Rayna Vallandingham in Cobra Kai Is the Most Exciting Thing to Happen to the Show’s Final Season

A fight scene garners a certain level of attention when the person delivering the kicks is competent. Even if they are unable to identify it, audiences sense it. The camera doesn’t have to work as hard to conceal anything, and the movements appear different—sharper and more grounded. Long after the credits have rolled, people are still discussing Rayna Vallandingham’s character because of the quality she brought to the last season of Cobra Kai.

Vallandingham, a 13-time taekwondo world champion, was born in Encinitas, California, in January 2003. Her grandfather, who drove her to practice every day, gently encouraged her to begin training at the age of two. She received her first black belt at age six. At the American Taekwondo Association Championships in Little Rock, Arkansas, she won her first world title by the age of eight. She broke the record for winning six world titles in one year when she was nine years old. These are not the typical qualifications listed on a young actress’s resume.

Her portrayal of Zara Malik, the Iron Dragons’ fierce and confident co-captain who represented Bangkok at the Sekai Taikai tournament in Season 6 of Cobra Kai, was a perfect fit. Zara is memorable because she is arrogant, captivating, and difficult to support. Without going overboard, Vallandingham embraced the character’s conceit. She turned Zara into the kind of adversary you admire while wishing someone would take her down. And because of the weight Vallandingham gave the character in the earlier episodes, the scene lands when Tory Nichols does precisely that in the girls’ finals of Part 3.

It’s important to note that prior to Cobra Kai, Vallandingham had never acted on television. Prior to this, she had only acted in a martial arts movie called Underdog Kids, which was filmed when she was ten years old, and a few music videos, such as one for Shawn Mendes’ song “Youth” in 2018, in which she showed off her abilities silently. Playing a villain with actual screen time and rivalries with well-known characters in the last season of a show with a loyal fan base was not an easy task. Reddit threads are still discussing whether Zara merits a spinoff because of how well she handled it.

Observing her during the fight scenes gives the impression that the choreography was partially based on her actual abilities. Nothing about the bo staff work or the accuracy with which she spars with characters like Samantha LaRusso appears to have been lifted from a stunt double. Cobra Kai has always placed a high value on authenticity, and Vallandingham was a perfect fit. It’s possible that when the show’s producers cast her, a legitimate rival who also happened to be on camera, they knew they were getting something special.

She has spoken out off-screen about what it means to be a female martial artist in places that haven’t always accepted women. Phrases like “punch like a girl” and “kick like a girl,” which she accepts as direct compliments, reveal something about her perspective on her own profession. When she discusses the sport, there is no display of toughness. It simply appears to be an authentic aspect of her self-perception. That applies to the work as well.

After Cobra Kai, she moved on to play Juli, an assassin working for M. Bison, in the Street Fighter movie that Paramount released this month. The character is appropriate. It’s a much larger stage as well. It should be interesting to see how she manages that change. The credentials for martial arts are already in place. It’s still unclear how far the acting will take her, and it probably won’t be for some time. However, patience with a longer game seems to come naturally to someone who started competing before most kids start kindergarten.