3 Ninjas: Knuckle Up

I'm a big fan of the 3 Ninjas series, the first one being my favorite. Knuckle Up is definitely the most action packed, the focus hardly on the story and more on flashy, Jackie Chan-like fight scenes. It's pretty unbelievable, how these pre-teen kids beat the snot out of full-grown armed men. In one scene, the bad guys have shotguns and they really hate those kids, but instead of shooting them, they prefer using the guns as clubs and try to whack them, but of course their plan fails. The ninjas execute a number of impressive martial arts moves on their hapless foes, and even some unnecessary fake-outs just for show. This movie is good for a laugh, watch it if you like slap-stick humor and kids beating up wave after wave of foolish henchmen.

It's interesting to see the different responses to the 3 Ninjas series. Many of them are from older, 'wiser' guys who snicker at the sight of seeing teen and preteen boys kick the livin daylights outta grown men with bats. Well, check your egos at the door because the beauty of martial arts is that size doesn't matter, if you can believe it. And neither does age. This movie also provides a glimpse into Native American culture which is much appreciated since they aren't represented much in Hollywood. I'd take Mike Treanor (Rocky), Max Elliot Slade (Colt), and Chad Power (Tum Tum) over Schwartzeneggar, Van Damme and the lot of Hollywood martial arts/action hero actors any day. At least these kids are funny.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, another 3 Ninjas sequel!! Are there actually people out there that demanded this series continuation? The first two ridiculous outings weren't enough? Anyways, this one is even worse than the first two. Let your kids see the first one then hide all evidence that the others exist.

Brothers Rocky, Colt and Tum Tum are travelling with their grandfather during summer holidays when they come across some sort of protest happening with Native Americans. They are protesting against a local businessman dumping toxic waste on their land but, with the protest being violently dispersed by police and thugs, the boys head into town to get pizza. However when those same thugs start picking on people in the local pizzeria, the boys fight back and with new friend (and cutie) Jo, get drawn into the fight against the battle for right. Despite the fact that I had watched the p1ss-poor final film in the 3 Ninjas film series I found myself watching this one to see if there had ever been any merit in the series. Plus, to be honest, I did have a bit of a childish laugh about the fact that the title seemed to be suggesting that the boys would be entering puberty and perhaps be discovering the weird sensation of "self-love" for the first time (well, what else does the verb "to knuckle up" mean to you?). Anyway this comedy aside, there is not a great deal of value within the film other than that which comes unintentionally. The plot is obvious of course but the delivery tries to be in the style of a live action cartoon. This approach at times makes for some amusing moments but mostly it falls flat because the material is not that good and the comedy is obvious and rather lacking invention or wit. One can imagine it working for young children but, speaking as someone who used to run a Sunday school class for 3-4 year olds, I have to ask whether or not I would want my kids watching this sort of material; the answer is probably "no". The action is silly and mostly fits in with the very obvious pratfalls that one would find in very basic silent comedy or children's television. I didn't find it exciting or funny and you can just feel the lack of heart or caring in the delivery. Indeed this is all through the film as it looks very cheap and is delivered with the minimum of effort. The direction is obvious and we get lots of "comedy" sound effects throughout as if to tell us to laugh. The cast is different from the film I say but they are no better. They can move and there is no doubt that they are agile but that is very different from being able to act, which they can't. Treanor, Slade and Power cannot deliver a line for toffee and even during the action I found their constant "hi-yah's" to be endlessly annoying. Looking at them on IMDb I note with no surprise that few have viable careers now. Lightening plays the love interest and is no better than them – and IMDb puts a recent credit in her career as "Scantily Clad Girl #2" which perhaps suggests that she has gotten no better with time. Napier hams it up but looks like Olivier when compared to the lacklustre Kilpatrick. Wong is badly served and not helped by the most obvious use of a stunt body I've seen since the Family Guy movie spoofed Stewie jumping through a window. Overall then, those looking for entertainment will do best to chuckle about the suggested meaning in the rubbish title but not bother to check the movie out itself. The acting, direction, action and overall delivery is roundly poor and, although the odd bit here and there is amusing, there is little here that I would want my children to take as their entertainment.

