The Karate Kid choreographer and trainer Pat E. Johnson has died at 84

Last Updated on November 21, 2023

It was announced today that Pat E. Johnson, who choreographed the fight scenes for the first four Karate Kid movies, has died at the age of 84.

Pat E. Johnson was a ninth-degree black belt in American Tang Soo Do and also served as vice president of the National Tang Soo Do Congress, which was created by Chuck Norris in 1973. He learned the Korean martial art while serving as a chaplain with the U.S. Army in Korea. He later met Chuck Norris at a karate tournament in Detroit and the pair quickly bonded. “He and I struck a really good bond at the time because we had both trained in Korea, we had both gotten our black belts in Korea,” Johnson said in a 2016 documentary. “He mentioned to me one time that ‘If you should ever decide to come to California, I think we could work really well together.’ I really don’t know exactly why I did it, but one day I jumped on a Greyhound bus, came to California and said, ‘Chuck, I’m here.’“

He went on to perform as a stuntperson, stunt coordinator, and trainer in a variety of movies, including Enter the Dragon (in which he also appeared as a henchman who gets on the bad side of John Saxon), Black Belt Jones, The Ultimate Warrior, Good Guys Wear Black, The Hunter, To Live and Die in L.A., Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Showdown in Little Tokyo, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Mortal Kombat, Batman & Robin, Wild Wild West, and more.

Of course, Johnson is best known for his work on The Karate Kid franchise training the main actors. “I trained Pat [Morita] and Ralph [Macchio] separately, really hard,” Johnson told Sports Illustrated in 2018. “They would moan and bitch—they developed a relationship because they had that in common.” He also helped Macchio work on the crane kick that Daniel LaRusso uses to take out Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), but admitted that “it’s not something that really legitimate or realistic.” Johnson also appeared as the referee in the first three movies. Martin Kove, who played John Kreese in the franchise, said that he got the attitude for his character from Johnson. “I used his Ki-yahs,” Kove said. “I used the way he stood with his hands in his belt.“