Headscratchers / The Karate Kid Part II

• Kreese assaults Johnny by catching him in what is essentially a stranglehold, even going so far as to stop his other students from trying to come to Johnny's aid, and showing no signs that he will let Johnny go. If not for Miyagi's intervening, Johnny would have been seriously injured, or worse. How was Kreese going to explain that to Johnny's parents?
  • Losing is Kreese's Berserk Button as we see when he seriously injures himself twice fighting Mister Miyagi. He probably should have gone to jail for both assaults as he's a dangerous, unstable man who orders the injury of teenagers.
  • Also, as revealed in Cobra Kai, while Johnny's mother could have gotten mad at Kreese, Johnny's stepfather Sid Weinberg would haven't likely cared for Kreese's actions at all, so he wouldn't have filled a lawsuit against Kreese if anything happened to Johnny.
• Why no one complains about the car windows Kreese and Miyagi broke during their confrontation? Someone's gonna pay for them and Miyagi left the scene with Daniel. Also, why the car alarms of the two cars doesn't sound when Kreese breaks the windows?
  • The owners of the cars may not have left the stadium yet, and when they do they will just assume it was some rowdy members of the crowd. Windows being broken in cars in sports stadia parking lots are not unusual. Their insurance will cover it, that is what it is for. As for the alarms, well in the eighties lots of cars simply didn't have them. It wasn't until the nineties that car alarms truly became ubiquitous.
• Daniel asks Mr Miyagi why he didn't kill Kreese and Miyagi replied that making Kreese live with his shame was a worse punishment. Really? Why didn't Miyagi say something like "Whoa psycho! You don't go killing someone just because they started a fight with you in a parking lot. I maimed Kreese's hands in that fight and I actually feel pretty bad about that now that I think about it. But after that he wasn't a threat and me killing him would have been murder. You don't murder people. Didn't I teach you that Karate is for defense? Have you learned nothing?"
  • It may be worth noting that this line isn't in the novelization.
  • It may be a bit of a stretch to say that Mr. Miyagi "maimed" Kreese's hands in the fight. Kreese maimed his own hands by punching out two car windows while trying to beat Miyagi.
  • Teenagers say stupid stuff but in Daniel's case, it was more the fact he wanted to know why Mister Miyagi showed mercy when Kreese was constantly showing it to be a philosophy he rejected.
  • We should take into account that Kreese could have killed Johnny by strangling him. Daniel possibly thought that Kreese was really dangerous to be around them and if Mr. Miyagi killed him, it could have been seen in self-defense, as Kreese was willing to punch him despite being an older man.
  • It was more for confirmation. Daniel first asks "You could have killed him," and Miyagi agrees that yes, he could have. Daniel's been with Miyagi long enough to know the obvious answer isn't usually the right one with him, so Daniel asking why because he already knows Miyagi's answer isn't the obvious "because it's illegal and immoral to take a man's life unless you have no other option."
  • Aren’t we all forgetting that Miyagi actually did threaten to kill Kreese, only backing off at the last moment? Daniel’s question—whether that blow would have been fatal if Miyagi had followed though on it, and if so, why he turned it into a mock-strike—makes perfect sense based on what Daniel saw.
• Why Mr. Miyagi let Daniel fight against Chozen if he was aware that Chozen wanted to fight Daniel to death? I understand that Kumiko's life was at stake and Daniel wanted to save her, but didn't Miyagi remember that Daniel's mother is back in the States and how she would react if he told her that some crazy karate guy of Japan killed her son for a girl?!?! Miyagi didn't care for Daniel's family?
  • Because if Daniel refused, Chozen would kill at least one person and probably several more before he could be subdued by numbers. He does take care to warn Daniel that this isn't like his fight against Johnny, and appears ready to back Daniel up if he refuses to risk his life. But Mr. Miyagi also respects Daniel, and if Daniel feels this is a fight worth fighting despite knowing the risks, Mr. Miyagi will accept that. Yes, it would be a very awkward talk with Mrs. LaRusso when he gets home, but still.
  • Additionally, note that Daniel is able to give Chozen a pretty good fight for a while. As soon as Chozen starts really getting the upper hand, Mr. Miyagi (and Sato, and the others), give him the hint about the drum technique. Had that failed, Miyagi and/or Sato most likely would've come across and handled Chozen themselves.
• The bell-ringer is like five. Why would anyone make her the person to warn everyone about a typhoon in such a way that she'd be the last one to get to the shelter?
  • Small village. Everyone chips in to keep it running. She should have made the shelter before they closed the doors (it bothers me that Daniel and Miyagi are basically looking right at her as they apparently decide "well, that's everyone, let's button it up!") but her having a job in the first place is probably normal and expected here.
• If Sato has held onto his hatred for about thirty years, that means Mr. Miyagi left Okinawa in the late forties/early fifties. This flies in the face of him being forced to leave his pregnant Japanese-American wife to be sent to an internment camp so he could fight World War II. What gives?
  • It was said to be 45 years before, which would put it during the war.
• What was Miyagi going to do if Daniel started seriously losing his fight? Was he going to tell his mother her son got beaten to death while he watched?
  • One would hope that one of the villagers immediately ran to call the cops the second Chozen showed up.
  • Fridge Brilliance kicks in. They're a rural village with little infrastructure. In the time it would take for police to show the fight would be over. If things had gotten really bad, the townspeople could have rushed the stage and stopped them.
    • Rewatch the fight: Daniel actually does pretty well against Chozen at first. Then, when he starts to flag, Miyagi reminds him about the drum technique. Had Daniel not caught on to the hint, or not been able to pull it off, Miyagi and/or Sato would've been on Chozen like a ton of bricks.