THE KARATE KID Actor Talks COBRA KAI Redemption Arc: ‘What the Whole Show Is About’
By Movieguide® Contributor
THE KARATE KID star William Zabka is reflecting on how the spin-off COBRA KAI got its start and the redemption of his character, Johnny Lawrence.
In the show, Johnny, the archenemy of THE KARATE KID movies’ hero, Daniel LaRusso, opens the Cobra Kai dojo and reignites his feud with LaRusso.
“I was very protective that he [Johnny] didn’t go down with the proverbial crane kick at the end of the show and become the biggest heel of all time,” Zabka recalled about the start of the show. “But they [creators Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg] kept reassuring me with their words and whole hearts on how much they loved the character and loved my work, and that they were going to give him more of the BETTER CALL SAUL treatment. That he would be more of an antihero.”
“It was step by step. When it first came out on YouTube, there was there was so many skeptics saying, ‘Oh, what are you doing with our Karate Kid,’” Zabka said. “Then there were the people cautiously keeping one eye open, that hopefully it was going to be good. The fans approached it the same way we did, which was one step at a time.”
After the first season launched, the results were in — fans loved it.
“It was just very exciting. All of a sudden, we had something that was working. At least we knew we were going to get a season two, which I think they pulled the trigger on like a week after it came out,” Zabka said.
“So, the overnight of where this started was like it was an indie band, then a small off-Broadway show that suddenly gets its Broadway debut on Netflix and becomes the thing! It was great to get our feet at Netflix, creatively, to work out the kinks and find the magic that’s COBRA KAI. It’s so unique, and Netflix nurtured that and threw gasoline on the fire. Now, here we are, at the crescendo of season six.”
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The crux of Johnny’s story is when he loses to Daniel in THE KARATE KID PART II. Johnny’s instructor, John Kreese, physically attacks him in a parking lot and breaks Johhny’s trophy. Daniel’s instructor, Mr. Miyagi, is the one who saves him.
“That is really what the whole show is about — mentors and teachers, who’s teaching you and who you are aligned with,” Zabka explained. “Johnny was kind of dealt a bad hand. He didn’t have a father and bumped into John Kreese who taught him the way of Cobra Kai as he knew it, and then betrayed Jonny and tried to choke him out at the end of KARATE KID 2.”
“That’s really the thorn in Johnny’s soul. His whole life, even 30 years later, when we pick him up and meet him again, that devastating loss, and not just the loss of the trophy, but losing his teacher, threw him into a downward spiral for all these years… He’s really a wandering, lost soul, but trying to make it work. He’s got a great heart; he just had these programs that were downloaded into him that he has to work out.”
Johnny tries to better himself, but he still carries his past hurts around with him.
“So in that moment in season six is when the little boy in Johnny, who was so betrayed, gets it somehow, because it’s all over,” Zabka explained. “The tournaments are over and Daniel doesn’t want to fight in it anymore; there’s no fight left. That’s when Johnny gets it.”
“He’s completely defeated and can open himself up. His guards and his weapons are down, and he turns into a little boy again and says the things that he’s been carrying all these years. In meantime, John Kreese has been on his own redemption arc and is right there to meet him,” he said.
His character experiences his “full redemption” after he and Kreese explain their feelings to each other, resulting in Kreese watching Johnny instruct from the stands during a tournament. The final touch is when Johnny bows upon seeing him.
THR asked Zabka where he thinks Daniel and Johnny would be in their lives now, after the series finale.
“I think somewhere down the line, they’re going to bump heads again,” Zabka laughed. “But for this moment right now, they’ve put all their differences aside. The whole arc of those two characters…they’re so far apart.”
“I look at it like a triangle; they’re moving to the same end point, but they have different ways of getting there. Throughout the show, every time they bang heads and make up or come back together, they are a little bit closer to the top and a little bit more aligned. At the end, they’re fully aligned; so, I think they understand.”
Though there won’t be any more seasons of COBRA KAI, a new movie, KARATE KID: LEGENDS will come out this May. Ralph Macchio will resume his role as Daniel and there’ll be a crossover from the 2010 KARATE KID, with Jackie Chan starring as Mr. Han again. Zabka will not star in the movie, which takes place three years after the conclusion of COBRA KAI.
“It was not a quick decision, because it was about protecting the Daniel LaRusso character, and finding where he would be at that point, and then protecting the whole legacy in the Miyagi-verse,” Macchio said last year. “Once we were able to line that up, for the COBRA KAI story to lead into the new film — even though they’re separate ecosystems — it all mad sense for me. Then, working with Jackie was just super exciting.”
READ MORE: JACKIE CHAN, RALPH MACCHIO TO STAR IN NEW KARATE KID MOVIE
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