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| “ | Your enemy wants you dead, so you have two choices: Kill or be killed. No hesitation, no second thoughts, and no mercy! Never trust your enemy! You can leave all that "peace and love" crap for the college sissies back home! Now, gentlemen, we have a mission tomorrow, are we ready or not? | „ |
| ~ Captain Turner admonishing his soldiers, and inadvertently creating the Cobra Kai creed. |
| “ | I tried to tell you, that it was kill or be killed out here, but you, couldn't, shed your humanity! It distracted you on the mission, it distracted you here, and now you're gonna die! | „ |
| ~ Turner as he is about to kill John Kreese. |
Captain George Turner or simply, Captain Turner, is one of the two overarching antagonists (alongside Kim Sun-Yung) of The Karate Kid franchise.
He is a former captain officer of the United States Army and was the commander of John Kreese, Terry Silver, and several other men during the Vietnam War, whose ideals of ruthlessness molded the former into the merciless man he is. Turner and his team get an undercover mission in 1969 to infiltrate and destroy a Viet Cong compound. However, they get captured when Ponytail has been unable to leave the target area and Kreese hesitates to detonate the planted bomb. While earning a modicum of respect from Kreese and his cohorts early on, Turner ultimately shows his true colors when he suggests they do whatever they have to do to survive, even killing themselves.
Just before engaging in a death match above a snake pit, Turner reveals Betsy's death. The two engage in a death match, with Turner using his experience to out-class Kreese, then being stabbed in the leg by the latter. The two are fighting as the compound is being bombed by U.S. Air Force planes; the Viet Cong scatter as Turner is hanging for life on the bridge. He pleads with Kreese to pull him up, but instead, Kreese makes him fall to his death. He is also a high-ranking student of Master Kim Sun-Yung and a major threat in hand-to-hand combat.
He is portrayed by Terry Serpico, who also played Deacon Brinn and William Taverts in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Earl Danzinger in The Purge: Election Year.
Personality[]
He was a very cruel captain; he taught his soldiers to show no mercy to the enemies. The rules of conduct were violated when he told his soldiers to show no mercy to their enemies, even if they surrender. He showed his ruthlessness while in Vietnam by ordering Kreese to detonate the explosives and get out even though Ponytail would have been killed. When John Kreese fails to do so, resulting in all of them being captured and Ponytail being shot dead, Turner angrily blames Kreese. During his one on one fight with Kreese, despite being forced to fight Kreese, Turner is more than pleased to do it, as he brutally beats him up and berates him for failing to shed his humanity. However, Kreese regains footing and overpowers Turner. Just as the American soldiers arrive with the U.S. Air Force jets, Turner orders Kreese to help him up, but it's at this moment that Turner's lessons come back to bite him, as Kreese finally accepts the no mercy mentality and forces Turner to fall to his death.
Biography[]
Background[]
Most of Turner's past remains a mystery other than he fought in the Korean War and was taught by his master, Kim Sun-Yung in the art of "Tang Soo Do", he'd later obtain the rank of captain.
Season 3[]
In 1968, George Turner is a captain deployed at a camp in Vietnam where he requests soldier John Kreese to join a squad for a mission against a Viet Cong base. While combat training Kreese for the operation, he takes him down and teaches the squad to never show the opponent any mercy, even if they surrender. As he dismisses them, Turner receives the news that Betsy, Kreese's girlfriend back in America, had died in a car crash while going to visit her grandmother, but withholds it from him as the distraction could cost his life in battle.
During the mission, as the group prepares to bomb the enemy base, Terry "Twig" Silver's radio erupts and gives away their position. Turner orders Kreese to detonate, despite the fact it would kill their soldier "Ponytail", and Kreese refuses, causing them to be captured by the Vietnamese. Turner chastises Kreese for his hesitation as the Vietnamese execute Ponytail in front of them, for which the captain blames John.
The team is held in a North Vietnam POW camp until 1969, where George is forced to fight Silver to the death by their captors, but Kreese volunteers in Terry's stead. George tauntingly informs Kreese of Betsy's death to throw him off focus for the coming fight, leading to a grievous reaction that indeed nearly causes the Viet Cong to shoot him. The two engage in hand-to-hand combat above a pit of snakes; Turner overpowers Kreese and almost knocks him off, but Kreese stabs him the leg with a piece of wood, giving him the edge to defeat Turner and leave him dangling from the walkway.
Just then, the U.S. Air Force arrives to bomb the camp, allowing the soldiers to be set free. No longer needing to fight, Turner demands Kreese pull him up, but John, using Turner's own advice to show no mercy against him, stomps on his hand, making Turner plummet to his death into the pit of serpents.
Even long after his death, Turner had a posthumous effect on Kreese. His harsh ideals and training, coupled with his reveal of Betsy's death, caused Kreese to lose his faith and his compassion as well as turning him ruthless and merciless just like Turner had been. Sometime after the war's end, Kreese opened the Cobra Kai dojo with Silver's help, in which he taught his students, like Johnny Lawrence and his friends, to show no mercy to their enemies and pick on the weakest. Thus, Turner is responsible for turning Kreese into the deranged and emotionless person he is today.
Season 5[]
| “ | Ahhh, but that violence followed you home. Yeah, I read your file. After Vietnam, you became a sensei, opened a dojo, taught kids how to fight. | „ |
| ~ A hallucination of Turner talking to Kreese in prison. |
Turner appears as a vision to Kreese who speaks to him through his prison therapist, telling him that he callously saved himself by discarding Betsy's death and brought his violent demeanor from the war back home to teach children at his dojo. Kreese replies that he made their anger into power, to which "Turner" laughs in response, before switching to a vision of Silver.
Trivia[]
- So far, Captain Turner and Kwon Jae-Sung are the only The Karate Kid villains to die onscreen. Sato Toguchi from The Karate Kid Part II died off-screen before the events of Cobra Kai, yet he redeemed himself long before that. Even when Tommy dies during the events of Cobra Kai, he too has redeemed himself and is given a peaceful death.