Although I've seen A LOT of bashing of "3 Ninjas Knuckle Up", I still think it's a great movie for kids to watch. If you listen to most of these people who have bashed it, they loved it as kids. Your kids probably don't care and wouldn't know the difference. All of the "3 Ninjas" films are enjoyable! Most of my friends think I'm too old to still like it. I'm 14 and I've watched them since I was five! They give you just the right amount of humor and action, it'd be hard not to like it. Most of kids films are depicted as being corny, the "3 Ninjas" ones are pretty educational, this one was about pollution (which is an important thing you'd like to learn about). Besides that, the movie was made on a low budget. The stunt people were hard to look like actually 12 year olds! I was really happy to see the original three come back. The dancing scene is corny but I bet everyone tried to learn it after they watched it! The grandpa getting bathed by the boys is a little disturbing but at least its only a few minutes long. "3 Ninjas Knuckle Up" may be poorly written or REALLY crapply made but if you look past it, its really much better than it seems. I lost interest in it when I was about 8 and I started liking barbies but just recently I picked one up from my library and watched it and I really like 3 Ninjas again!

I just watched all three of these movies and I couldn't recommend the first two to anyone really. The first one might be enjoyed by some kids but the second was awful. This film was shot a year after part one with the same cast and it was held up in post production and a third film was made but the third film made was actually released second. The kids in this film came back two years later and did some re-shoots and additional scenes and the boy who played Rocky actually has braces and is much taller as is the kid playing Colt. This movie isn't flawless by any means it has a very high cheese level to it, a lot of over acting and silly gags aimed at kids. The movie got a PG-13 rating because it had lots more ninja action and a few somewhat adult language bombs dropped, but nothing a kid couldn't watch. I can't imagine older kids enjoying it, but young kids would eat it up. As an adult I compared it to a Steven Seagal movie for kids with a touch of old Dukes of Hazard episodes thrown in. It had some great actors doing some not so great roles but it was fun to watch. Donal Logue was funny as one of the bad guys and Charles Napier is great in anything and makes a wonderful bad guy. The plot here was different and actually had a message which is good. It is a movie about bad guys dumping hazardous materials on an Indian reservation and the kids go in and try to put a stop to it. Fun film - I think if you like kids movies you should enjoy this one, look over flaws and goofs and cheesiness and just watch it. The worst thing about this movie was the way the kids yelled A-YAA every time they kicked or hit someone.

The plot's structure is half-copied from Bruce Lee's WAY OF THE DRAGON:1)arrival of the heroes in an unknown town; 2)they discover that a bunch of bullies are molesting a group of pacific people; 3)they show their martial arts skills and defeat the bullies more than once; 4)the bad guys send the same thugs back with more decision, and they fail again; 5)the bad guys call the "profesionals", and problems increase ; 6)good guys,filled with more decision, defeat the professionals and save the day. Of course there are variations, but the structure is similar. The characteristic is funny,since in this way,too-young kids can be introduced to classical martial arts movie plots. One of the first problems is that there is no official "final boss", unlike in the previous "3 ninjas" movies, making audiences feeling like something is missing. O once again, the plot is not original, but that was never meant to be the final goal. And probably, this is what makes the film not completely enjoyable by older audiences. Despite the plot, however, the fight choreographs are the most amazing in the series, but sometimes they get unnecessarily acrobatic(like the brawl in the Indian village). The fight with the motor bikers resembles, at first, the warehouse fight scene with Bruce lee's Lookalike in GAME OF DEATH, but then it evolves and amazingly becomes something like a copy of the chase from ALTRIMENTI CI ARRABBIAMO(WATCH OUT, WE'RE MAD!)with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, which is quite enjoyable. Another funny scene is the fight in the abandoned bar, in which Rocky and Tum Tum change their "fighing styles" according to the goofy changes of music coming from a nearby jukebox. Unfortunateley, this scene is too similar to the fight scene from PIU FORTE RAGAZZI(ALL THE WAY BOYS), again with Bud Spencer and Terence Hill. The booby traps prepared by the kids are always a trademark of the series, but once again, the concept is not original. So almost nothing in this movie is original, but since is a movie meant for kids, it probably could not have been done better. Younger kids would enjoy this movie, but older ones would be bored: they will probably enjoy themselves more watching a traditional martial arts movie starring Jackie Chan. And in the end, this episode was the perfect way to end the series, since the final message concerns most of the main character's personality. However, somebody decided to make another sequel in 1998...

