John Kreese is a fictional character and one of the main antagonists of The Karate Kid media franchise, portrayed by Martin Kove. He is introduced in The Karate Kid (1984) and returns in its sequels The Karate Kid Part II (1986) and The Karate Kid Part III (1989).
In the original trilogy, Kreese is established as a Vietnam veteran and a deranged karate sensei who founded the Cobra Kai dojo. In the original film, Kreese teaches his class to be aggressive and show no mercy to opponents, which leads to his star student and son-figure Johnny Lawrence to go into conflict with Daniel LaRusso, a peaceful teenager who recently moved to the San Fernando Valley. After Johnny loses to Daniel at the All-Valley Under-18 Karate Tournament, Kreese berates him for his loss and even attempts to strangle him, only stopped by Daniel's sensei Mr. Miyagi. In the third movie, Cobra Kai falls into ruin, and Kreese turns to his best friend Terry Silver to get revenge on Daniel and relaunch Cobra Kai, only for Daniel yet again to triumph.
29 years later, Kove reprised the role of Kreese in the sequel television series Cobra Kai (2018–2025). In the show, Kreese is revealed to have become homeless and unmotivated in the wake of Daniel's 2nd victory, and returns to the Valley after an older Johnny reopens the dojo and manages to win the All-Valley with his new students. Though Johnny initially forgives Kreese for his past transgressions, he exiles him from the dojo after seeing Kreese corrupt his students into becoming more aggressive, leading to Kreese regaining control of the dojo and firing Johnny in turn. With full control of the dojo, Kreese comes into conflict with Johnny and an older Daniel, who has opened his own karate dojo, and even recruits a more docile Terry Silver to help him, only for Terry to become angered with Kreese's growing sympathy for Johnny and Cobra Kai student Tory Nichols and frame him for assault. Kreese is ultimately able to escape from jail despite this and retakes control of Cobra Kai after Terry is defeated by Daniel, aiming to bring the dojo to the Sekai Taikai, the world's greatest Karate tournament. He eventually does so, undertaking a new protege, Kwon Jae-Sung. However, after a brawl in the tournament, Kwon's death pushes Kreese to reconcile with Johnny and Tory, resulting in him handing control of the dojo back to Johnny. After overhearing Terry's plans to kidnap Johnny's wife and newborn child, Kreese fights him, resulting in both of their deaths due to Terry's yacht exploding.
The character has had a mostly positive reception from critics and is viewed as a quintessential 1980s villain. Kove received critical acclaim for his portrayal of the character, especially in part three of season 6 of Cobra Kai.
Roles He serves as the main antagonist of The Karate Kid (1984), the opening antagonist of The Karate Kid Part II (1986), the overarching antagonist of The Karate Kid Part III (1989), and one of the two main antagonists (alongside Terry Silver) of the sequel television series Cobra Kai. Specifically, he serves as the overarching antagonist in the season 1, the main antagonist of seasons 2 and 3, one of the two main antagonists (alongside Terry Silver) of season 4, a major antagonist in season 5 and one of the three main antagonists (alongside Terry Silver and Sensei Wolf) of season 6.
Backstory
Kreese was born on October 2, 1946. When he was young, he was troubled, as his father left him and his mentally unstable mother committed suicide and he was picked on by other kids. Due to this, he was often left to fend for himself and eventually started working as a busboy at a diner in the San Fernando Valley. One day in 1965, David, a college football star, his girlfriend Betsy, and another friend of David's show up. After making eye contact with Betsy, Kreese gets chastised by her boyfriend and apologizes. Kreese receives a brochure to join the American Army. Later, when Kreese is taking out some trash, he witnesses David hitting his girlfriend. Kreese intervenes, causing a brawl to ensue between him, David, and the football player's friend. Betsy begins a romantic relationship with Kreese, who soon enlists in the US Army.
During the Vietnam War in 1968, Kreese is selected by Captain George Turner, to form a special forces team that conducts direct action missions in North Vietnam. It was then Kreese received training from Cpt. Turner on various martial art forms – including Tang Soo Do (a Korean martial art form). He is joined alongside by a young Terry Silver, nicknamed Twig, and an egotistical man nicknamed Ponytail. However, during a mission to blow up a North Vietnamese stronghold, Silver's radio crackles loudly, but out of compassion, Kreese refuses to detonate the explosives as they would kill Ponytail, the soldier who planted them. Consequently, every soldier in Kreese's squad gets captured by North Vietnamese soldiers, who execute Ponytail. Captain Turner rebukes Kreese for hesitating and continues to chastise him. The remaining American soldiers are held captive until 1969, when they are forced to participate in one-on-one death matches on top of a cobra and venomous snake pit arena for survival. At one point, Silver is chosen by the Vietnamese to fight Captain Turner. Knowing that Silver would almost certainly lose the fight, Kreese volunteers himself to fight Turner instead.
Before participating in the match, Turner tries to demoralize Kreese and thus score an easy victory by revealing that Betsy died in a car accident and hid the truth from him to maintain his focus, causing Kreese to become devastated. When the fight begins, Turner easily knocks Kreese to the floor of the bridge that is suspended over the snake pit. Turner verbally abuses Kreese for his inability to "shed his humanity" and is about to throw him into the pit, but the latter avoids his impending death by stabbing Turner in the leg with a broken piece of bamboo. Kreese kicks Turner off the bridge, but the latter manages to hold on to the edge. Before Kreese is about to strike a killing move to murder Turner, a U.S. airstrike neutralizes the spectating North Vietnamese soldiers, Turner orders Kreese to lift him up, but Kreese instead kicks him off the bridge, causing Turner to fall to his death in the cobra and venomous snake pit. Afterwards, Kreese, Silver, and the other captive soldiers are rescued by American forces, where Silver makes a promise to Kreese to always help him.
