The New Cobra Kai Youtube Red Series is a Guilty Pleasure of Mine

One of my top 5 favorite movies of all time is the original Karate Kid for a various number of reasons. Its not because the movie is amazingly cinematic or delves into deep ideas, but its a great 80s movie with a fantastic feel, characters and look. Not to mention it has a Japanese flair and im a sucker for any type of Japanese fusion in American movies. The second movie was okay, but lacked some of the feeling of the first one and the third one in the series was flat out garbage. Not to mention the attempted reboot with Hillary Swank.

So I was very excited to hear that a few months ago Youtube talked about adding a continuation of the original series on their Youtube Red platform. To be honest I wish it would have been on Netflix because I dont have Youtube Red and this is the only program I know of that interests me at the moment, but that being said, I am still willing to cough up the small payment just to watch the new Kobra Kai episodes that are premiering there. Especially since you have two of the main actors, Ralph Maccio and William Zabka coming to reprise their roles as Daniel Larusso and Johnny Lawrence respectively.

The setting of the new series takes place around 35 years after the original movie where the main antagonist in the first movie, Johnny, is now a washed up alcoholic living in the past of his glory days, moving from job to job as a maintenance man. Danny Larusso however is a successful salesman and car dealership owner with a beautiful wife house and family. Johnny is haunted by the past of losing and wondering how his life went wrong. After a new dorky high school student moves into his apartment building, he ultimately gets persuaded to reopen the Kobra Kai dojo in order to teach kids, mostly those getting picked on, how to fight back.

Yes the series is cheesy and has a ton of throwbacks to the original, but I can honestly say I am really enjoying it. Some people's guilty pleasures are things like reality TV or talk shows like Jerry Springer, while mine happens to be a little taste of nostalgia. Its great seeing the original actors, even at their current old age, but continuing the story decades later makes it really interesting. I am about 75% of the way through and I would say if you want to check it out definitely do because the first two episodes are free and if you decide to spend the money on the month of youtube red just for the series, I dont think you will be disappointed.

-Calaber24p