Not sure if anyone was a fan of the Karate Kid back in the day, but it was one of my all time favourite films growing up. Recently I discovered that a TV series has been made, featuring the same characters of Daniel Larusso and Johnny Lawrence (the latter was the one who was Daniel’s bully all through the film and eventually lost in the final tournament). The series focuses on 30 years after the original film, and how both characters are dealing with life in 2018. Johnny is the main character and he’s all kinds of fucked up. He has a kid he never sees, can’t hold down a stable job and is really moored in the past, holding onto resentments towards the now business-successful and happily married Daniel. He drinks, always gets into fights and is seriously disconnected from the world (e.g. There’s a particular scene where its revealed he doesn’t even know what fb is).
Johnny is drunk one night in his favourite parking lot, when a kid – Miguel- from his neighbourhood is getting beaten up by bullies. Johnny intervenes, the Karate reawakens, and he kicks all their asses. He’s inspired by the event to take the kid as a student and reopen the dojo he used to be a part of: cobrai kai (FYI also the name of the show)
The beautiful part of this series is how it explores the lingering trauma of toxic masculinity. Through vignettes and flashbacks, we learn that Johnny was raised by a neglectful stepfather and found a proxy-dad in sensei John Kreese. Kreese is physically and emotionally abusive and taught Johnny how to be the bully he became. The new series really spotlights one of Miagi’s philosophies and famous quotes from the original film: there’s no bad students, only bad teachers.
I really can’t stress how much I love this series! It’s all about how important positive male role models are, especially to fatherless boys. Karate is an ongoing motif about rewriting the narrative of maleness, reclaiming it from the toxic jaws of violence, power, and emotional repression. Johnny’s own student is a sensitive “woke” boy, and I really love how the show contrasts flashbacks from the Karate Kid with Miguel’s own training to juxtapose the toxic gender norms of the 80s with the shifting paradigms of the 21st century.
I’d really recommend giving it a watch. It’s a show the world needs. Plus, if you’re a closet martial art-film enthusiast like myself, there’s lots of dope karate scenes!
Tess Moon 