After escaping North Vietnamese captivity, Kreese went on to join the U.S. Army Special Forces and earned a field commission. He rose to the rank of captain, and served with the 5th Special Forces Group. While assigned to 5th Group, Kreese earned the title of Karate Champion of the U.S. Army, which he held from 1970 to 1972.
After his military career, Kreese returned to the Valley. He and Silver were met by some hippies who berated them for fighting in the war and called them killers. The two them decided that people needed to learn respected and formed the Cobra Kai dojo—named after the snake pit in which he killed Turner—in 1975 with Silver to train local kids in Tang Soo Do under the more marketable label of "Karate". However, Silver was forced to help run his family's business at the insistence of his father, who threatened to cut him out of the family inheritance. Though he left Cobra Kai to Kreese, Silver continued to provide financial support and promised to help run the dojo one day.
In 1980, Silver fully funded a trip to Korea for Kreese and himself to train directly under Master Kim Sun-Yung. On this trip, Silver revealed that he purchased Cobra Kai and proposes the dojo compete in a global tournament known as the Sekai Taikai. Kreese declined the proposal, hoping to focus on his students, in particular Johnny Lawrence, who would go on to become his top student. During this time, Kreese would become increasingly ruthless and sociopathic.
Original films
The Karate Kid
In 1984, Johnny Lawrence has a conflict with Daniel LaRusso. In response, Mr. Miyagi teaches Daniel karate. When Daniel and Mr. Miyagi go to the Cobra Kai dojo, Mr. Miyagi proposes that Daniel should enter the All Valley Under-18 Karate Championships tournament, where he will face the Cobra Kai students and demands that the conflict will cease while Daniel trains. Kreese agrees to the idea, but threatens to allow his students to continue their harassment if neither show up at the tournament. At the tournament, Daniel reaches the semi-finals while Johnny advances to the finals after defeating a highly skilled opponent named Darryl Vidal. Kreese instructs Bobby Brown, one of his more compassionate students and the least vicious of Daniel's tormentors, to disable Daniel with an illegal attack on the knee. Bobby reluctantly does so, getting disqualified in the process. However, Daniel recovers, causing Kreese to instruct Johnny to sweep the leg. Despite this, Daniel ultimately defeats Johnny, becoming the new champion.
The Karate Kid Part II
After Daniel's victory in the tournament, Kreese berates Johnny for losing the tournament, and begins choking him out after Johnny calls him sadistic. Kreese is then approached by Mr. Miyagi, who humiliates Kreese in front of his students. Miyagi deftly dodges all of Kreese's attempted punches, but rather than deliver a devastating shot to Kreese's face, Miyagi simply "honks" the terrified sensei's nose and leaves him whimpering in fear. The Cobra Kai students eventually abandon him. During Daniel's final battle with Chozen, Daniel remembers how Mr. Miyagi defeated Kreese to save Johnny and honks Chozen's nose to defeat him and save Kumiko.
The Karate Kid Part III
Nine months after the tournament, Kreese has lost all of his students after attacking Johnny, leaving the future of Cobra Kai in doubt. Kreese visits Terry Silver, who has become a wealthy owner of a toxic waste disposal business, as well as a cocaine addict, and offers to help Kreese gain revenge on Daniel and Mr. Miyagi and re-establish Cobra Kai. Silver sends Kreese to Tahiti on vacation to recover while he hires Mike Barnes, the current under-18 national karate tournament champion, to harass Daniel and beat him in the next upcoming tournament. Silver tells Daniel that Kreese had died and offers to train him to defend himself against Barnes. However, unbeknownst to Daniel, this is part of Silver's scheme to physically and mentally break him while also forming a rift with Mr. Miyagi. A few months later, Kreese returns to the Valley and during a confrontation at the dojo, Kreese startles Daniel by jumping out of a hallway and screaming. Kreese and Silver laugh hysterically as Barnes attacks Daniel, but Mr. Miyagi beats up the trio and then escorts Daniel out of the dojo. During the tournament, Daniel defeats Barnes, prompting Silver to leave the arena. This implies that Cobra Kai is finished for good due to Barnes', Kreese's, and Silver's behavior getting the dojo banned from the tournament forever.
Cobra Kai
Season 1 Though he does not reappear until the season 1 finale, Kreese's actions in the original films are shown to have a profound effect on the main characters. Johnny harbors resentment towards Daniel for beating him in the 1984 tournament and remains traumatized over Kreese's assault on him after losing while Daniel disapproves of Johnny’s decision to resurrect Cobra Kai due to Kreese assaulting Johnny during the aftermath of the 1984 tournament. Johnny also has difficulty signing Cobra Kai up for the 2018 All-Valley tournament because Kreese, Silver, and Barnes's unsportsmanlike conduct during the 1985 tournament got the dojo banned from tournament participation. Johnny is able to successfully convince the committee to lift the ban and allow Cobra Kai to compete again by denying any affiliation with Silver or Barnes and claiming Kreese has died.