Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

OPERATION CONDOR (AKA ARMOUR OF GOD II)

CERT: 15 | PLATFORM: BLU-RAY | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

If you’re a Jackie Chan fan, you may have felt aggrieved that the classic Operation Condor has so far only been available on a barren DVD featuring an English dub of the movie. Well, the fine folks at 88 Films have remedied this by releasing a great Blu-ray package that features a 2K restoration of the original version and an extended cut. They clearly have their finger on the pulse.

Operation Condor (AKA Armour of God II) was the most expensive Hong Kong film ever made at the time of its release in 1991. Chan, who also directs, plays Condor (being Hong Kong, this is a semi-sequel to Armour of God – the characters are different but the themes are the same), a treasure hunter who is hired by the brilliantly-named Duke Scapio to find some lost Nazi gold in the African desert. He is given the key to the vault, which every dirty rotten scoundrel is after, including a group of deadly mercenaries led by a World War II veteran. Condor is joined by three beautiful women – a German girl named Elsa (Eva Cobo) whose grandfather buried the gold in the first place, desert expert Ada (Carol Cheng) and mysterious nomad Momoko (Shoko Ikeda).

The film is an entertainment showcase, featuring gadgets galore like Condor using a Zorb ball to escape some natives in a great opening sequence. We get a fantastic car chase, as Jackie on a motorbike is pursued through the tight streets of Spain, as well as parkour, bawdy comedy and, of course, martial arts. What Jackie and his stunt team do so well here is perform short pieces of exquisitely choreographed action, where disarming a gunman looks beautiful. The audience has to wait until the end for an extended fight sequence, with Jackie facing off against multiple mercenaries in an underground bunker. At this point in time, no-one could create an action sequence like Chan.

Not everything in the movie holds up for a modern audience, however. It’s great that Condor is accompanied by three women – its not a coincidence that they are from the three areas of the world that the film was trying to appeal to – but the film treats them in a very chauvinistic way. Ada and Elsa both have their towels pulled off them to distract gunmen, the action coincidentally taking place when they are scantily dressed. The film is also set in a strange alternate universe where everyone in Spain and North Africa speak Cantonese.

The extended cut doesn’t offer any new scenes. Rather than giving us a bit more context to existing ones, it ultimately improves the film with enhanced picture and sound; Operation Condor has never looked or sounded so good. The disc includes a trailer and an interview with Canadian stuntman Bruce Fontaine, which gives a good insight into the processes on set. The highlight of the package is a booklet with great art work by “Kung Fu” Bob O’Brien that gives some good background and facts about the Armour of God franchise. It also features an interview with lead villain Vincent Lyn (this was originally meant for the disc, but Bob turned it into a telephone interview due to the coronavirus). Don’t be put off reading it though, as it’s an incredibly detailed and insightful account of working in the Hong Kong film industry with all its magic and madness. A disc made by fans, for fans. Lovely stuff.

CREEPSHOW 2

CERT: 15 | PLATFORM: BLU-RAY | RELEASE DATE: JULY 13TH

How do you follow up the greatest anthology movie in the history of horror? Well, you don’t do what 1987’s Creepshow 2 did, that’s for sure.

Consisting of three separate horror offerings penned by George A. Romero and Lucille Fletcher, and based on Stephen King stories, here we have Native American trinkets at the centre of Old Chief Wood’nhead, the gooey threat of The Raft, and the unrelenting car crash carnage of The Hitch-hiker. Of course, all are tied together by short sequences headed up by the Creep (genre fave Tom Savini).

All of these stories look to scare the pants off the audience, yet none of them manage to successfully hit in the right way. They do all manage to start in a promising manner, but it’s not long before that promise and potential descends into bland and formulaic territory.

Sadly, Creepshow 2 never quite hits in the same way as its predecessor. Obviously, that was always going to be a tall task, given the sheer quality of that 1982 film, but one of the main issues of this sequel offering is that its stories just seem too long and stretched out.

Rather than keeping each individual story to the brisk 20-ish minutes of Creepshow, the biggest downfall of Creepshow 2 is that it instead opts to centre on just three stories that clock in at 30-minutes apiece. And frankly, none of the three tales are engaging or interesting enough to be allotted a half-hour spot. Would the stories have worked better with a reduced time? Absolutely. Would they have all of a sudden become great terror tales? That’s debatable.

