Who is daniel larusso

One of which was a girl named Judy, who was his first girlfriend. However, when Daniel was eight years old, his father died of a terminal illness. Daniel later expressed that his strongest memory of his childhood was saying goodbye to Mr. LaRusso and being proud that he could be there for his father in the last minutes of his life. As years passed and Daniel matured into a teenager, his mother Lucille worked hard as a widow. She worked two jobs to support her son.

Daniel seemed to enjoy his early life in New Jersey. When he moved away from Newark and took a last look at the neighborhood he grew up in, multiple friends from the neighborhood and their parents were there to wish Daniel and his mother best of luck in their new home. Lucille LaRusso was transferred from her current job to a branch office in California. She leased an apartment in the "South Seas" complex in Reseda, California, and took Daniel along from a cross-country venture across the United States that started in Newark and ended in Reseda.

Upon arriving, Daniel befriends one of his neighbors, Freddy Fernandez , after karate kicking a gate door into Freddy's face, but Freddy doesn't take offense, and invites him to a beach party. Before the beach party, Daniel meets his future mentor, Mr. Miyagi , when Daniel goes to ask him to fix their new apartment's leaky faucet. Daniel then goes to the beach party. It is at this beach party that Daniel first encounters Ali Mills Elisabeth Shue , and is instantly infatuated with her.

He attempts to teach her how to bounce a soccer ball in the air. As he does this, Ali's ex-boyfriend, Johnny Lawrence is riding dirt bikes with his friends.

They stop to talk, and it is pointed out to him that they can see Ali flirting with Daniel. This leads to Johnny going down to the beach to confront Ali. She is less than receptive, and in his frustration, he breaks her radio. Johnny, the star pupil of the Cobra Kai Dojo , and the winner of the last All-Valley Karate Tournament , beats up Daniel when he tries to insert himself into Ali's private business and attacks Johnny.

This leads to Daniel sucker-punching Johnny before being humiliated, and Freddy reluctantly abandons Daniel on the beach after being asked by his friends why he brought a loser like him to the party. In the following weeks, Daniel occasionally falls under the ire of Johnny and the rest of the Cobra Kai gang, who harass him.

Daniel believes his karate lessons from the Newark YMCA are insufficient to defend himself from the likes of Johnny, and checks out the Cobra Kai dojo. In doing so, he sees the star pupil is none other than Johnny, who is Kreese's assistant instructor. While going to the head of the class to teach the white belts, Johnny smirks at Daniel.

Daniel departs Cobra Kai and goes to a restaurant across the street to meet his mother, who is glad Daniel disapproved of the dojo as she remarks she would have probably been unable to afford its tuition. Lucille also tells Daniel some good news, she got promoted in her job, but her managerial training program will likely mean nights away from home.

This conflict finally comes to a head at their high school Halloween party, where Daniel soaks Johnny with water in one of the bathroom stalls.

Johnny and his friends chase Daniel from the high school to the fence of his apartment complex, when they are finally able to catch up with him, and begin beating Daniel with the exception of Bobby Brown [one of the more moral and less-corrupted students in Cobra Kai], who tells his friends to leave Daniel alone and that the latter has had enough, only to get rebuked by his friends. Viewing the attack, Mr. Miyagi intervenes.

He jumps down from the fence, and beats all of Daniel's assailants single-handedly. When Mr. Miyagi dressed Daniel's wounds, he tried to get to the bottom of why he was assaulted. Miyagi surmised that their problem was a bad attitude, and it stemmed from their sensei, as Miyagi believed there is no such thing as a bad student, only a bad teacher.

When Daniel suggested talking over the problem with their sensei, Mr. Miyagi was reluctant to get involved, but did so after he realized Daniel was trying to solve a problem with his head instead of his fists. Daniel and Mr. Miyagi go to the Cobra Kai Dojo the next day to attempt to make peace, and ask the sensei, John Kreese to order his students to stop.

Kreese teases Daniel that he should fight his own battles, to which Miyagi says maybe so for one bully, but five bullies ganging up on Daniel like last night was too much to ask of anyone. Kreese agrees to even out the odds and arranges a fight on the spot, but Miyagi says there is enough fighting. Miyagi finally agrees to settle the issue mano-a-mano through the forthcoming All-Valley Karate Tournament, to which Kreese agrees, as well as order all the Cobras not to harass Daniel until then so he can train.

Miyagi begins to teach Daniel the ways of karate through a series of labor tasks, including paint the fence, paint the house, wax the car, and sand the floor.

Another non-karate way Miyagi teaches Daniel is the art of bonsai arrangement, which was more of a hobby for Miyagi, but also uses it as a way to get Daniel to concentrate. This is noticed by Mrs. LaRusso, who is glad Daniel is starting to adjust, and Miyagi gives her a gift of the bonsai he had been working on. When the tournament comes around, Daniel enters and despite knowing the rules when he starts.

In the first round, he struggles against his opponent at first, and is in danger of losing a point after running out of the ring. However, after getting some advise from Miyagi, Daniel successfully defeats his opponent and moves on to the next round.

