Patrick Feminis
01/01/2021 15:20
Clarín.com
Shows
TV
Updated 01/01/2021 3:46 PM
"Karate wasn't dead in the '80s?"
says an old man to a mobile TV in Los Angeles, California, in the third season of
Cobra Kai
, available on Netflix since January 1.
A battle at West Valley High School between teenage karate girls (with a Latino boy in a coma)
exposed a tragicomedy that spans four decades of martial fanaticism
.
And it shows
the momentary failure of two mentors of eternal rivalry: Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence
.
The confident hero and the non-deconstructed antihero.
They, the icons of the old
Karate Kid
, are the soul and the most subtle fists in
this magnetic series: Cobra Kai
.
Who had thrown the first kick in the original 1984 film?
Cobra Kai, a band of evil karate fighters instructed by John Kreese (a mentor to Johnny's bloody bullying of Daniel) extended their resentments against Daniel's honorable legion into the 21st century, inspired by the late Mr. Miyagi (Pat Morita).
Ralph Macchio and William Zabka are once again the magnet of this series inspired by the movie they themselves starred in in 1984.
Now fifty-year-old alcoholic Johnny (
William Zabka
) repairs the houses of the rich in Los Angeles, while Daniel (
Ralph Macchio
) runs a car dealership with oriental slogans
: "We kick the competition
.
"
Karate didn't die in the '80s.
Its nostalgic effect, near or far from kitsch, was
the guarantee of the fervor that Cobra Kai inspires, even in the new generations
.
The series was able to refloat the duel
between the blond Johnny (a macho anti-immigrant related to the Trump era) and the dark-haired Daniel (liberal, naive and entrepreneur).
With
ten half-hour episodes per season
,
Cobra Kai
emerged in 2018 on the YouTube Red platform, but
exploded in 2020, when it moved to Netflix
.
There he achieved a global audience without age limits.
And now he plays his chips thoroughly:
the light against the dark, in the middle of the family melodrama
.
If Macchio and Zabka never intuited that they would be reborn in
Cobra Kai
, they also did not imagine that their successors teenangers would be a great resource to attract new audiences and be able to transmit the founding lessons of the
Karate Kid
: "There are no bad students, but bad teachers."
And
resilience is achieved with an ancient discipline, corporal and mental
.
Although in this new episode the star is still the action, other ingredients appear, with a touch of romance and comedy.
What other legendary saga does it remind you of but
Star Wars
?
In
this reinvention of yesterday for the streaming age that is Cobra Kai
, the apprentices make their elders' grudges more complex.
At the end of the second season, Miguel Díaz (Xolo Maridueña), Johnny's disciple at
Cobra Kai's
dojo, was left in a coma
.
He is compassionate, but the bad influence of that one made him vindictive and merciless.
The kick and fall that got him to the hospital were Robby Keene's (Tanner Buchanan) fault.
Johnny is his absent father and Robby, to get revenge, took lessons with his enemy: Daniel.
Above, he goes out with his daughter, Samantha LaRusso (Mary Mouser), who, worse, was Miguel's girlfriend.
The love triangle may be seen as a cliché in these less possessive times
, but here everything inevitably refers to the
Karate Kid
.
That's why it didn't take long for the absolute villain to return: the sadistic founder of the order of
Cobra Kai
, John Creese (Martin Kove).
With the cards thrown, the dilemma will be dealing with the effects of the fateful fight at West Valley High School.
Cobra Kai
does not triumph only out of longing: he
reaches his greatest acting and humorous power with Daniel and Johnny
, never rusty in their opposite vision of karate.
"Dad, weren't we the good guys?" Samantha doubts, between two loves.
Daniel looks at her tenderly: “We are.
Or at least we tried ”.
And he finishes: "But we cannot run from problems."
File
Rating:
Very Good
Action
Stars:
Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, Mary Mouser, Courtney Henggeler, Xolo Maridueña, Tanner Buchanan, and Martin Kove
Creators and Writers:
Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg
Broadcast:
Three seasons on Netflix