Johnny Lawrence (The Karate Kid)
Johnny Lawrence is a male film character who features in The Karate Kid.
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Biography
Karate Kid
Johnny Lawrence was a human male born in 1967 as the son of Laura and never knew his father. His mother came to marry a Hollywood producer named Sid Weinberg where the young Lawrence came to move to the neighbourhood of Encino, California. Whilst growing up, he had no friends and was regularly verbally abused by his stepfather with this resulting in him abandoning his hobbies such as drums, rollerskating and magic lessons. In 1979, he was riding his bicycle where the 12 year old Johnny found the Cobra Kai Dojo where he was enamoured with karate. He convinced his parents to help fund his new interest and came under the tutelage of sensei John Kreese.
On the last night of summer, Johnny and his friends from Cobra Kai drive their motorcycles to a beach party. One of the friends says their criminal records have been sealed, but Johnny wants to put whatever happened behind him as an "ex-degenerate". Tommy points out that Ali Mills is at the party, and Johnny's attention turns to seeing Ali with an unfamiliar boy, inciting jealousy. Bobby and Jimmy advise Johnny to keep his newfound positive attitude and forget about Ali, as she was 'ancient history'. Despite this, Johnny drives down to confront Ali, but she rejects all his advances, and the two quickly get into a fight. The boy, Daniel LaRusso, intervenes, trying to stick up for Ali. Johnny quickly pushes Daniel down, and the two get into a brawl against Ali's protests in which Johnny wins and leaves, but not before being sucker punched by Daniel. Leaving Daniel with an injured eye. In the following weeks, Daniel occasionally falls under the ire of Johnny and the rest of the Cobra Kai gang, who harass him, which inadvertently gets Daniel kicked off the soccer team. Daniel thinks of joining a dojo to fight back, only to realize the one he checked out was Cobra Kai, giving Johnny and his friends another chance to hurt Daniel by overpowering him on their motor bikes and shoving him down a ravine. After this, the harassment seems to taper off. During a Halloween school event, Johnny was in a bathroom stall about to smoke a joint, when Daniel put a hose over him and drenched him with water. Johnny, enraged, gathered his friends who were clad in skeleton costumes matching Johnny's, and pursued Daniel down the street, before cornering Daniel at a chain link fence and beating him in revenge. Johnny attempts to continue the beating of Daniel, performing a move that, had it hit its intended target, would have likely killed an unconscious Daniel. Despite Bobby insisting that Daniel has had enough, Johnny tells Dutch to hold Daniel up before attempting a flying kick. That's when, unexpectedly, Mr Miyagi showed up, causing Dutch to drop Daniel and Johnny to fail to hit Daniel. He then effortlessly took down Johnny and his gang, and took Daniel to safety.
Cobra Kai
In 2017, while living in Reseda, Johnny worked as a home-improvement worker but was fired after an argument with a customer. Afterwards, Johnny went to a convenience store where he encountered a group of high school students bullying his neighbor Miguel Diaz. The bullies provoke Johnny after they pushed Miguel into his Pontiac Firebird. After a brief fight in which Johnny defeats the posse of students, Johnny was arrested. The next day, Johnny is released from police custody. He comes home to see his stepfather Sid, who has had enough of his problems and also the fact because of his old age, he then gives him a check to 'buy him out' of his life, but Johnny tears it up saying that he does not need his money. That night, Johnny is at home drinking and watching Iron Eagle. He has a flashback of his high school days and when he was in karate until the LaRusso Auto Group ad comes which snaps him back into reality, Johnny tries to switch the channel but the remote is not working and proceeds to angrily break the tv and goes out for a drive while drinking. While driving around the city at night he ends up at the All-Valley Sports Arena where he was defeated by Daniel LaRusso and was nearly choked to death by his own sensei, John Kreese. He is snapped back to the present when a vehicle driven by Yasmine who was with two other girls end up smashing into his Pontiac Firebird, an enraged Johnny attempts to chase after the teenagers, but the crash disabled his car. His car ends up being towed to Daniel LaRusso's car dealership and for the first time in 34 years, he comes face to face with Daniel. Daniel is happy to see Johnny and has his car repaired for free. While at the dealership, Johnny recognizes one of the teenagers from the night before as none other than Daniel's daughter. After his visit at the dealership, Johnny decides to re-open Cobra Kai and his neighbor Miguel becomes his first student.
While teaching Miguel a lesson, Johnny is interrupted by a call from the principal of Robby's school, informing him that his son was caught with drugs. An angered Johnny chastises Robby over the phone about the dangers of drugs and how he will throw his life away, to which Robby retorts if that is true, he will turn into his father. Hurt by that insult, Johnny asks the principal to report the matter to Robby's mother Shannon. Johnny then went back to Miguel after the phone call ended, teaching him to imagine his enemy while punching the dummy, giving him motivation. Another time Johnny was in his office filling out insurance forms, when he was approached by Daniel over the matter of being arrested for the fight with the teens, as one of them was a suitor to his daughter. Without either man getting the full story, they begin trading insults, but it stops short of a fight, as neither man wants a rerun of their high school years. While Daniel berates Johnny for being a go-nowhere who has trouble with his own son, Johnny returns the insult that Daniel ought to get his own house in order considering her daughter's boyfriend and his gang attacked his student, who was smaller than them. This scene reflected that while Johnny is indeed in poverty and a failed relationship, he is far better aware of his troubles than Daniel's own, as Daniel's troubles with his own children are masked by his social status. From a familial and financial standpoint, the tides are turning against Daniel and towards Johnny, albeit very slowly.
He was then informed that an incident had occurred in Miguel's school with the boy being critically injured after being kicked off the stairs by Robby. This caused him to hit the railings by the stairs that broke his back and sent him to the hospital where the doctors attempted to do what they could for the boy. A distraught Carmen blamed Johnny for her son's condition and told Lawrence that she never wanted to see him again. This saw Johnny starting to drink again as he spiralled over his decisions and went to the dojo to shut it for the day. Upon reaching the building, he heard noises that showed that a class was being run inside the dojo where he found Kreese to be teaching his students. Kreese had said that he had taken over the dojo after speaking to the landlord who hated Johnny and altered the contract which was entirely verbal. Lawrence attempted to force Kreese out but the Cobra Kai students had rallied behind Kreese as they blamed Johnny for teaching Miguel mercy which had led to him being in the hospital. Upon seeing this, Johnny decided to abandon the dojo to Kreese and departed where he threw away his phone as well as left his car after becoming disgusted at how his life had grown terrible to him.
Overview
Personality and attributes
In Miguel, he saw a prized student and stated that he wanted the boy to be better than Johnny. It was this reason that he taught him to show mercy on occasion despite this seemingly be against the teachings of the dojo. Johnny told Miguel that no matter what happened that he would always be in his corner.
Powers and abilities
Johnny is an extremely skilled and aggressive fighter, with his mentor John Kreese even claiming that Johnny is the best student in the history of the original Cobra Kai Dojo. During his younger days, Johnny would often strike first, coming at his opponents with vicious combos. During his fight with Daniel in the All Valley tournament, the latter had the upper-hand until Johnny fought more aggressively and dirty, which allowed him to come back and almost win. Daniel later admits that his Crane Kick only worked because Johnny ran straight into it.
Notes
- Johnny Lawrence was created by Robert Mark Kamen with him being portrayed by actor William Zabka here he featured in The Karate Kid universe.
Appearances
- The Karate Kid:
- Cobra Kai:
External Links
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