John Kreese is the main antagonist of The Karate Kid franchise. He is a traumatized Vietnam War veteran and the founder of Cobra Kai, who teaches a philosophy of "no mercy", inadvertently encouraging generations of bullies.
While many fans still think Kreese was simply manipulating Johnny by appealing to his ego, future seasons would prove that he was probably secretly proud of what he had accomplished. Their relationship was testy, but Kreese clearly looked at Johnny as a son, even if his lessons were downright abusive.
He seems to have some standards, as he honors his deal with Miyagi to keep his students from hurting Daniel before the tournament and he did seem genuinely disgusted by Tory's landlord attempting to sexually extort her. He is ultimately too sympathetic for Near Pure Evil, as he has a genuinely tragic past.
Summary. The Karate Kid theory suggests Daniel may be the real villain, not Johnny, due to his actions in the film. Johnny is portrayed as a flawed hero in the film, with Daniel instigating conflicts that escalate the rivalry.
Cobra Kai Sensei John Kreese says Daniel LaRusso was the bad guy, Johnny Lawrence the good guy
Is Cobra Kai good or evil?
John Kreese to his students. Cobra Kai are the main antagonists of The Karate Kid franchise. It is a martial arts dojo located in Los Angeles which teaches an aggressive style of karate.
Ultimately, though, Cobra Kai steadily reinforces the fact that Daniel and Johnny are neither heroes nor villains, but rather flawed individuals who are working out personal issues through karate.
Cobra Kai. Despite initially claiming to have redeemed himself, Kreese truly has not changed over the 30 years spent in exile. He uses his anger, bitterness, past teachings and experiences to manipulate several of Johnny's students into becoming more vicious and aggressive people under Johnny's nose.
Betsy's death scarred Kreese, who came to feel that life was cruel and the only answer was to meet it with equal cruelty and always strike first. Kreese lost the heroic idealism he brought with him to Vietnam and he channeled his rage to become a Captain and the US Army's karate champion from 1970-1972.
Johnny eventually discovers that Kreese has been teaching his students the old ways of Cobra Kai behind his back and expels him from the dojo. During this time, Johnny buys a used laptop and discovers the Internet. He also upgrades to a smartphone, joins Facebook, and eventually finds love in Miguel's mother Carmen.
Terry Silver tormented Daniel LaRusso in The Karate Kid Part III. The multimillionaire insanely devoted his time and money to hounding the teenage Daniel, and he manipulated LaRusso into breaking with his mentor, Mr. Miyagi (Noriyuki "Pat" Morita), and joining Cobra Kai.
And yet, over 35 years later, Kreese has been given a tragic layer of humanity, courtesy of the screenwriters for Cobra Kai, a Karate Kid spinoff that focuses on Kreese's struggling former disciple Johnny Lawrence and his thriving high school rival, Daniel LaRusso (aka “the good guy”).
Mr Miyagi is still the best in the series, followed just barely by Sato. Johnny had trouble with old man Kreese. Mr Miyagi beat Kreese without even throwing a punch in KK2, and beat him again without much trouble in KK3.
Since Terry went back to his old self, this time he wants to win but Kreese wants Terry to follow his way, they have different ideas of how to run the dojo, as a result, Terry decided the only way for him to run the dojo is to get rid of Kreese and thus he backstabbed him and had him arrested.
Unbeknownst to anyone, however, Silver bribes the referee to rule in Tory and Cobra Kai's favor. After this, Silver betrays and turns on Kreese, as Kreese refusing to allow him to finish Johnny off made him believe that Kreese deceived him into believing that they were teaming up for the glory days.
John Kreese: Kreese joined the army at 1965, he had probably 18 years in order to be able to join the army, so he is 71 years old at his first apparition on Cobra Kai and during season 2, and 72 at season 4. And he was 37 years old at the events of Karate Kid 1.
Daniel is the most skilled Johnny is the strongest Kreese is the toughest and Chozen is the most powerful. Kreese's mentality was similar to the mindset of the Miyagi ancestors just like Chozen explained to Daniel in S3.
A huge problem of his in the 3rd movie, was that he feared that he was becoming a monster because of his training under Terry Silver. He broke a kid's nose in a fight and felt extremely bad about it. So even if he weren't afraid of Mike Barnes, he'd still be very non-confrontational like he was in the third film.
Season 1. 34 years after the first film, Daniel is happily married to his wife Amanda Steiner, and has two children, Samantha (born 2002) and Anthony (born 2005). He and his wife own the LaRusso Auto Group, a chain of car dealerships in the San Fernando Valley.
Daniel was defending both himself and Ali. The sucker punch was cheap for sure, but Johnny was the instigator. Johnny and the cobra's push Daniel off the sidewalk and down a hill on his bike because they thought it would be funny. That's OBJECTIVELY bully behaviour.
