The Karate Kid Trivia
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50 free The Karate Kid trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free The Karate Kid trivia questions with answers. Karate Kid trivia has forty years of material to draw on, and this quiz uses all of it. The 50 questions start with the 1984 original — the director who had already won an Oscar for Rocky, the chores that hide the blocks, the crane stance, the tournament, and the rival who hands over the trophy himself. From there it follows the franchise: the Okinawa sequel and its twisting drum, Peter Cetera's number one theme, Hilary Swank's first starring role, the Beijing remake that teaches kung fu under a karate title, and six seasons of Cobra Kai from YouTube Red to Netflix. Every answer was verified against a primary reference before publication, so the box-office figures, episode counts and cast credits are accurate rather than half-remembered. Difficulty runs from questions any casual viewer will get to a few that only someone who has watched the whole franchise twice will know.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which actor plays Daniel LaRusso in The Karate Kid?
Ralph Macchio
Ralph Macchio got the part because the casting director remembered him from The Outsiders, and he was already 21 when he auditioned to play a high-school senior.
Q 02Who directed The Karate Kid in 1984?
John G. Avildsen
John G. Avildsen, a former film editor, videotaped the cast rehearsing the script before the shoot, and that complete run-through can still be watched online.
Q 03From which state do Daniel and his mother move to California in The Karate Kid?
New Jersey
New Jersey: they leave Newark for Reseda because his mother has taken a new job with a California computer firm.
Q 04What is Mr Miyagi's job in the apartment complex where Daniel lives?
Handyman
Handyman Miyagi comes to fix the LaRussos' faucet, finds Daniel trying to learn karate from a book, and sees through his story about falling off a bicycle.
Q 05What is Mr Miyagi trying to catch with chopsticks when Daniel first comes to his workshop?
A fly
A fly: Miyagi tells Daniel that a man who can catch one with chopsticks can accomplish anything, then admits he has not managed it yet.
Q 06What did Pat Morita earn for playing Mr Miyagi in The Karate Kid?
An Academy Award nomination
An Academy Award nomination, for Best Supporting Actor, came for a part the producer at first refused to give him, seeing only a nightclub comedian, until a taped audition changed his mind.
Q 07What is the point of the endless chores Mr Miyagi sets Daniel in The Karate Kid?
They teach him to block
They teach him to block: when Daniel finally loses patience, Miyagi throws punches and kicks at him, and the sanding and painting motions parry every one.
Q 08Which stance does Daniel adopt for the final blow of the tournament in The Karate Kid?
The Crane
The Crane was invented for the film, and when Miyagi practises it on a beach post it is really Darryl Vidal, who plays a beaten semi-finalist, in a body suit and a bald wig.
Q 09Which tournament does Daniel win at the climax of The Karate Kid?
The All-Valley Karate Championships
The All-Valley Karate Championships are Miyagi's idea: he gets Kreese to call off the bullying on the promise that Daniel will face his students there, under rules.
Q 10Who hands Daniel the trophy at the end of The Karate Kid?
Johnny, his defeated rival
Johnny, his defeated rival, hands it over, but the script ran on to a showdown outside the arena in which Miyagi tweaks Kreese's nose, and that scene was saved to open Part II.
Q 11What was John Kreese's background before he ran the Cobra Kai dojo?
Special Forces veteran
Special Forces veteran Kreese, an Army captain in Vietnam, runs his dojo like a boot camp, and at the tournament he orders a pupil to get himself disqualified by putting Daniel 'out of commission'.
Q 12What form did NBC's 1989 Karate Kid spin-off take?
A cartoon
A cartoon for Saturday mornings sent Daniel and Miyagi around the world after a stolen magic shrine, with no tournament in sight, and it lasted just 13 episodes.
Q 13Before The Karate Kid, Pat Morita was best known for which television role?
Arnold on Happy Days
Q 21Which martial art does the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid actually teach, despite its title?
Kung fu
Kung fu is what Mr Han teaches in China, and the winning move is one the boy copies from a woman he watches mirroring a cobra at a mountain temple.
