(This story is an archive, refer to following byline for author's name)
By Kialani Siavii
The streaming service Netflix came out with a new hit series in 2018 called Cobra Kai, the show recently released season three on Jan.1 of this year. The show is a follow up on classic movies of the Karate Kid with Ralph Macchio It is based in Southern California with the protagonist being William Zabaka also known as Johnny Lawrance, the antagonist in the first Karate Kid movie. Lawrence re-opens the dojo Cobra Kai which reignites his rivalry with Daniel LaRusso.
A great thing about the series is that it has many different perspectives. It shows the perspectives of not just Lawerance but also of LaRusso and the many other characters that you will be introduced to once you watch the series. It gives you great insight to everyone's feelings and their reasoning as to why they performed the action they did. Lastly, it helps develop the plot tremendously and it makes the watcher want to watch the next episode. With the different perspectives being on display it gives the watcher a great amount of nostalgia if they also watched the Karate Kid movies.
A fault of Cobra Kai is that the acting is like a teenage drama. Although the story is portrayed by teens, the actor’s acting can be appealing at some points but at others, it can be very cringe-worthy. This makes the watcher have second-hand embarrassment. The actors have all had previous projects which were successful in their respective categories, which makes me question if it was the actor’s fault or the writers and producer’s fault for some of these poor performances.