[1] Typically an East Asian male, he is a near-invincible master of the martial arts, despite being advanced in age and presumably having a decrease in physical strength.
Only when he is forced to use his skills and left with no option, he shows how the mischief makers are no match for him—thereby demonstrating how politeness should not be mistaken for weakness.
The master's dialogues with the protégé would often carry short recollection of his own earlier life, his fighting or career experiences, or how he had come upon a particular knowledge or insight.
In The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi makes Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) paint the fences and walls, and wipe the floors and the cars, with two specific arm-movements day after day, and only when Mr. Miyagi tests (by mock attacks) and finds that those movements have become spontaneous and unconscious reactions from Daniel, he gives the boy respite from that toil.
He often administers medicine and pain-relief techniques, which are in many cases seen to be associated skills that such masters possess along with fighting techniques—since oriental martial arts are also closely related and complementary to traditional physio-therapy and healing systems.
In The Karate Kid Part II, there is a touching scene where Daniel LaRusso is seen coming up to the bereaved and tearful Mr. Miyagi, who was sitting alone facing the sea and grieving for his father who had just died.
In some movies, the ability of the master to make his protégé rise above the thought of "revenge", and to acquire the moral strength and fortitude to hold himself back from doing to the rival/villain the same thing that the latter once had done to his brother or friend, even in the face of the strongest provocation, is shown very movingly and dramatically.
In the Taekwondo classic Best of the Best, featuring some world-renowned martial-artists and a renowned martial arts grandmaster Hee Il Cho, the coach of the American team Frank Couzo (James Earl Jones), prevents the American fighter in the last face-off of the competition, Tommy Lee (Phillip Rhee), from dealing a fatal blow to his Korean opponent Dae Han Park (played by Philip's real-life brother Simon Rhee).
Tommy had maimed his opponent and rendered him helpless by disabling his arms and legs, and the Korean could barely keep standing and taking a fighting stance.
call from the sidelines helped Tommy avoid repeating the same crime for the sake of revenge and coming down to the level of Dae Han.
Although it is not necessarily a rule or always true, the elder martial arts master is almost always depicted as being childless and unmarried, the character having either never having had a wife or child or having lost both at some point in his life (Mr. Miyagi is a prime example of this).
In Kickboxer, the lead character of Jean-Claude Van Damme is awakened flabbergasted at dawn by a splash of cold water from his master.
In The Karate Kid, when an arrogant rival misbehaves, Miyagi tells Daniel a story about Okinawa: there was a bull that terrorized everyone, but one fine day there was a feast, when everyone was scared no more.