Q 22Which city does the twelve-year-old hero move to in the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid?
Beijing
Beijing becomes home when his widowed mother's job at a car factory is transferred there from Detroit.
Q 23What does Mr Han make his pupil do repeatedly in the 2010 Karate Kid remake?
Take his jacket on and off
Take his jacket on and off, drop it, pick it up, hang it up: the routine quietly builds the muscle memory he will later fight with.
Arnold on Happy Days first appeared in 1975, and a year later Morita had his own sitcom, Mr. T and Tina, which ABC cancelled after five episodes; he was back at the drive-in by 1982.
Q 14Which famous order does Kreese give his fighter during the final of The Karate Kid?
Sweep the leg
Sweep the leg: Daniel's knee had already been wrecked by an illegal kick Kreese ordered in the semi-final, and even his star pupil stares back in shock before obeying.
Q 15Where is The Karate Kid Part II mostly set?
Okinawa
Okinawa is the setting, but the film was shot on Oahu, Hawaii, where the crew built a replica village and hired Okinawa-born islanders as extras.
Q 16Which object teaches the Miyagi family's secret technique in The Karate Kid Part II?
A handheld twisting drum
A handheld twisting drum, the den-den daiko, shows the counter-strike, and in the final fight the whole crowd spins theirs to remind a beaten Daniel how to win.
Q 17Who takes Kumiko hostage and demands a fight to the death in The Karate Kid Part II?
Chozen
Chozen ziplines into the festival to do it, and when Daniel has him beaten and is told to finish it, he honks his nose instead, as Miyagi once did to Kreese.
Q 18Which Peter Cetera song was the theme to The Karate Kid Part II?
Glory of Love
Glory of Love was Cetera's first single after quitting Chicago, yet he wrote it with David Foster, the producer behind that band's recent hits, and it went to number one in the US.
Q 19Which future Oscar winner starred in The Next Karate Kid in 1994?
Hilary Swank
Hilary Swank had moved to Los Angeles with her mother as a teenager to chase acting; this was her first lead, and five years later she made Boys Don't Cry, the first of her two Best Actress wins.
Q 20Where does Mr Miyagi take Julie to train in The Next Karate Kid?
A Buddhist monastery
A Buddhist monastery is where Miyagi takes Julie during her two-week school suspension, and the monks later visit Boston, where they go bowling with him.
Q 24Who plays the mentor, Mr Han, in the 2010 Karate Kid remake?
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan plays Mr Han as a grieving man who rebuilds the car his wife and son died in, then smashes it again every year on the anniversary of the crash.
Q 25Which pop star recorded the theme song for the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid?
Justin Bieber
Justin Bieber cut 'Never Say Never' with the film's young star rapping a verse; it began as a sultry demo called 'Sexy Together' and was rewritten with inspirational lyrics for the film.
Q 26On which service did Cobra Kai first launch in 2018?
YouTube Red
YouTube Red, soon renamed YouTube Premium, launched the show, but after two seasons YouTube chose to sell it, so the finished third season premiered on a rival service.
Q 27Which actor plays Johnny Lawrence in both The Karate Kid and Cobra Kai?
William Zabka
William Zabka was a wrestler with no karate training when he was cast as the bully in 1984; the film sent him off to study Tang Soo Do for real.
Q 28How was Cobra Kai's sixth and final season released?
In three parts
In three parts of five episodes each, from July 2024 to February 2025; the middle part takes the rival dojos to a world tournament in Barcelona.
Q 29Which two actors returned as Kreese and Terry Silver in Cobra Kai?
Martin Kove and Thomas Ian Griffith
Martin Kove and Thomas Ian Griffith both came back: Griffith had given up acting to write for television, including the series Grimm, and came out of retirement to play Silver again.
Q 30Which award did Cobra Kai's third season receive a nomination for?
Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys
Outstanding Comedy Series at the Emmys was a step up for a karate saga whose earlier Emmy nominations had all been for stunt coordination, though it lost to Ted Lasso.