As the innovator and challenger of the current film and television structure, streaming media has become a strong competitor of traditional distribution platforms due to its low threshold and flexibility. As far as original products are concerned, streaming media is more suitable for TV products than for film production: moving from a big screen to a small screen is an inevitable choice for the popularization and commercialization of movie art, but it has never been a sufficient condition. Before the show, there were also a large number of movies that could not be shown on theatrical line, but were directly distributed on tapes and discs. These works are usually home movies and B-level movies that cannot achieve commercial success and are sought after by the mainstream market. The exclusive movie produced by Netflix is just an upgraded version of money. Streaming media is not the future of movies, but only a small part of the long development of movies.
But streaming media has a completely different effect on TV products. Compared with movies, TV has a lower standard for the audience's audition experience and a longer duration, which makes the shaping of characters in TV works more mature and profound, and it is easier to arouse the audience's empathy. In recent years, after the introduction of film-based narrative methods, the entire television field has become richer and more diverse. One of the typical phenomena is the sinking of movie IP. Although Hollywood has been squatting in the restart pit for more than ten years, the nostalgia bowl of nostalgia is still far from sitting in the sky. When public stations and cable stations are dying to innovate in order to keep their ratings, streaming media can rely on the natural attraction of the Internet to capture those aging traditional TV viewers who are not interested, but have miraculous effects for Internet users who are "prematurely aging" Points of interest. This is true for Netflix's "Stranger Things", and even more so for YouTube Red's "Cobra Kai".
As the most popular teenage film series in the 1980s, "Longwei Boy", like the contemporary "Star Wars", is an iconic work that has defined an entire generation. Before Duff Rongel, Steven Seagal and Shangge Wunton appeared on the stage, it was Ralph Marchio and Morita Noriyuki, who was nominated for the Oscar for the actor, opened the Hollywood Kung Fu movie. The golden age. And the great hero behind this is the late director John G. Elver, who once teamed up with Sylvester Stallone to create the myth of "Rocky" and won the Oscar for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Editing. Sen, and the screenwriter Robert Mark Carmen who wrote many classic action movie scripts.
Speaking of this, we will naturally find the high degree of similarity between "Rocky" and "Longwei Boy" in the female parent, as well as different narrative strategies adopted for different audience groups. The same is that LOSER achieves value through self-struggle, the difference is that the latter is simpler in motivation and character setting, and the plot is more routine (or the originator of routine). It’s also true that "Longwei Boy" can become a classic of the times in the eyes of a generation of young people. "The Romance of Mom and Dad" even used the two pros and cons of the year, William Zabka and Ralph Macchiola to perform the nostalgic drama together.
This mass basis made the birth of "Cobra" a natural thing.
For a film and television work under the banner of feelings to be truly successful, it needs to capture the charm of the original work-at least the most important part, and use modern methods to interpret it. "Lethal Weapon" has gone very successfully on the road of modernization, and "Cobra" has also gone very far in the direction of retro temperament. In "Cobra", we can see some well-designed and well-produced character development, good and reasonable comedy paragraphs, and the perfect mobilization of the audience's nostalgia. And most importantly, "Cobra" is very familiar and faithful to its original material, and all those involved in the production are obviously full of enthusiasm for "Longwei Boy".
From a certain perspective, "Cobra" and 2006's "Rocky 6" have similarities and similarities-exploring the growth of the same character in another time and space, and in the process aroused empathy in the audience. In "Cobra", William Zabka played this core role, and it is also the biggest highlight of the whole program: how to turn from a completely negative character to a positive image at 180 degrees is a wonderful attempt and a reward. Quite a success. He is like a weird person who has traveled from the past to the present. He doesn't know what to do or how to do it. The blond and blue-eyed bastard, who was popular 34 years ago, combined the past racism and bullying behavior with the current environment in a humorous form, and spiraled up the fate of the Cobra Club, a karate gym, and eventually became The classic proposition of how two generations of people fight against their own destiny is also the core theme of this play. In most of the time, "Cobra" deals with and interprets the flattening problem left over from "Longwei Boy", giving deeper motivation and meaning to those flat and monotonous characters, and making them more alive. , And tried to explore the possible potential and direction from different angles through the collision of the same character again.
Did people change the environment, or did the environment change people? "Cobra" gives an interesting answer. Although the banner of "To Youth" is very loud, "Cobra" has a unique sense of reality. As a TV series rather than a movie, although "Cobra" does not have any particularly brilliant content or ambition (this is also the location of most comedies), each episode is half an hour, and the first season has a total of 10 episodes. The length of the story and the characters The development space far exceeds that of any two-hour movie—even for the length of 10 episodes, there are some characters and story arcs that have not been fully explored. As far as the level of the drama is concerned, "Cobra" did not bring much new ideas in plot design, and even seemed too perfunctory in the treatment of the new generation of love triangles, but it was just for the purpose of justifying the role of "Longwei Boy". Look, it's not too monotonous. But considering that the second season is basically determined, this doesn't seem to be so maddening, and more should be dissatisfaction with desire.
If you are a fan of movies in the 80s, "Cobra" will give you a wonderful feeling of going around and traveling for thirty years, and this feeling is even beyond the body of "Longwei Kid". Regardless of whether you have seen the original work or not, "Cobra" is a delightful streaming drama.
View more about Cobra Kai reviews