On the plus side, Creepshow 2 does feature some impressive practical SFX work on display, and things get particularly gnarly in The Raft. Likewise, Lois Chiles puts in the feature’s standout performance in The Hitch-hiker. Unfortunately, good gore and the odd solid turn can only get you so far, and the end result for Creepshow 2 is a movie that’s shockingly dull.

The new 2K restoration of the movie makes it look better than it ever has, and there’s a huge amount of great special features included on this typically crammed Arrow Video release – including a booklet of new writing on the sequel and some fresh interview content for die-hard horror hounds – but this really is only a release for the completists out there.

PARTS UNKNOWN

CERT: UNRATED | PLATFORM: DVD, VIMEO | RELEASE DATE: JULY 7TH

Pro wrestler Hermann von Strausser (pound shop Ron Perlman lookalike William DeCoff, himself a real-life pro wrestler back in the 80s) is fresh out of jail after serving time for intentionally killing one of his opponents during a match. He rejoins his family but, when an unfortunate incident results in his probation officer no longer being able to enjoy the benefits of oxygen, Hermann’s life – and the lives of everyone around him – turn down a road that nobody expected. Unless they were expecting to make a murder pact with a swamp demon (voiced by wrestling Hall of Famer, Jake “The Snake” Roberts) and the probation officer coming back to life…

Many of the usual pitfalls encountered by low-budget productions are present, including questionable acting, editing issues (particularly with the audio, where some lines of dialogue are nigh-on indecipherable) and a bit too much fluff, but the film unquestionably tries its absolute best with what it’s got. Some of the dialogue and performances are a bit too cheesy for their own good and there’s an unhealthy amount of sexual violence (which is especially uncomfortable to watch with the current #SpeakingOut movement going on), but there’s tons of humour, both intentional and definitely not intentional. As the story gets more and more insane, it’s difficult not to get invested in what’s happening, to the point where you can’t help but feel at least a tiny tingle of admiration for everyone involved.

Parts Unknown is a fine effort for such a low-budget production. The campy goofiness and unexpectedly mental story (in case you missed it: crazy wrestling family killing people at the behest of a swamp demon while being tracked by an immortal probation officer) manage to override the more cringe-inducing moments, building enough good will to carry you through to the end. Someone throw some money their way and turn Parts Unknown into a 45-minute Kung Fury-style short immediately please!

LITTLE JOE

CERT: 12 / DIRECTOR: JESSICA HAUSNER / SCREENPLAY: JESSICA HAUSNER, GERALDINE BAJARD /STARRING: EMILY BEECHAM, BEN WHISHAW, KERRY FOX, KIT CONNOR / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

We are currently living in a frustrated, pent-up world full of anger and fury, finger-pointing, and fist-shaking. Social media is awash with furores and backlashes, and everyone currently appears to be obsessed with either causing offence or being offended. Little Joe, Jessica Hausner’s eerie and disquieting debut English-language feature film offers us the possibility of a life detached from such tiresome inconveniences and leaves the audience to decide if we’d be better off with our baser instinctive passions removed or perhaps turned into something less than human.

In a cold and clinical laboratory facility somewhere non-specific, a group of scientists, including Emily Beecham’s divorced mum Alice Woodard, are working to genetically engineer a new type of plant that will survive extended periods of neglect and undernourishment. But they inadvertently create a flower that actually requires more care but which induces heightened calm and happiness in its owner. Alice’s colleague Bella (Fox) suspects that something is amiss and she believes that the pollen from these new, sterilised plants, is having a strange effect on those who inhale it. Naturally no-one believes her. Alice names the new plants ‘Little Joe’ after her young son and takes one home. But suddenly her son starts to behave oddly, his whole demeanour changed overnight…

Fans of Jack Finney’s book The Body Snatchers and its subsequent film adaptations and indeed any fantasy story in which human free will and identity is compromised will absolutely adore Little Joe. Jessica Hausner has created a chilling and disturbing film set in a world we recognise but seems slightly off-kilter thanks to the clipped, snipped dialogue from its slightly (and undoubtedly purposely) stilted and disconnected characters and Martin Gschlacht’s inventive cinematography, in which the camera often moves slowly in on characters, eventually cutting them out of the frame altogether and focusing on something inconsequential and apparently irrelevant in the middle of the image. The film builds up a quiet sense of dread as the effects of the pollen become more and more apparent and its strange dislocation is intensified by the film’s thoughtful production design and colour palette, and an edgy soundtrack, which often consists of random bangs and crashes and, now and again, a cacophony of crashing drums and barking dogs.

