Daniel-San Wasn’t Even Supposed to Be Named Daniel: The Karate Kid Facts Nobody Talks About

The Karate Kid doesn’t feel old like a lot of movies from the 1980s do. It still works if you put it on today. Everything about it—the background in the San Fernando Valley, the yellow car, the dojo with the painted fence—makes it feel real. Daniel LaRusso, or Daniel-san as Mr. Miyagi would say, is at the center of it all. But most people don’t know that the story of how that character came to be is messier, stranger, and more interesting.

Start with the name. The character was first written as Daniel Webber. Later, it was changed to LaRusso to better show Ralph Macchio’s Italian-American background. This is a small thing, but it changes the way a character reads on screen in a big way. LaRusso sounds like someone who grew up in Newark, New Jersey, which is the same place where Daniel is from: a blue-collar kid who moves to sunny Southern California and doesn’t know how to fit in with the new social order.

Macchio was 22 years old when the movie was filmed, but he played a 16-year-old. That person might not have known about it if it hadn’t been brought up so many times since then. He did a good job of it. But the more interesting casting story is right behind him: the part was first offered to Sean Penn, who had just finished filming Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and then to Charlie Sheen. They both passed. They both look like they could never do the crane kick with a straight face, but that’s a different topic.

Take a moment to watch the crane kick itself. The rules of the made-up tournament say that Daniel should have been disqualified for hitting someone in the face. The rules of the All Valley tournament said that move was against the rules. Real-life martial artist Pat E. Johnson was the referee for the movie and also choreographed the fights. He used to train with Chuck Norris and fans have been arguing for decades about whether the referee just missed it or whether the story just needed an ending. Not being able to quite explain something makes the movie seem more real, not less.

The car comes next. Daniel’s friend Mr. Miyagi gives him a real 1948 Ford Super De Luxe on his birthday, not just a prop. Jerry Weintraub, the producer, gave it to Macchio as a keepsake when filming was over. He still has it. The car even showed up in the Cobra Kai sequels many years later. It’s kind of touching that there is a physical link between a 22-year-old actor and a franchise that followed him into his 60s.

The strange story behind the song “You’re the Best” It wasn’t written for The Karate Kid, but for Rocky III. That worked out well for everyone. The producers of Rocky chose “Eye of the Tiger” from Survivor instead. People picked up where The Karate Kid left off, and now it’s impossible to imagine tournament montage scenes without it. A song by Survivor called “The Moment of Truth” was also on the soundtrack for The Karate Kid, but almost no one remembers it.

The studio almost cut out the part where Miyagi is drunk. People thought that the scene where Pat Morita’s character mourns the death of his wife, who died giving birth while he was in the U.S. Army during World War II, was too heavy and took too long. Director John Avildsen fought back and kept it from getting out. Many people say that scene is what got Morita nominated for an Academy Award. That’s when the movie stops being a fun sports movie and starts to get a little more serious.

The ending that almost didn’t happen is another story. In early test screenings, Daniel was shown to lose the tournament. Reports say that people hated it. They changed the ending to the now-iconic victory. The scene that was supposed to be the ending—Kreese yelling at Johnny in the parking lot after the tournament—was cut and used to start the sequel instead.

Macchio named his real son Daniel afterward. It’s not clear if that’s some kind of honor, habit, or just a name he liked saying on set for years. A little fact that says a lot.