The following is going to get into spoilers for the ongoing final season of Cobra Kai, so you might want to stop reading if you haven’t caught up on the Karate Kid spinoff show, available with a Netflix subscription.
We knew going in to the sixth and final season of Cobra Kai that the show would be broken up into three segments. Currently, we’re able to watch parts one and two, consisting of 10 episodes that have brought the Miyagi-Do fighters to Barcelona, where they are competing in the global Sekai Taikai tournament. This means that they are facing old foes in Cobra Kai, and new ones in The Iron Dragons. At the same time, there are plenty of personal issues for the kids – and the adults – to work through.
Behind the scenes, Cobra Kai did right by one of its legends. Ralph Macchio, who has been playing Daniel LaRusso since day one of The Karate Kid franchise, stepped behind the camera for Episode 3 of Cobra Kai Season 6, and it gave him a great opportunity to pay tribute to the legends who came before him. While interviewing Macchio for his work on Season 6, I asked him about directing, and the influences of the original The Karate Kid director John G. Avildsen (who also helmed Rocky with Sylvester Stallone). And Macchio informed CinemaBlend:
There's a little boxing homage in that episode, if you recall, in part one. And so I drew on certain camera shots that Avildsen had in Rocky, and drew on some other films that he had made. And I wanted to pepper them throughout. It's subliminal. It's not in your face, but, if you look for them. At one point, I wanted to have Spider Rico's name up on the wall in the boxing gym we were in. That was a fighter who Balboa was fighting. So all that stuff is peppered in that episode. … John is with us. He certainly is. We're influenced by him. And this series is influenced by him. And in part two, he would've had a field day shooting the Sekai Taikai. I'd like to believe him, Pat (Morita), and (Jerry) Weintraub, the producer, they're all still with us in a way, because we learned from them.
It’s sweet to hear that Ralph Macchio continues to carry the influence of the storytelling giants that came before him as he brings the story of Cobra Kai to a close. What started as a clever satirization of the original The Karate Kid has grown into a show that a whole new generation has come to appreciate, changing the lives of the young actors cast to star in the show, and also setting the stage for more stories in the Karate Kid universe.
Next summer, an upcoming 2025 movie is going to pair Ralph Macchio with Jackie Chan, who toplined a successful Karate Kid remake, for a story that’s expected to modernize the mythology of the franchise. And, the Cobra Kai showrunners have talked at length about figuring out how to explore the backstory of Mr. Miyagi in a way that honors the work done by Pat Morita. Something tells me that even though Cobra Kai is drawing to an end, the stories told in the world of The Karate Kid are just beginning.