Little Joe is a brilliant, unshowy movie that delivers a subtle, skilled marriage of themes from Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and Day of the Triffids and it quietly, subtly, evokes the former’s sense of paranoia and fear of the loss of self as nature asserts itself and gently puts the arrogance of man firmly back in its place. A cautionary tale for these strange times, perhaps, and a haunting, beautiful and stunning piece of arthouse science fiction in its own right.

THE VANISHING (1988)

CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: GEORGE SLUIZER / SCREENPLAY: TIM KRABBÉ / STARRING: BERNARD-PIERRE DONNADIEU, GENE BERVOETS, JOHANNA TER STEEGE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

This Dutch thriller was an arthouse sensation back in the late 1980s. The reviews were ecstatic, word of mouth made it a hit, Kubrick said it was the scariest film he’d ever seen and it’s director made a Hollywood remake a few years later, starring Jeff Bridges. Now released on Blu-ray, The Vanishing‘s reputation has a lot to live up to. Has it stood the test of time?

A young Dutch couple, Saskia and Rex, driving through France on holiday bickering, laughing and narrowly avoid a near disaster when they run out of petrol in a long dark tunnel, an experience that reminds them both of how much they mean to each other. With their love rekindled, they stop at a busy service station and Saskia (award-winning Johanna Ten Steege) goes to browse inside the shops. And vanishes. She just doesn’t come back.

And it’s at this point, following a fantastic set up, that The Vanishing soars. Deconstructing the standard thriller narrative, the next section of the film takes us inside the life and motivations of Saskia’s abductor, the terrifyingly normal family man, chemistry teacher, and self-diagnosed sociopath, Raymond (a chillingly brilliant performance from Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu). We see him plan for the crime, prepare himself with meticulous detail, rehearse, fail and, eventually, succeed. Three years later, Rex, (Gene Bevoets), still obsessed with finding out what happened to his wife, is contacted by someone offering to reveal all but at a terrifying cost.

The fact that The Vanishing is not a whodunit but a howdunit makes for a wonderfully satisfying, insightful thriller. And as it hurtles towards its gripping, compelling conclusion, it becomes a hugely disturbing and believable one, too.

As a study of obsession, it’s brilliant; balancing both Rex’s obsession to find out what happened to Saskia with Raymond’s obsession with planning and carrying out an act of pure evil, simply because he can. Raymond is as chilling a villain as was ever put to film. His emotionless, methodical piecing together of the jigsaw of this horrific act is an exercise in problem solving and director George Sluizer and screenwriter Tim Krabbé do an incredible job of making us, the audience, enjoy that process whilst knowing it’s for horrific intent. And so good is the film at understanding obsession that, when faced with a seemingly impossible choice, the audience totally understands the one that Rex makes.

The film is also superb at showing how much chance plays a role in all of our lives. We see the women who are nearly Raymond’s victim, the lives that are nearly ruined. Saskia and Rex aren’t special, they weren’t chosen. They were just there, and that means it could be any one of us, something that stays with you after the upsetting climax.

There are no extras on this release and the transfer isn’t great, but who cares when The Vanishing lives up to its reputation so brilliantly?

THE BEAST MUST DIE (1974)

CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: PAUL ANNETT / SCREENPLAY: MICHAEL WINDER / STARRING: CALVIN LOCKHART, PETER CUSHING, MARLENE CLARK, CHARLES GRAY / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 29TH

This late-phase Amicus production saw producer Milton Subotsky and his moneyman partner Max J. Rosenberg step away from their anthology-based creepfests into Agatha Christie-style ‘whodunit’ territory. With a classic remote manor house setting and a fine cast of thespians, it was ‘guess the werewolf’ combined with refreshing bursts of action.

Millionaire big game hunter Tom Newcliffe (Calvin Lockhart) has hit the wall – you name it, he’s shot it. Only the mythical werewolf has evaded him, so he’s turned his country pile into a high-tech fortress in order to trap and kill one, complete with a ‘Prisoner’-style surveillance room manned by Anton Diffring. Having identified a clutch of likely suspects who’ve been leaving corpses in their wake of late (bit of a clue, that), he invites them all over for a full moon weekend of verbal jousting over the roasted veal and claret, overseen by werewolf expert Peter Cushing, of course.

