It’s tempting to say that 3 NINJAS KICK BACK is the bottom of the barrel for a kids movie, mainly because of the amount of farting that happens in a particular scene. But I checked my review of the first 3 NINJAS and I called it “some real bottom of the barrel dreck, almost as bad as any off brand DTV throwaway kiddy garbage you’ll ever encounter,” so that one might’ve been worse. The best thing I can say about this first released 3 NINJAS sequel is that in the tradition of THE TOXIC AVENGER PART II and THE KARATE KID PART II they go to Japan for part of it. That takes some effort.
I say “first released” because they actually made 3 NINJAS KNUCKLE UP in the same year as the first movie but they had some kind of distribution problem and didn’t release it until 1995. Can you imagine? A whole two years where 3 NINJAS KNUCKLE UP was a lost film. That’s why part 2 recasts two of the kids but part 3 returns to the original line up at their original age.
Victor Wong (BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA) returns as the grandpa and sensei to three giggly white kids, Colt (returning Max Elliott Slade, APOLLO 13), Rocky (Sean Fox, CALENDAR GIRL) and Tum Tum (J. Evan Bonifant, the kid from BLUES BROTHERS 2000). They’re planning a trip to Japan together “to study with the Grandmaster,” but it turns out the kids have ”the baseball championships” at the same time so they decide they don’t want to go, breaking grandpa’s heart.
What nobody realizes is that grandpa’s old enemy Koga (Sab Shimono, THE CHALLENGE, SUTURE) wants to steal the ancient dagger that grandpa was presented for winning a tournament 50 years ago and plans to pass on to this year’s winner. Koga sends his idiot nephew Glam (Dustin Nguyen, 21 Jump Street, RAPID FIRE), who brings along his bandmates Slam (Angelo Tiffe, “Cop #1,” POLICE ACADEMY 6: CITY UNDER SIEGE) and Vinnie (Jason Schombing, I STILL DREAM OF JEANNIE) to get the dagger. They crash into Grandpa’s car so he ends up hospitalized in Tokyo, but due to a bag mix-up Tum Tum actually has the dagger. So the kids find a way to scam airline tickets to Japan to visit Grandpa, go to the tournament, meet a girl ninja named Miyo (Caroline Junko King, “Young Keiko O’Brien,” one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation), fight sumo wrestlers, escape on hang gliders, use the dagger to unlock “a cave of gold laden with riches,” and you know what that means in a kids movie, even after the ‘80s: they go down a slide! In short, 3 ninjas kick back and the other one does all the work. Or something.
I was wondering what the deal was with kid’s baseball movies at this time, so I looked it up. ROOKIE OF THE YEAR and THE SANDLOT both came out in ’93. THE SANDLOT was a big hit. So maybe that explains this, LITTLE BIG LEAGUE and ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD all coming out the next summer. In this one it’s that type of little league that definitely exists where they let tiny little 9-year-old Tum Tum play with rat-tailed, beginning-to-get-mustaches teenagers twice his height. Why not? What could go wrong?
Tum Tum is funny because he’s always eating food, in fact in one scene you think he’s trying to catch the ball but instead he catches a hot dog that is also flying through the air. And he eats the hot dog, for comedy! Also there’s a chubby kid on the other team named Gerald (Brian Wagner, KINDERGARTEN COP) and it’s especially funny that he eats food. Do you get it? Actually it turns out the real joke is that he’s eating a can of beans, because while he’s batting he starts farting. There’s a whole sequence where he runs the bases while farting the whole time and causing each member of each team, plus the umpire, commentators, and everyone in all the bleachers, to pass out from his farts. Then they’re okay again in the next shot. A little bit later when a brawl breaks out one kid falls next to Gerald’s butt and he farts again, right in the kid’s face. I’m not sure why the kid didn’t die or even pass out, this seems to violate the previously established rules. You know, a movie needs to have an internal consistency. It’s just not right.
Alot of it is what I call “funny coded.” You can tell Glam is funny because he has a long blond wig. You can tell Slam is funny because his hair sticks straight up.
You can tell it’s funny when Tum Tum says “Lets murdalize ‘em!” or “Scramble!” because he does it more than once and the camera zooms in on him. You can also tell what’s funny from the score by Richard Marvin (SURROGATES). It’s competent when it’s getting treacly at the end (winning the baseball game, spoiler) but mostly it’s my least favorite kind of score: the kind with all the little faux-orchestral keyboard doot-doot-doots telling you ooooh, this part is funny. Oh shit, look at this though. Can you believe how wacky this part is. Ha ha. Oh no. Oh no. Look at this guy. Farting right in the kid’s face. The kid doesn’t like it! Can you believe it? Funny stuff.
