John Kreese

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 come 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.

The character has had a mostly positive reception from critics and is viewed as a quintessential 1980s villain.

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.

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.