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ā | We do not train to be merciful here. Mercy is for the weak. Here, on the street, in competition, a man confronts you, he is the enemy. An enemy deserves no mercy. What is the problem, Mr. Lawrence? | ā |
~ John Kreese explaining his "philosophy" to his students. |
ā | Congratulations. You did what I always thought you could do. You won. Cobra Kai is back where it belongs. Back on top. Everyone closed the book on us, they thought we were done, but now they seeā¦ that the real story's only just begun. | ā |
~ Kreese returning to Johnny Lawrence's life after thirty four years. |
ā | I founded Cobra Kai. It belongs to me. It always has and it always will. I will never let my students lose. Even if they have to learn the hard way. One day you will thank me for this, Johnny. | ā |
~ Kreese to Johnny after taking the Cobra Kai dojo away from him. |
ā | Cobra Kai never dies. | ā |
~ John Kreese's most famous quote. |
John Kreese is the main antagonist of The Karate Kid franchise.
He is a deranged karate sensei and Vietnam war veteran who founded the infamous Cobra Kai dojo. He is also Terry Silver's (former) best friend and partner in crime, the (former) father figure and mentor of Johnny Lawrence, the arch-nemesis of Mr. Miyagi, and the mentor of everyone who he trains at Cobra Kai, an extremely violent karate dojo that shows no mercy to the "weak".
He is portrayed by Martin Kove.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
In General/Background[]
- He kills his trainer Captain Turner even after the Vietnamese stopped forcing them to fight in the cobra pit.
- He helps Terry Silver fall into martial arts distorted, according to Kim Sun-Yung principles.
- He is responsible for corrupting Johnny and the rest of his students into violent bullies.
- He tries to portray himself as a hero of the Vietnam War to gain sympathy from society, despite his behavior.
- While he did have some twisted care for Johnny, he subverts it in Season 6, stating he views it as a weakness that he must shed.
- Though he has a few comedic moments, such as flirting with a random waitress, calling Johnny showing mercy to him "very honorable... and stupid" and using melted Jell-O to fake his death, none of them are detracting and all his actions are taken seriously.
The Karate Kid[]
- When Miyagi tries to ask him to get his students to leave Daniel LaRusso alone, Kreese unsympathetically states that Daniel should take care of his own problems. When they then agree to settle things at the tournament, Kreese threatens to set the entire dojo on them if they don't show up.
- He forces Bobby to use an illegal kick to injure Daniel's leg and take him out of the competition.
- In the final match, Kreese forces Johnny to sweep Daniel's injured leg to win the match so that Cobra Kai will win.
The Karate Kid Part II[]
- After Johnny loses to Daniel, Kreese begins choking him and assaults Johnny's friends when they try to help him.
- When Mr. Miyagi comes to defend Johnny, Kreese attempts to fight Mr. Miyagi himself.
The Karate Kid Part III[]
- Plots with Terry to make Daniel's life a living hell by having him tormented by Mike, even specifically asking Terry to make Daniel's knuckles bleed.
- Along with Terry and Mike he was fully prepared to lay a beating on Daniel until Miyagi arrived and saved him, then attempts to beat Miyagi alongside Barnes and Silver.
- He and Terry watch in amusement as Barnes continuously strikes Daniel with illegal blows and Daniel's resolve weakens.
Cobra Kai[]
Season 2[]
- He fakes being a changed man so Johnny will forgive him and he can corrupt his students.
- When Demetri comes to sign up for Cobra Kai and insults Kreese' tattoo he responds by breaking his nose.
- When Johnny comes to visit him he is seen about to strangle his roommate after a minor altercation.
- He manipulates Hawk into Vandalizing Miyagi-Do and convinces him to keep quiet when he feels guilty and wants to come clean.
- While Johnny is absent, he takes the opportunity to exert his influence, encouraging his students to finish their opponents off during sparring matches and to show no mercy.
- He trespasses on Daniel's property to warn him of the upcoming conflict, placing the butt of his cigar in one of Daniel's bonsai trees while making a jab at Mr. Miyagi's death.
- When he takes the students for training at Coyote Creek, Kreese gets Miguel Diaz to kick Hawk when he's already down.
- He makes a deal with Johnny's landlord to steal the dojo from under him.
- It's even more hypocritical when he acts like it's for revenge on Miguel, when in fact he's trying to get closer to Robbie, who caused the damage and eventually joins him in Cobra Kai.
Season 3[]
- Throughout the season he makes attempts to separate Ruby from his father and attach him to Cobra Kai.
- When Daniel visits the Cobra Kai dojo, Kreese mocks Daniel over the fight at the school, specifically how Robby, Daniel's student, was responsible for what happened to Miguel. He also says how he wishes he could've seen the look on Mr. Miyagi's face as Miyagi-Do's name was run through the mud.
- He opens ranks for tougher-than-usual thugs and weeds out those who aren't, after a test of feeding a mouse to a snake.
- He forces the landlord to leave him after mowing down his men.
- He has a snake placed in LaRusso Auto which not only endangers Daniel but also his innocent employees and customers who have nothing to do with any of the feuding between Kreese and Miyagi-Do.
- Kreese does nothing to stop Hawk as he viciously beats his former bully Brucks, amused at Hawk's brutality.
