Cobra Kai Season 6 Part 2 Uses AI To Bring Back A Dead Karate Kid Actor

This article contains spoilers for the "Cobra Kai" season 6 part 2 finale, "Eunjangdo."

Netflix's "Cobra Kai" has done a commendable job at expanding and updating the story told by "The Karate Kid" movies, but it has always dealt with one key issue. The central figure of the franchise, Mr. Miyagi from "The Karate Kid," has only been present in spirit since Pat Morita passed away in 2005.

"Cobra Kai" has gotten around this by having Miyagi's student and successor Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) put his old teacher and friend on a pedestal ... but with "Cobra Kai" season 6 part 2 finally revealing Miyagi's big, dark secret, that pedestal is quite thoroughly broken now. Daniel learns in the episode "Blood in Blood Out" that the venerable karate master once killed a man during a match. In the very next episode, "Eunjangdo," we actually see Miyagi on the screen once again, courtesy of AI. In an interview with TV Line, "Cobra Kai" co-creator Josh Heald stated that bringing Morita's iconic character back this way was crucial to the show's narrative:

"For so many seasons, we've told a Miyagi story that was focused on the absence of Mr. Miyagi. This season, we're digging into a little bit more of the looming presence of new information, new ideas or a new glimpse into a part of Mr. Miyagi's life that the series has never focused on. That Daniel has never been aware of. So by digging more into that and getting more and more in Daniel's head with his kind of tortured idea of, 'What didn't he know?' ... does that affect and infect his opinion of Mr. Miyagi?"

Story-wise, the Mr. Miyagi scene fits Josh Heald's description well. The episode opens as Daniel fights a Sekai Taikai finale battle against a young, intense Miyagi. The Okinawan master soundly wins while pointing out his student's key character flaws, morphing from young to old in a literal blink of Daniel's eye. It's a nightmare sequence, of course, but the impact is monumental — both to the increasingly harried Daniel and the viewer.

The young Miyagi is played by Brian Takahashi ("Outer Range"). While AI was used to recreate Morita's likeness, Heald pointed out in the TV Line interview that they discussed the scene with the late actor's estate and put in plenty of work to keep things respectful and appropriate:

"We're still coming out of the wild, wild west of AI and visual effects, and we're entering a place of needing to have some standards in terms of how you present that. You can't just do anything you want. Even though you're not having an actor there on set, it's still his likeness. So we went through all of that process, which was important to us and the studio, and feel like we've captured this unfortunate vision that Daniel is having of being trapped in this nightmare that he's been in."

If "Eunjangdo" was a series finale, the sudden appearance of a wildly violent AI Mr. Miyagi would likely still send the fandom up in arms. Fortunately, the sixth and final season of "Cobra Kai" is being split into three parts, which means that the remaining five episodes may very well shed more light on the venerable sensei's past. Whether this happens via flashbacks to Takahashi's version of Miyagi or more AI remains to be seen.

"Cobra Kai" season 6 part 3 will premiere on Netflix in 2025.