The kids do seem to know some moves and stuff. Some of it is just doing kicks while Glam and friends wave their arms around and make faces like a fun uncle trying to amuse a toddler. Those guys also try to kill Grandpa while dressed as female nurses, which was the basis for both KILL BILL and THE DARK KNIGHT. I think I read there was a lawsuit and everything.
The kids also get to fight some ninjas, and there’s a fight with the gimmick that they’re talking to their mom on the phone and trying to not let her know. Kind of Jackie Chan for beginners. I suppose the presence of competent martial arts in the movie means it’s better than it could’ve been.
There’s some decent ninja imagery at the tournament, where there are many colors of outfits and they spin weapons and fight. Colt gets jealous just watching and sneaks into the tournament, but loses to Miyo. A girl! She speaks English so she trains them to fight better and they help her with baseball. I gotta respect the montage, even though it’s part serious, part Tum-Tum eating food with sumo wrestlers.
In the end Koga decides that “the true ninja is free from all desire,” so everything is cool. I appreciate a peaceful resolution. I’m proud of you, Koga.
Since the first one was a surprise hit they must’ve seen this as a possible big deal. It was one of those movies that was heavily advertised on the back of comic books. It also got its own three part comic book adaptation published by NOW Comics. The writer was Chip McElroy, who also did a UNIVERSAL SOLDIER adaptation I have. The art was by Rafael Navarro (penciler), Robert Perchaluk (inker) and Holly Sanfelippo (colors). This was also the only installment in the 3 NINJAs trilogy that got a video game (for Sega Genesis, SNES and Sega CD).
Nguyen was already well known from 21 Jump Street, obviously trying to branch out here. He went on to a legit martial arts acting career, appearing in VANISHING SON II and IV, THE REBEL, THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS 2, BLADE OF THE 47 RONIN and Warrior.
The director was Charles T. Kanganis, who did the Traci Lords action movies A TIME TO DIE and INTENT TO KILL. He followed this with RACE THE SUN starring Halle Berry and Jim Belushi, and then sort of became Belushi’s guy, doing K-911 and six episodes of According to Jim. More in the spirit of this one he did DENNIS THE MENACE STRIKES AGAIN, with Don Rickles and Betty White as the Wilsons.
You can’t always trust IMDb trivia, but this has one I can’t ignore. It claims that according to defectors from North Korea, 3 NINJAS KICK BACK was a childhood favorite of Kim Jong Un, and his dad commissioned a remake with Korean actors. What the trivia does not mention is that the “Simon Sheen” credited as co-writer and executive producer of 3 NINJAS KICK BACK as well as director of 3 NINJAS KNUCKLE UP is actually Shin Sang-ok, an acclaimed South Korean filmmaker of the ‘50s and ’60s who Kim Jong-il had kidnapped, along with his actress wife Choi Eun-hee, in 1978. They were forced to make movies both as propaganda and just because he was a maniac wannabe movie producer – being a GODZILLA nerd, for example, he made them do a kaiju movie, PULGASARI.
In 1986, while attending a film festival in Austria, the two managed to escape to the U.S. and they hid out in Virginia for a while, before moving to L.A. and working on 3 NINJAS movies. (Don’t worry, they were able to return to South Korea and make more movies there too.)
That story is actually way more interesting than any of the 3 NINJAS movies, and I just discovered there’s a documentary about it (THE LOVERS & THE DESPOT), so I might have to check that out. I expect way less farting than in this one.
‘90s shit: The word “grunge” is used to describe Glam’s band. The Japanese rap songs on the soundtrack have kind of a New Jack Swing sound.
Dated depictions: I think the cabbie who drives them to LAX is meant to be some kind of Arab stereotype, judging from the headwear they give him. Also there’s this running “joke” that people in Japan can’t stop bowing to the kids wherever they go and they bow back in a mocking sort of way. Hard to explain, but it’s weird.
May 8th, 2024 at 8:43 am
Massive respect to you, Vern, for not only sitting through this but actually taking the time to write about it. I personally could not do it. Just reading about the baseball fart-a-thon made me cringe so bad my teeth rattled (full disclosure I saw that phrase in a comment section earlier and stole it). I’ve seen The Lovers and The Despot and I remember it being pretty good, so yeah… Maybe check that out to get the taste of this one out of your mouth.