- He admittedly didn't lead it but was certainly flattered when Amanda reprimanded him for breaking Demetri's arm at the hands of Hawk.
- When Amanda slaps him for it, he seeks an injunction against her to cover up his involvement.
- He helps to deepen the rift between Robby, Daniel and Johnny, causing Robby to reject both of them in favor of joining Cobra Kai.
- During a hearing he helps Daniel and Johnny keep the tournament fights legal, though his goal is only to make Cobra Kai win.
- He sends his students to attack the Eagle Fang and Miyagi-Do Students at Daniel's house.
- After Johnny and Daniel attack him, Kreese attempts to murder both of them.
Season 4[]
- When Kreese brought Terry back to Cobra Kai, he begins abusing him when he feels Terry needs to be kept in line by bringing up his past trauma and constantly guilt-tripping him over the fact that he saved his life in Vietnam.
- He threatens Silver to let him lead the dojo.
- He pressures Robby not to go easy on Kenny Payne during their match in the All Valley.
- He taunts Stingray despite being loyal, forcing him to participate in Silver's cruel plot against him.
- After being framed by Silver for the attempted murder of Stingray, Kreese resisted arrest by elbowing one of the police officers in the face.
- He vows to get revenge on Silver for getting him arrested in vain, subverting his friendship with him, though that's certainly understandable.
- It's also worth noting that while he didn't try to murder Stingray, his charges of aggravated assault and attempted murder aren't inaccurate as he tried to kill both Daniel and Johnny the previous season.
Season 5[]
- After he inadvertently gets Daniel beaten up, he shows no remorse and later mocks him over it, referring to him as merely a means to an end.
- He tries to manipulate Johnny into siding with him again by claiming that everything he did was for him back in 1984, despite the fact that he literally tried killing Johnny after the tournament.
- He tries to deceive the prison therapist by pretending that he has returned to the beneficiary, in order to be released.
- Attacks a bunch of thugs in prison and forces them to work for him, even though they probably deserve it.
- He manipulates the prison therapist by pretending to cry about Johnny and appearing to show sincere remorse for his actions, only to secretly steal her key card. He later faked his death and beat up the guards and the doctor, stealing the doctor's lab coat and escaping the prison.
Season 6[]
- Escaped to South Korea and convinced Sensei Kim to have some of her students participate in the Sekai Taikai by using the spot Terry Silver obtained.
- He vows to no longer show mercy to anyone. During a battle against a hallucination of Johnny, he makes the above vow by snapping the hallucination's neck, subverting any care he had for Johnny in the process.
- Punished all of Sensei Kim's students for Kwon's disrespect to get them angry at him, this resulted in some students bullying Kwon to teach him respect.
- After Kwon confronted him, Kreese convinced him to attack the other students and beat up Yoon as a way to prove he was the better fighter on his class.
- Made his students harass the Miyagi-Do students while they were away from the tournament.
- When Cobra Kai was eliminated from the tournament, Kreese tried to murder Terry Silver after finding out he was also at the Sekai Taikai.
- During the massive brawl at the Sekai Taikai, Kreese went after Silver and accidentally dropped his eunjangdo, being indirectly responsible for the accident that killed Kwon.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- 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 also tried to stop Tory cheating at the All Valley while Silver encouraged it. At the Sekai Taikai, he was shocked at Kwon's death.
- He has a genuinely tragic past. While it doesn't fully excuse his actions, John's past is still played for sympathy by the narrative and is even exemplified by his other redeeming qualities:
- He was once an idealistic young man who wanted to be a hero and defend his country. His refusal to blow up a compound with his friend Ponytail inside led to his squad being captured and Ponytail being killed in front of him which likely influenced his "No Mercy" attitude.
- He was a victim of bullying before the war and had a mentally ill mother who killed herself.
- He became the scapegoat at the hands of Captain Turner, who tried to crush his spirit by revealing his girlfriend Betsy died while he was deployed.
- He's a well-intentioned extremist as he genuinely believes his abuse is needed to prepare the kids for the real world. Even if his intention is twisted, it seems that it's also due to part of the education he received from his trainer, Captain Turner.
- He cares about several people:
- He genuinely loved his girlfriend Betsy, who he protected from her abusive ex-boyfriend. When he learned she had died while he was serving the Vietnam War, he was devastated and even years later he considers her to be the love of his life.
- He had a genuine friendship with Ponytail, as Kreese refused to activate the bomb, which was very close to the former, though it resulted in the execution of Ponytail in front of him and his team, and he blamed himself for it.
- Is friendly with Kim Da-Eun, showing her kindness by taking the blame for a vase she broke when she was a child and defending her when her grandfather was punishing her. They both were also happy to meet again years later.
- He genuinely cares for Tory, as he threatened the landlord that sexually harassed her, asked Amanda to leave her alone and even after telling her to solve her problems on her own, this was to not make her complicit in his plan to break out of prison. He even later took a risk by returning to America just to get her to join Cobra Kai again.
Trivia[]
- John Kreese is an unusual example of an Inconsistently Heinous villain, because his actions for the most part are bog-standard with his worst crimes relying on generic "Kill the Heroes" villainy, and he only stands out due to endangering several innocent people with a snake even though they were unrelated to a feud that Kreese was involved in himself.
External Links[]
- John Kreese on the Villains Wiki
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