"Cobra Kai," Season 5: review

Daniel and Chozen in one of several confrontations with Terry Silver

Season 5 of "Cobra Kai," released by Netflix only this month, has a 100% Certified Fresh rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as a 94% approval rating from regular audiences. I'm not sure I would rate this season quite that highly, but it had its good points.

The story picks up where Season 4 left off: Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) has scammed John Kreese (Martin Kove), with Kreese being arrested for a crime he didn't commit. Meanwhile, Daniel (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny (William Zabka) have become comfortable teaching side by side despite their differing styles, but because Daniel and Johnny's teams lost to Cobra Kai at the tournament, Daniel has agreed to shut Miyagi-do down. Tory (Peyton List), who won the tournament fight against Daniel's daughter Sam (Mary Mouser), has pangs of conscience after discovering that the tournament judge had been bribed by Terry Silver to fix the match. Volunteering to help Daniel in his quest to take down Terry Silver, Chozen Toguchi (Yuji Okumoto) leaves Okinawa to stay with Daniel for an undetermined period.

Season 5 deals with some of the usual teen-drama soap opera as Sam wrestles with her feelings for Miguel (Xolo Maridueña). Terry Silver manages to get so far under Daniel's skin that this begins to erode Daniel's relationship with his wife Amanda (Courtney Henggeler): Silver proves to be an excellent gaslighter, acting maliciously when no one is looking, then feigning wide-eyed innocence in public. Toward the latter half of the season, we learn, through Kreese, of Silver's span to expand Cobra Kai both domestically and internationally: his ambitions extend far beyond the San Fernando Valley. Silver recruits help from Kim Da-eun (Alicia Hannah-Kim), the rich and ruthless Korean granddaughter of Kim Sun-young, the master who taught Kreese and Silver a dishonorable form of dangsudo. Meanwhile, Kreese proves to be a menace inside the prison, earning his fellow inmates' respect. Johnny tries to get Robby (Tanner Buchanan) to reconcile with Miguel, but it's hard going at first. Cobra Kai sees a chance to gain global prestige by participating in a huge contest called the Sekai Taikai (which I think would be 세계대회/segye-daehoe in Korean, i.e., a global competition), but Daniel and Johnny get word of this and decide to enter their dojo as well.

We also get a couple of guest stars who had appeared in the previous Karate Kid films. Daniel's old nemesis Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan, from "The Karate Kid: Part III") returns, and it's not obvious, initially, whose side he might be on. Also returning is Jessica Andrews (Robyn Lively), Daniel's not-quite-flame from "The Karate Kid: Part III" and, as it happens, cousin of Daniel's wife Amanda.

To me, Season 5 felt tonally all over the place. Episode 3, in particular, strikes me as particularly cringe-inducing: it's filled with comedy misfires that were, frankly, hard for me to watch. Daniel's daughter Samantha continues to be the source of unnecessary drama, and by the end of the season, with Miguel openly professing his love for Sam, I really had to wonder what he saw in her. Miguel gets a bit of a subplot at the beginning of the series as he tries to track down his long-lost father in Mexico despite warnings from his mother Carmen (Vanessa Rubio) that Miguel's father is a dangerous man. This subplot doesn't end with anything significant, although I suppose there could be implications for Season 6.

The fight choreography remains problematic; I'm still convinced this is less a show about karate than it is about the dramatic interactions between and among the characters. I get that most of the actors aren't lifetime martial artists (or even martial actors like Jackie Chan, who graduated from the Beijing Opera, not from any wushu school), and there's a need to keep everybody safe on set. All the same, it would be nice to see some Scott Adkins- or Wesley Snipes-level martial choreography, at least when the adults are fighting. Thomas Ian Griffith is an actual martial artist, but even his moves look a little slow and loose—perhaps more a function of the choreography itself than of his skill. Sean Kanan, too, is a legitimate martial artist, but the show makes him out to be more of an ordinary brawler, more into tackling people than actually fighting them.

The season has its good points, though. It's definitely trying to convey the message that people can change for the better—that old enemies and rivals can turn out to be friends, and help can come from the most unexpected of places. While I noted above that Episode 3 had its cringey moments, the show's overall comedic feel is still intact and still consistent with that of previous seasons. While some of the series's head fakes were a little too predictable (Episode 10, for example, begins with Kreese getting shanked in prison, but of course this turns out to be a ruse), I liked how the screenwriters did their best to keep us viewers on our toes. The introduction of Kim Da-eun as a totally new villain (villainess, really) with no connection to any previous movies was a smart way to balance out all the callbacks to the films. Da-eun is a hardass bitch (trivia: the actress who plays her was born and bred in Australia), and while she feels, at times, like an exaggerated baddie from an old Bruce Lee movie, she succeeded in making me hate her. I mean that as a compliment.

Korea-related issues cropped up again this season. With the introduction of Kim Da-eun, the show is doubling down on the Korean roots of Cobra Kai karate (but kai is a Japanese particle, not Korean). Da-eun uses the Korean term dojang to refer to the martial training hall—not the Japanese word dojo. She leads her classes using Korean commands as well, just like Terry Silver, so it's once again confusing to me as to why, in other contexts, the Cobra Kai people use nothing but Japanese terms like sensei and karate. I also got the feeling—and maybe I'm just imagining this—that Korea in general is coming in for a beating in this show: the bully Kyler, for example, is a gyopo, i.e., ethnically Korean, even if he's always trying to sound black. Kim Da-eun is a Korean villainess, and her grandfather's fighting style is thoroughly disreputable. Japanese martial arts (and culture) come out looking pure and honorable by comparison. It's not that I feel any sort of wounded cultural or nationalistic pride when it comes to how Korea is represented in movies and on TV shows, but it does seem as if the series has found a particular country to be its whipping boy.

While I think the series is ratcheting the action up toward the ridiculous (at this rate, someone's going to have to die in Season 6), and it may have lost some of its comedic edge, Season 5 of "Cobra Kai" is entertaining enough to keep me watching. The positive, uncynical message about how people can change for the better is a good one to put out there, and while the fight choreography could use a little help, and the teen drama could afford to be toned down several notches, the story is still a gripping one. It was also interesting to see Daniel's old rivals and enemies interacting with each other: Chozen gets a moment to talk with Johnny, for example, and Daniel learns something about Mike Barnes. By the end of Season 5, one of the main villains has been dealt with (although not permanently), and another has proved he's still a clear and present danger, so there's plenty of fodder as "Cobra Kai" heads into its sixth season. And I think I'll be there to watch it.