During 1984 to 1990, there was a very popular movie series called the kungfu kids from Taiwan, and it was a total sold out at least in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Singapore and Thailand. A total of 6 movie series was shot and 5 of them involves the following stories: Kungfu kids come to town, kungfu kids takes over kidnap case and fights against african fighter, kungfu kids travels thru time, travel advantures of orphans, kungfu kids arrives in thailand (shot in 1990, last in movie series). Kungfu kids consists of 3 kids, 2 who are very good in kungfu and the last one (aged 6) was the comedy guy. This is exactly the same combination as 3 ninjas. 3 ninjas appears to be developed from the same movie series, although the stories are completely different. It is still quite good as compared to the kungfu kids, and is nice to watch as the kungfu kids movies are no longer around as the firm "Thomson film company" of Taiwan has gone burst. As a side note, one of the guys from kungfu kids "Hsiao Hu Tso" acted as the young master ninja during his younger days in the movie 3 ninjas kick back (alternatively called 3 ninjas Japan). He got the role due to his fame in Japan as a member of the kungfu kids and specially fly into Japan from Taipei, Taiwan just to shoot the 2 minute kungfu sequence. The other kungfu kid who is good in fighting ("Zheng Guo Yen") is now serving 15 years jail time in taiwan for kidnapping and drug taking, while the comedy guy has retired from movie world.

As a rule, sequels are never as good as the originals. Once in a while, we get AMAZING movies like "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Godfather II". However, comparing this movie to those two classics would be a great injustice to Mr. Lucas and Mr. Coppola. I saw the first one as a nine-year old kid, and perhaps seeing this one eight years later detracted from me taking interest in the film, but nonetheless - this film is bad. Eighty-five minutes of "non-stop ninja action" (they're not exaggerating when they say that) put together to form a weak plot. The Bruce Lee movies (which I am not really a fan of) at least have a sense of class in the way they show the martial arts as, well . . . an art! This is just pure violence. The film is obviously meant to be a flick for teenage girls with overactive hormones to come drool over Treanor and Slade (now 16 and 15 in this movie I believe) as they kick the living daylights out of everyone they meet. This movie isn't entirely bad. The plot does try to tie in some interesting topics about Native American culture, however, the inaccuracies and stereotypical portrayal of the culture detracts from admiring this aspect of the movie too. Another good aspect is that I guess the moral of the story is humility, but it's hard to pick that up with all the "bad motorbike guys" flying all over the place, getting their butts kicked by some five foot ninja. In the end, this is an incoherent, trashy, unwatchable film that plays at a much lower level than the original. Perhaps now that I'm 17 I should watch the original again and wonder why I liked it in the first place. Perhaps it was learning the lessons of obedience, patience, and of course getting a good laugh or two out of it. But nonetheless, this is not a trilogy worthy of sitting next to the "Star Wars", "Godfather" or even the "Ninja Turtles" Trilogy for that matter! Best of luck to Treanor, Slade and Power. I do hope that they may land roles in the future that don't require them to jump up in the air, make a 360, and kick a massive biker guy (who weighs at least 200 pounds heavier than them) in the face and knock him out cold. 3 out of 10 . . . The last time I went that low was "Starship Troopers" (it got a 1)! Yikes!!

The 3 ninjas must now stop another evil and greedy man from dumping toxic waste onto the Indian land. A little girl's father is captured and "tortured" after finding out the secrets of why the toxic waste is being dumped and he has a disk with all the wastes that were disposed onto his land. When the boys help this girl out, they also free her father and know they have to tell the government what is going on and make sure that the Idian's land is safe. I'm starting to wonder how the boys always get into this much trouble? The last two situations were somewhat believable, but these boys just need to either grow up or let the grown up's handle the jobs. But I think the kids will again enjoy this silly sequel. 2/10