In round 2, he faces Cobra Kai student Jerry and successfully defeats him. In round 3 he defeats Cobra Kai student and one of his bullies Jimmy. In round 4 he faces Cobra Kai student and one of his bullies Tommy. Despite losing a point to Tommy, Daniel recovers and beats him. In the quarterfinals, he faces Cobra Kai student and one of his bullies Dutch. While Dutch gains the upper hand at first, kicking Daniel in the face, Daniel recovers and defeats Dutch by kicking him.

He makes it to the semifinals, against the Cobra Kai member Bobby Brown. Bobby is told by Kreese to put Daniel out of commission, and despite Bobby's protests about being disqualified and believing he could beat Daniel, he still follows Kreese's orders. Bobby savagely hurts Daniel with an illegal kick to the knee. The tournament is suspended where Daniel will be allowed fifteen minutes to be examined by a doctor, and if Daniel cannot fight, Johnny will win by forfeit.

In the infirmary, the doctor thinks Daniel should sit it out, but disappointedly says how well Daniel did out there. Ali is saddened that the Cobras will win and get to jeer Daniel, and Miyagi thinks Daniel should follow the doctor's recommendation, as there is nothing to prove and he did his best up until now. Daniel recalls Miyagi did a pain suppression massage when he had been sore in training, which healed Daniel's arm. Miyagi agrees to try the massage. Meanwhile, the ring announcer is about to award the championship to Johnny, only to be told by Ali that Daniel will fight.

As Daniel hobbles to the ring, the ring announcer surprisingly speaks into his microphone "Daniel LaRusso is going to fight? The ring announcer then happily says he is glad the finals are on, as that is what the audience came to see. Daniel starts strong, winning the first two points.

However, when Johnny sweeps Daniel's leg and fights more aggressively and underhandedly as per Kreese's orders, Daniel loses the next two points. Johnny grabs one of Daniel's kicks from his injured leg, and elbows it, causing Daniel an insane amount of pain. Daniel is no longer able to stand on that leg, so he assumes the crane technique position as his final stance, and when the ref signals the next bout, Johnny moves forward, only for Daniel to kick Johnny in the face, winning the tournament.

Daniel is then rushed by his friends and family, and Johnny grabs the trophy from the organizer of the tournament, and presents it to Daniel, saying, "You're all right LaRusso! Good match! Miyagi,who was sitting on the bleachers, and sees him smiling proudly. Immediately after the tournament, Daniel is showering and changing into street clothes.

He is remarking what his athletic future holds, to which Mr. Miyagi dryly remarks "Early retirement". As Daniel and Mr. Kreese then starts to mercilessly strangle Johnny, despite the pleas of the rest of the Cobra Kai.

Miyagi intervenes, and after tricking Kreese into punching two car windows and making both of his hands bleed, Miyagi pulls him down and appears to be preparing a killing blow.

However, he only honks Kreese's nose, causing Kreese to faint in embarrassment. Daniel, astonished by all this, remarks how Miyagi could have killed Kreese, but Miyagi philosophically responds that for a man like Kreese, who has no concept of forgiveness, "living is a worse punishment than death".

Miyagi tells Daniel there has been enough fighting for one night and that they should go meet Mrs. LaRusso and Ali at a restaurant for a celebration dinner. Six months later, Daniel angrily comes to Mr. Miyagi's house with his car, steamily stating that Ali did something to the car. He also tells him that Ali has fallen in love with a football player as well. To make matters worse, he is supposed to go away on a long trip with his mom. But Mr. Miyagi calls his mom, and convinces her to let Daniel stay with him.

Miyagi then gets a letter from Tomi Village saying that his father is dying, so he makes emergency plans to travel to Okinawa. On the day of his flight, Daniel is nowhere to be found, so Mr. Miyagi simply gets in a taxi without saying goodbye. At the airport, he is met by Daniel, who figured he must have come there to say goodbye. However, he sees Daniel with a ticket on the same flight as him. He wonders where Daniel got the money, to which Daniel says he emptied his savings account intended for college.

Miyagi does not think it is a good idea for Daniel to tag along, but as the flight is about to depart he approves of taking Daniel with him to Japan. When they get off the plane, they are told that a car is waiting for them, so they get in the car.

But the driver was Chozen Toguchi , who was Sato Toguchi's nephew. He takes them to a warehouse, where Sato is waiting. Sato used to be Miyagi's best friend, until a girl came between them. Miyagi also fled before the two could fight, and this insulted Sato's honor, which he could not get over. Then, they go to Miyagi's house, and see Miyagi's father. While they are in Okinawa, Miyagi tries to teach Daniel the Miyagi family technique, but Daniel is unable to grasp it.

Chozen makes life difficult for them when he goes to their house and starts screaming in the night for Miyagi to come out, and destroying the thin walls with a spear. Miyagi's father dies, and Sato gives Miyagi three days to grieve before they must fight. Miyagi goes to Sato's mansion, and talks to Sato while he is trying to break a thick beam of wood, which Miyagi and him had found on the beach when they were still best friends.

This is when the famous quote happens. Miyagi says, "Same piece of wood we found on beach that day", and Sato says, "Same! Meanwhile, Daniel is hanging out with Kumiko , and it is clear they are developing a relationship, but Chozen is making Daniel's life miserable.