It works a treat. Cushing is on politely sinister form, pontificating on all things lupine from silver candlesticks to wolfsbane. Leading man Lockhart relishes his cigar-chomping huntsman-hero, striding around his country estate in badass body leathers, firing off his machine gun like a Blaxploitation Terminator in Surrey, accompanied by the parping brass and wah-wah guitars of Douglas Gamley’s gloriously ‘70s score. Charles Gray and Michael Gambon try and out-cad each other as a sozzled diplomat and washed-up pianist; Tom Chadbon rocks the Rick Wakeman look as a glam rock jailbird artist with an Alex DeLarge attitude. Away from the testosterone, Ciaran Madden and Marlene Clark observe these assorted egotists with increasing alarm.

The parlour-game structure of the film is reinforced by its most notorious feature, the ‘werewolf break’. This William Castle-style gimmick halts proceedings just before the big reveal to recap the main suspects so we can choose one, accompanied by a Countdown-style clock. According to first-time director Paul Annett, it was dreamed up by the producers after filming ended and came as a complete surprise to him when confronted by it at the film’s premiere, but it’s a cheesy bit of fun that doesn’t undermine the already campy tone.

A mainstay of BBC-2 late night horror double-bills in the ‘80s, The Beast Must Die is a glorious Amicus comfort blanket fully deserving the 4K restoration and plentiful extras here, including a brutally candid archive interview with Brando-soundalike Max Rosenberg that lifts the tarpaulin on his producing career and partnership with Subotsky. Best of the bunch for our disreputable money is a 25-minute 8mm cut down of the film, originally released to the home cinema market. Lopping off the first hour entirely and letting the third act sink or swim, it works surprisingly well.

Did we mention the werewolf? It’s just a shaggy pet hound, so you’ll need to squint a bit.

CRISS CROSS (1949)

CERT: PG / DIRECTOR: ROBERT SIODMAK / SCREENPLAY: DANIEL FUCHS / STARRING: BURT LANCASTER, YVONNE DE CARLO, DAN DURYEA / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 22ND

After the success of the seminal The Killers, Burt Lancaster and director Robert Siodmak collaborated yet again to create another film noir classic. Criss Cross is brimming with all the requisite noir tropes, illicit passion, greed, murder, and a femme fatale, naturally.

Lancaster stars as Steve Thompson, a man with a fatal attraction to his ex-wife Anna (Yvonne De Carlo). Things are further complicated by the fact that Anna marries notorious criminal Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea). When Dundee discovers that Anna and Steve still have feelings for each other Steve does the only thing he can do. He convinces Dundee that he only met with Anna to get Dundee’s help in robbing an armoured car that he will be driving. The criminal falls for the ruse, which sets everyone on a path to violence and death.

Siodmak’s taut and stylised direction, combined with the razor sharp dialogue of Daniel Fuchs’ script, slowly and expertly builds the tension right through to the nihilistic dénouement. The seething sensuality between the gorgeous DeCarlo and Lancaster sizzles of the screen. A memorable scene has Lancaster’s Steve asking DeCarlo’s Anna on a date, in the form of an argument.

Eureka’s The Masters of Cinema 4K restoration of Criss Cross is simply magnificent. The picture is clear and sharp, and really pops off the screen. This is how a restoration should look, and is proof positive that restorations can look absolutely stunning without resorting to the detested DNR. The sound, too, is powerfully distinct. There is a separate audio effects and soundtrack viewing option, which really highlights Miklos Rozsa’s punchy score.

Other special features include audio commentary by film author Lee Gamblin, and actor Rutanya Alda. Here they take a deep dive into the biographies of Lancaster and De Carlo. Canadian-born De Carlo was to be Universal Pictures’ Lauren Bacall. Despite being multi-talented, De Carlo’s career wasn’t to reach those heights. It wasn’t until she agreed to play Lily Munster in The Munsters that she truly found fame, and then she only agreed as she was almost penniless.

Adrian Martin provides a more scholarly insight into Criss Cross, and highlights the differences between Don Tracy’s novel and the film. There is also the radio adaptation with Lancaster reprising his role from the film. The sound quality is truly exceptional; it could have been recorded today. It makes for an interesting listen as there are differences from the film, the ending in particular is subtly different.

