Cobra Kai: Ralph Macchio, William Zabka on Exploring Miyagi Backstory

While we’re approaching season five of Cobra Kai, there is no shortage of new narratives to explore and older ones to revisit. One storyline involves the past of John Kreese (Martin Kove) and Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) and how they founded Cobra Kai stemming from their Vietnam War days together. Their younger counterparts are played by Barrett Carnahan and Nick Marini, respectively, as the show explored in season four and expands upon in season five. Stars Ralph Macchio (Daniel LaRusso and William Zabka spoke to Bleeding Cool about if Nariyoshi Miyagi (Pat Morita) might also get a similar flashback treatment with another younger actor as Miyagi’s student Daniel remains interested in learning new things about his former sensei’s past.

“There is a challenge with that because where we saw Miyagi and Daniel in the original ‘Karate Kid,'” Macchio said. “So before that, obviously, Daniel wasn’t in his life. I’m not saying there isn’t a great movie or show that is about young Miyagi. I would love to see that someday. As far as scenes that we haven’t seen, I think we did. We used a clip or two, but I think those were in the third picture that we used in season four. Actually, the scene I have with Billy about finding your own way and stuff like that.”

Daniel regularly talks about his late sensei in Cobra Kai with others as the show regularly revisits his interactions with his sensei as clips from the films are shown in flashbacks from The Karate Kid films, which also scratches the surface of Miyagi’s time in the Army. In season three, Daniel goes to Okinawa, Japan, and learns a new technique in isolating pressure points to disable an opponent from his former rival Chozen (Yuji Okumoto), whom Mr. Miyagi never told him about. “Listen, I’ve spoken to the writers about ‘Do we go back? Do we have a scene like we were able to do with a young Johnny Lawrence, like ten-year-old Johnny Lawrence? Is there a ten-year-old LaRusso scene with his dad?’ Macchio said. “It’s got to inform something. You can’t just be for nothing. These guys, the writing staff, does a great job of any time there is a flashback, it is truly to inform something going forward. It’s nice to learn something about any of these characters that we didn’t know before, that we have the ability to tap into.”

“I would love to see a scene like that, though. I’m just as interested in seeing stuff like that. It would have to make sense and work on it,” Zabka said. “I think Ralph’s right, there’s a challenge in that, but there’s definitely a lot of interest there.” Cobra Kai season five premieres September 9th on Netflix.