Keisuke Miyagi

Keisuke Miyagi (宮城健介) also known as Mr. Miyagi, is a fictional karate master, played by Japanese-American actor Pat Morita, who mentors the characters Daniel LaRusso and Julie Pierce in the Karate Kid films. Morita earned an Academy Award nomination for his performance in the first film.

Robert Mark Kamen stated that Mr. Miyagi was named after Chōjun Miyagi, the founder of Goju Ryu Karate-Do.

Fictional biography
An ethnic Okinawan immigrant to the United States, he learned karate originally from his father, who had been a fisherman. Miyagi initially had a job working for the father of his best friend, Sato, who was also taught karate by Miyagi's father. When Miyagi fell in love with a young woman named Yukie, who was arranged to marry Sato, Sato felt dishonored by this, and challenged Miyagi to a fight to the death. To avoid the fight, Miyagi left Okinawa and emigrated to the United States.

After leaving Okinawa, Miyagi met and married another woman Liks Umkum. Miyagi and his wife were expecting their first born when Mrs. Miyagi was interned in the Manzanar Japanese internment camp in California during World War II. During this time, Miyagi joined the U.S. Army and received the Medal of Honor. He also taught his former Army commanding officer, Lt. Pierce. During his service, Mrs. Miyagi and their son died in the Manzanar camp due to complications during childbirth, a loss that haunts him for decades. What Miyagi did in the interim between the war and the first movie is not revealed in much detail. At the start of the first movie, he works as a maintenance man in Daniel's apartment building.

In 1985 Miyagi learns his father is dying, and returns to Okinawa, where he is reunited with Yukie. Sato relentlessly tries to goad Miyagi into a fight, but after Miyagi saves Sato from death during a typhoon, Sato relents and he and Miyagi become friends again.

In the third movie, he and Daniel begin a business of growing bonsai trees.

2010 remake
In the 2010 remake of The Karate Kid, the custodian-turned-sensei ("shifu" in Chinese martial arts training) is a Chinese man named Mr. Han (played by Jackie Chan). Like Miyagi, Han is a quirky, yet humble and kindly maintenance man in Dre Parker's apartment complex. Unlike Miyagi, however, Han is a practitioner of kung fu, and elements of his backstory differ from Miyagi's, such as the circumstances surrounding his wife's and son's death.

Karate style
Mr. Miyagi has a deep philosophical knowledge of life and has extraordinary martial arts skill. In the second film, Mr. Miyagi explains that he is descended from Shimpo Miyagi, who was very fond of both fishing and sake. One night in 1625 while fishing and very drunk, he passed out on his fishing boat off the coast of Okinawa and ended up on the coast of China. Ten years later, Shimpo returned to Okinawa with his wife, his two kids, and the secret of Miyagi family karate.