Criss Cross doesn’t quite pack the same punch that The Killers does, but it comes darn close, and if you have an affectation for the films of this era then this is an indispensable gem.

HUNTER’S MOON

CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: MICHAEL CAISSIE / STARRING: KATRINA BOWDEN, JAY MOHR, WILL CARLSON, SPENCER DANIELS / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH

Thanks to the ready availability of cheap and affordable drones, it seems that every low-budget horror film now begins with a tracking shot of the terrain where the film will take place. While this could be seen as homages to the opening to classic genre pictures such as The Shining or Candyman, the result is more akin to padding the movie with two to three minutes of footage, allowing the film to more readily reach feature length due to a script whose plot would otherwise barely stretch to fill the necessary running time.

That summary, in a nutshell, is writer/director Michael Caissie’s new film, Hunter’s Moon. While the story is an ambitious one – beginning as a monster movie, switching to a haunted house picture, then to a home invasion film, and concluding by returning to the monster movie theme – the actual movie itself plays out as though everyone onscreen, save one actor, is barely tolerating working on it.

To briefly summarise, Hunter’s Moon tells the story of the Delaney family, who move into a home out in the country for reasons which are hinted at early on, but never explicitly addressed until the film’s conclusion. The home was the location of a serial killer (played in a thankless cameo by Sean Patrick Flannery), who was killed under mysterious circumstances himself, thus allowing the family to snag it for cheap. When the parents leave shortly after moving in to go on a business trip, some local criminals who’ve decided to rob it make friends with the three daughters left behind, only to be stalked by something mysterious which comes out of the surrounding orchard.

It sounds amazing, but the performances are astonishingly unbelievable from the get-go. As Delaney patriarch Thomas, actor Jay Mohr is so subdued as to be nearly unconscious, with a delivery that seems as though he’s channeling a very stoned Christopher Walken. Two of the three teenage daughters – Wendy (Emmalee Parker) and Lisa (India Ennenga) – are so thinly written as to be nonexistent, and Juliet is played by Katrina Bowden. She displays some minor energy, but given that the actress is 30 years old, her portrayal of a teenager seems as though it might be some sort of joke, although the movie never appears to be self-aware enough to make that kind of gag work.

It’s not until the sheriff, played by Thomas Jane, arrives that Hunter’s Moon manages any sort of actual energy or verve. Aside from the scenes with Jane, the film merely goes through the motions, steadily plodding from plot point to plot point, as if the cast and crew were just as weary of the film’s paper-thin story as those who watch it. Happily, Jane seems to relish the chance to use an accent, gleefully delivering everything with scenery-chewing joy.

When the film finally wraps up, there’s a discussion among the remaining characters wherein they engage in a Hercule Poirot-style summary of the film that just took place, explaining everything that preceded it. It’s not as though Agatha Christie is demonstrating how cleverly certain plot points were clues to where Hunter’s Moon ends, but rather the opposite, in that the film so thoroughly fails to clue the viewer in on what’s actually happening that it has to be retconned in order to make any sense whatsoever.

Neither bad enough to warrant popcorn-throwing mockery, nor clever enough to overcome its many flaws, Hunter’s Moon is merely soporific, and the time spent watching it would be better put toward just taking a nap.

DREAM DEMON

DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: HARLEY COKELISS / STARRING: JEMMA REDGRAVE, KATHLEEN WILHOITE, TIMOTHY SPALL / RELEASE DATE: 22ND JUNE

Arrow Films continue to rediscover should-be cult classics with their remastered release of Harley Cokeliss’ gorgeously gothic and latently queer horror, Dream Demon. Originally conceived as a British riff on A Nightmare on Elm Street, the film follows Diana (an incredible debut performance from Jemma Redgrave, AKA Doctor Who‘s Kate Stewart), a young bride-to-be whose horrifying nightmares appear to be merging with reality.

The film itself thankfully shares little with A Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s entirely its own beast. The fusion of almost avant garde dream sequences with the Hammer-infused writing of Christopher Wicking (Cry of the Banshee, To the Devil a Daughter) gives Dream Demon a disarmingly familiar feel. It looks like the kind of film Hammer would have put out in the 70s, but with the bite of 80s ingenuity.

