Cobra Kai Season 4 Secretly Prepared Daniel For His Karate Kid Team-Up With Jackie Chan
A surprising team-up between Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Han from The Karate Kid franchise has been announced for the upcoming film, and it's all thanks to the events of Cobra Kai season 4. The next installment in The Karate Kid movie series will see Ralph Macchio's character team up with Jackie Chan's Mr. Han, and this unexpected collaboration is made possible by the developments in Cobra Kai season 4.
The Unexpected Team-Up
The next installment in The Karate Kid movie franchise will see Ralph Macchio's Daniel LaRusso team up with Jackie Chan's Mr. Han, and thanks to Cobra Kai season 4, his character will be ready for it. This surprise team-up will take some twisting and turning for the writers of The Karate Kid 4 since the two characters were initially thought to be from two different film universes. It will be interesting to see how Chan's character from the 2010 The Karate Kid will end up in the same room as Daniel LaRusso, but it will be far easier to pull off thanks to the events of Cobra Kai. Prior to the announcement that Macchio and Chan would be joining forces for the 2024 The Karate Kid movie, Cobra Kai had established that its characters existed in different fictional universes. The 2010 film starring Chan was a reboot of Macchio's original 1984 The Karate Kid movie, and the plots are strikingly similar, and this makes merging them together more complicated. The main difference is that while Mr. Miyagi taught Daniel karate, Chan's Mr. Han taught Jaden Smith's Dre kung fu. This detail makes the upcoming film even more interesting since it will see both forms of martial arts come together. However, before Cobra Kai season 4, Daniel wouldn't have been ready for this.
Cobra Kai Best Fighters - Daniel (1)
Cobra Kai season 4 has set the stage for a surprising and exciting team-up between Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Han, a collaboration that seemed unlikely due to the characters' origins in different film universes. However, the events of Cobra Kai have prepared Daniel for this unexpected partnership, and it will be fascinating to see how the upcoming film navigates the merging of these two iconic characters.
A composite image of Jackie Chan as Mr. Han and Jaden Smith as Dre Parker in The Karate Kid remake, with Ralph Macchio as Daniel LaRusso and Pat Morita as Mr. Miyagi in the original The Karate Kid
Daniel's Evolution in Cobra Kai
For the first few seasons of Cobra Kai, Daniel struggled to accept that Mr. Miyagi's style of karate wasn't necessarily the best. This was especially true as his rivalry with Johnny Lawrence, who reopened the titular karate dojo, began bringing in dozens of students. Miyagi-Do taught self-defense-based karate with a foundation on internal and external balance, and that was certainly not the case for Cobra Kai. When Daniel and Johnny joined forces in Cobra Kai season 4, the original karate kid assumed he would fix Eagle Fang with Miyagi's teachings. However, Daniel had to learn (somewhat painfully) that his way wasn't the only way.
At the end of Cobra Kai season 4, Robby Keene and Eli Moskowitz faced off at the All-Valley Tournament. These were two students who had been taught by all the Cobra Kai senseis—Daniel LaRusso, Johnny Lawrence, John Kreese, and Terry Silver. Ultimately, this meant they used a combination of styles, and Daniel had to learn that if he wanted to give Eli his best chance, he needed to allow him to step outside of just Miyagi-Do. It was a big moment for his character and set up his eventual team-up with Chan's Mr. Han.
Cobra Kai season 4 marked a significant evolution for Daniel LaRusso's character as he learned to embrace different styles of martial arts and let go of his rigid adherence to Miyagi-Do's teachings. This character development has paved the way for his partnership with Mr. Han in the upcoming 2024 The Karate Kid movie, where the fusion of karate and kung fu is expected to play a central role.
A More Likely Team-Up
Since the start of Cobra Kai, people have wondered if Chan's 2010 The Karate Kid character would appear, but the showrunners reported that Mr. Han existed outside the series' universe. However, the 2024 The Karate Kid announcement changes this, and the decision to bring Daniel and Mr. Han together on screen in a film was made possible by the former character's arc in Cobra Kai season 4. Precisely how the upcoming movie will pull this off is still unclear. However, now that Daniel knows the value of other martial arts styles, he may decide that his next student—the new titular karate kid—would benefit from kung fu. Who better to deliver on this than Jackie Chan?
