai for his audience is that rivals are rarely long rivals. Even Kreese seems destined for a redemption arc as Terry Silver takes the top villain slot.
But even as the story expands to accommodate an ever-expanding cast of characters, it still makes time for the rivalry that started it all. In Season 4, now teaching side-by-side, Daniel and Johnny stage a long-awaited formal rematch of their original fight. Despite cheers from her students from the sidelines, each begging for a definitive answer as to which side is better, the fight ends in a double knockout. With two cartoonish pitfalls, our heroes find themselves on the mat with the answer to the question “Who would win?” no closer to her grasp. As a viewer, you can’t help but wonder: can there ever really be an answer, or is it about the fight? What if the biggest rival we have is the forces that propel us against each other? What if the reward for defeating your rival is just another rival?
Through Cobra Kai‘s assessment, there are rivalries all the way down. Each villain turns out to be just another angry, aching-hearted child who was simply ruined by the villain who got there first. Maybe Cobra Kai trying to find a way to break the cycle. Or maybe it’s just trying to teach us to relax and enjoy the endless karate-paved road to hell.