Ahead of its release in September, a handful of stills from the upcoming fifth season of Cobra Kai have been released by Netflix. These have given fans their first real look at what’s to come, and confirm that Sean Kanan’s villain from Karate Kid III, Mike Barnes, is to make his long-awaited return.
The photographs show the series’s main characters Johnny Lawrence, Daniel LaRusso, and Terry Silver in different scenes. However, the most exciting reveal has to be that of Kanan reprising his role as Mike Barnes, one of the stand-out villains from the original Karate Kid movies.
Executive Producers Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, and Hayden Schlossberg said in a statement: “As Terry Silver calls upon some old friends to put the Valley in a stranglehold, Daniel and Johnny are going to need all the help they can get to stop Cobra Kai in its tracks”.
“Following the shocking results of the All Valley Tournament, season five finds Terry Silver expanding the Cobra Kai empire and trying to make his ‘No Mercy’ style of karate the only game in town,” adds the synopsis of season five. “With Kreese behind bars and Johnny Lawrence setting karate aside to focus on repairing the damage he’s caused, Daniel LaRusso must call on an old friend for help.”
Earlier this year, it was revealed by Josh Heald that the writers began working on Cobra Kai season five back in July 2021 and that filming kicked off on September 20th, 2021, and was officially completed on December 19th, 2021.
Notably, parts of the new season were filmed in Puerto Rico, which was confirmed by Hurwitz. This is because Miguel goes searching for his father, giving fans another inkling of what is to come.
Elsewhere, Hurwitz said: “There’s a lot of insanity; if you’re a fan of the franchise, maybe some familiar faces show up, maybe not; there’s going to be a lot of karate.”