Cokeliss’ film feels more in line with Barker’s original Hellraiser, in that it’s a classic but graphic British gothic experience. Dream Demon’s horror comes from exposure, sexuality and the collapse of boundaries between affluent suburbs, London townhouses and upper-class social mechanics; a young woman subconsciously terrified of her rich war hero partner, and their upcoming dive into an upper-class celebrity life. It’s a film which surprisingly makes no mystery of its particular – and perhaps controversial – inspirations.

Jemma Redgrave’s young bride is blatantly based on Princess Diana. From predatory press (played to perfection by Timothy Spall and Jimmy Nail) to Falklands hero fiancé (Mark Greenstreet), Cokeliss and crew paint a portrait of a fairytale life haunted by gaslighting, isolation and invasion of privacy.

Queue the arrival of Jenny (Kathleen Wilhoite) a young punk from LA who lands on Diana’s doorstep just as things get overwhelming. The two strike up a quick and intense friendship as they try to help each other navigate what’s going on. Jenny is desperate to discover her childhood connection to Diana’s ominous townhouse, while Diana tries to survive feelings of intimidation and horror towards her soon-to-be-husband. It’s hard not to see a queer reading of Dream Demon – the film is symbolically and overtly coded for just that. In one of the superb new interview extras, Redgrave herself admits she views it as a queer romance. That makes the film even more important as a late-80s gay horror, especially when there are so few sincere and non-exploiting lesbian characters in cinema.

A horror examination of Princess Diana or English pulp cashing in on zeitgeist? Either way, it’s hard to see why Dream Demon isn’t a more prevalent title in horror circles. The dream logic, reality bending, queer reading and sense of gothic it brings to affluent English suburbs make a unique curio. Arrow’s restoration is gorgeous and, with a host of revealing new interviews, well worth seeking out.

COBRA KAI – SEASONS 1 & 2

COBRA KAI – SEASON 1 & 2 / CERT: 15 / STARRING: WILLIAM ZABKA, RALPH MACCHIO, XOLO MARIDUENA, COURTNEY HENGGELER / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

34 years on from the events of The Karate Kid, Cobra Kai is an inspired continuation of the main characters’ stories that manages to be both entertaining and engrossing while maintaining the underdog magic that made the original film so special.

When the series hit YouTube Red in 2018, it was quickly lauded as the service’s first big-hitter. The show creatively reverses the roles of first movie’s formula, instead focusing on the plight of original antagonist Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) as he struggles to re-establish his childhood karate dojo, Cobra Kai, against the wishes of original protagonist, Daniel Larusso (Ralph Macchio). Both actors revisit their characters faithfully and give great performances, but Zabka’s run-down twist on Johnny Lawrence and his subsequent redemption is really the heart of the show. Johnny’s interactions with his Gen-Z students as they clash with his pseudo-badass attitude and old-school outlook are comic gold.

Unfortunately, when the camera drifts away to focus more on these kids and their own lives and problems, the show begins to fall into extremely predictable high-school stereotypes, complete with comically-exaggerated bullies and laughable will-they won’t-they romance subplots. Thankfully, this lends the show to great cringe-comedy, even if occasionally unintentional. One of these new kids, Miguel (Xolo Maridueña), is our new charismatic underdog who bounces off Zabka’s Johnny brilliantly in their scenes together, mirroring Larusso and Miyagi’s mentor-mentee dynamic from the original.

Fight sequences, initially not as frequent as you might expect, boast some impressive and creative choreography and callbacks to the films, with Larusso’s adoption of Mr Miyagi’s training technique being a highlight. The training sequences will particularly amuse returning fans in terms of either how similar or wildly different they are relative to Miyagi’s teachings. Larusso opts to stick close to the techniques taught to him by his deceased sensei, while Johnny opts to teach karate more as a method of exorcising the dweeb-ish qualities from his School of Rock-esque class.

This DVD set is a great way to catch up with both seasons of the acclaimed fan-favourite series before the approaching third run. The additional content is nothing spectacular or unique, but provides the standard gag-reel, bonus scenes, and character bios.

Even if you’re unfamiliar with its classic 80s predecessors, Cobra Kai is great television with strong humour and writing consistently on show. While we’d hesitate to call it nuanced, the writing returns us to the two core characters in new and unexpected ways that pay off considerably.