Daniel then catches Chozen cheating the villagers on produce with fake weights. And, when Daniel and Kumiko stumble into a building where people are placing bets on how many ice blocks people can break, Daniel is telling Kumiko how the people are doing it wrong. Chozen then challenges him to do better, and while Daniel is trying to leave, Miyagi comes in, and places dollars on Daniel breaking all of the ice blocks.

Chozen says he cannot cover that, and that is when Sato comes in and says that Chozen is covered. Daniel succeeds, and this further angers Chozen, who later goes up and robs Daniel to get his money back.

Things come to a head, when a huge storm comes, destroying much of Okinawa. Sato is trapped in a destroyed building, trapped beneath a large piece of wood. Miyagi hears his screams, and runs out from shelter to save his old friend. Sato then decides to forgive Miyagi, and disowns his nephew who had done nothing to help people.

Chozen then runs into the storm. There is a huge celebration that the storm has passed, and Kumiko is dancing in the island in the middle of the castle. Chozen ziplines in screaming, and holds a knife to Kumiko's neck. He then orders Daniel to come into the circle, and then drop the bridge. He wants to fight to the death and Daniel accepts in order to save Kumiko.

They begin to fight and Daniel holds his own, striking Chozen as often as he is hit himself. However, Chozen begins to get the upper hand, despite Daniel attempting the crane technique, for which Chozen knows the counter and he turns it against him.

When it looks as if Daniel is going to lose, Miyagi starts twirling a hand drum. Soon, all of the onlookers are also twirling their hand drums. Miyagi is telling Daniel to use the drum technique, and Daniel finally understands the Miyagi family technique. Daniel starts to repeatedly punch Chozen in the face, while twisting his upper body with every hit, so it resembles a swinging drum.

He knocks Chozen to the ground, and tells him, "Live or die man! Deciding not to give him what he wants, " Daniel says, "Wrong! The camera then focuses on Miyagi, who is once again smiling proudly at his student, and the movie ends. As thanks, Miyagi makes him a partner at the business. When Daniel visits a pottery store across the street, he meets Jessica Andrews ; though Daniel has a brief crush on her, she tells him that she has a boyfriend back home in Columbus, Ohio, but they remain friends.

Cobra Kai sensei John Kreese is now broke and destitute after losing all of his students. He visits his Vietnam War comrade, Terry Silver , a wealthy businessman who founded the Cobra Kai Dojo with profits from his billion dollar toxic-waste disposal business. Silver vows to personally help him get revenge on Daniel and Mr. What if Michael Jordan fought Kobe Bryant? What if Bruce Lee fought the Knicks? Who would win in a fight between Chuck Norris and a lion easy one there—lions only exist because Chuck has allowed them to.

In the fictional fighting world we can wage these epic battles. The UFFC kicks off with two iconic warriors from the s. Doing it topless was Mr. Slater is a wrestler all the way. He uses powerful grappling, as well as his knowledge of ballet to both confound his opponents and take their breath away. Daniel LaRusso is a veteran of tournament karate and a two-time winner of the All Valley Championship which was later bought out by the UFC as well as one Okinawan death match.

Miyagi didn't quite replace Daniel's father but they had a unique mentor-student relationship where Miyagi's often cryptic wisdom taught Daniel valuable life lessons as well as karate.

But Miyagi is the rare case of a positive father figure in The Karate Kid franchise. Johnny joined the Cobra Kai dojo as an escape and he wound up being trained by John Kreese Martin Kove , who was arguably an even worse role model. Miyagi enjoyed a warm relationship with his own father, but spent decades away from him when he moved to America rather than fight his best friend, Sato Danny Kamekona. Sato was also a bad example to his nephew Chozen Yuji Okomoto.

For his part, growing up without his father but with Mr. I can accept the fact that Daniel LaRusso can actively dislike the way Cobra Kai teaches its students karate and want to give another way for teens to learn martial arts. What I cannot accept are the lengths he went to damage the business or prevent it from running, even when he knew Johnny Lawrence wasn't living the best life.

Trying to convince the landlord not to keep him in business and keep Johnny's team out of the tournament was ridiculous, though thankfully others realized that as well. Credit to Cobra Kai for making this a plotline in Season 2, because one of the first things I noticed when Daniel started putting so much time into Miyagi-Do was that he was leaving Amanda with all the work at the car dealership. He had the money that he could have brought somebody in to look over the dojo while he attended to his livelihood rather than forcing Amanda to pick up his slack.

At the very least he could've held classes after business hours or hired contractors to remodel the school! Daniel should've had a better plan for starting the karate dojo that didn't make his work a burden on others, end of story. And really, it's not like Cobra Kai was setting the world on fire. Sure, the numbers jumped when Miguel won the All-Valley tournament, but it's not like there was really a demand for another karate dojo in the same school district.

In fact, Daniel ended up poaching some of Johnny's students, so once again, it was just a petty move. Even pettier that he turned these kids against Cobra Kai which culminated into a massive fight at the high school that he should take some responsibility for.