‘Cobra Kai’ review: Crane-kicking its way to a lasting legacy

‘Wax on, wax off, hah! I’m gonna show you Sensei John Woo’s version of Face/Off.’

The 1980s gave us a lot of great stuff, big cheesy hairdos aside, and one standout of the decade’s enduring contributions to pop culture (and dare I say, building character?) is undeniably The Karate Kid.

If, like How I Met Your Mother’s Barney Stinson, you believe that it was antagonistic Cobra Kai student Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) who was the film’s true “karate kid”, and not underdog Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio), then the first few episodes of Cobra Kai sure lend a lot of credibility to that notion.