3 Ninjas Knuckle Up

Infobox Film
name = 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up


image_size =
caption = DVD cover
director = Sang-ok Shin
producer = Martha Chang
James Kang
writer = Alex S. Kim
starring = Victor Wong
Charles Napier
Michael Treanor
Max Elliott Slade
Chad Power
music = Gary Stevan Scott
cinematography = Eugene Shluglet
editing = Pam Choules
distributor = TriStar Pictures
released = April 7, 1995
runtime = 85 min.
country = USA
language = English
budget =
gross = $407,618 (USA) (sub-total)
preceded_by = "3 Ninjas Kick Back"
followed_by = ""
website =
amg_id = 1:134844
imdb_id = 0112255

"3 Ninjas Knuckle Up" is a 1995 martial arts comedy film and a sequel to the films "3 Ninjas" and "3 Ninjas Kick Back" and was directed by Sang-ok Shin. This is the only "3 Ninjas" film to be rated PG-13 by the MPAA.

Plot synopsis

On their way to Grandpa Mori's cabin, Rocky, Colt and Tum-Tum hear police sirens go off and Grandpa follows them to see if there's an accident, and indeed there is, because Jack Harding, a wealthy toxic waste dumper and his henchmen, J.J., Jimmy and Hank are polluting a Native American village, killing their friends and families. During a raid, Colt sees a girl his age get thrown to the ground by J.J., while picketing with the Indians. She shows up again when the boys stop at the pizza parlor, because J.J., Jimmy, and Hank are there and she's asking them where her father is and what they did to him. J.J. gets a hook in the right eye from the girl, and he throws her to the ground. Colt and Tum-Tum stand up to him, but he makes fun of them for being short and bratty kids. Then Colt twists J.J.'s arm and kicks him in the armpit. Then Hank trips over Rocky, who has been playing a racing video game the whole time. Then a thug swings a chair at Colt and Rocky knocks him out and tells Colt, "Don't fight," then Colt replies, "I'm not fighting, I'm just kicking butt." Then the thug twirls a knife around and Rocky disarms the thug and twirls the knife around, making it disappear like a magician. The thug agrees and then runs away with the others, while J.J. swears revenge against the kids and walks out. Back at the cabin, Grandpa lectures them on how they were showing off their ninja skills, trying to save the Indian girl. He teaches them to listen to the sound of the flowers blooming and that they could teach them how to walk the correct path of a ninja. The next morning, the boys are cleaning up the pizza parlor from after the brawl with J.J. and the rest of the thugs. Then the Indian girl shows up. Her name is Jo. She tells the boys about the landfill and about the people dying and they promise to find her father. They do so by following J.J., Jimmy and Hank to the Harding Waste Management plant and they find Jo's father tied to a chair. They go back and report this to Jo and she kisses Rocky and he shrugs it off like nothing happened and she kisses Colt and he instantly falls in love with her and she kisses Tum-Tum, but he feels he's too young to like girls. They decide to go and rescue her father that night. While Grandpa is asleep, Rocky, Colt and Tum-Tum sneak out of the cabin and go to Jo's house, where she has them put on war paint. Then, they get to the Harding Waste Management plant. Jo and Tum-Tum distract a guard by letting a snake loose in the security office. Then the kids find Jo's father and untie him and before everyone can leave, they are caught by J.J., Jimmy, Hank and a group of thugs in hard hats and white jumpsuits. The boys fire slingshots at them, while Jo fires arrows. A thug beats Jo's father up and Jo tries to defend him by hitting the thug with her quiver, but he throws it up in the air and it lands on a machine. Jo's father tells her and Tum-Tum to go back and get the quiver, because inside it is a computer disk that contains information on the landfill that will make the United States Environmental Protection Agency close it for good. When J.J. hears this, he and the thugs get on the machine, but Tum-Tum turns it on. The disk fell out of the quiver when it landed on the machine, so Rocky and Colt manage to get it before J.J. and the thugs do. The machine shakes, and so does everyone on it. Then Tum-Tum, Jo and her father come face to face with a watchdog and Tum-Tum whips out a sandwich and feeds it to the dog, then they escape via manhole. Rocky and Colt knock out some thugs and they escape down the manhole as well, trying to avoid the dog. Then, J.J., Jimmy and Hank try to follow them, but J.J. has Jimmy and Hank pour some gasoline into the manhole and J.J. throws in a cigarette lighter, then a blazing inferno chases Rocky and Colt out through the storm drain and they escape into the river, where they swim to safety. Then, the boys sneak back into the cabin, but Tum-Tum goes to the fridge to get some chicken to eat in bed. Then Grandpa climbs the spiral staircase and turns the light on and tells Tum-Tum to go to sleep. Then he turns off the light and turns it back on because he noticed the war paint, but Tum-Tum wiped it off. The next day, the boys are exhausted from the night before and Grandpa asks them if even slept that night and the boys tell Grandpa that they each had a dream about a big, huge ugly dog, thugs in hard hats and white jumpsuits, stacks of paper and ugly cowboys (J.J., Jimmy and Hank). Then Grandpa tells them to go to sleep early. Later, the boys attend a Native American ceremony where Chief Roundcreek names them honorary warriors. The fun is interrupted by Jack Harding, J.J., Jimmy, Hank and their henchmen. Jack asks Jo's father where the disk is, but he won't say anything. Then Jack assumes it's in the house, so he sends J.J., Jimmy and Hank go in to find it, but they are attacked by Grandpa. Then a free-for-all erupts between Grandpa, the kids, the Indians and the thugs.In the end, the thugs give up and run away. Meanwhile, Jack and J.J. try to figure how to make sure the landfill stays open and Jack tells J.J. to get some professionals on the horn, but J.J. takes him literally and honks the car horn. Back at the cabin, the boys are massaging Grandpa in the hot tub and he wishes they would let him stay in retirement, but he is too great to. The next day, the boys decide to go to a hearing in court on the landfill with the Environmental Protection Agency. Then Rocky comes across an old Native American woman picking flowers to make medicine for the boys' wounds and she says they may not understand her words, but they know her feelings and they don't have to say anything back to her because they know that they are helping her. Later on, when it comes time to go to the hearing, they run into bikers, whom J.J. had hired to keep the disk out of the hearing. One biker throws a stink bomb in the car and while they get out for air, Jo is kidnapped. Her mother is unconscious, so Rocky drives the car and follows Jo's kidnappers. They get to the bikers' hideout and are surrounded by bikers. After Colt and the leader say words to each other, the leader is insulted and sends his gang after them. He asks them if they've had enough and Tum-Tum tells them that they should put their training wheels back on. It then enrages the leader even more. Rocky and Tum-Tum are chased into a desserted Mexican restaurant, where they are surrounded by bikers. A biker says, "Which one of you's first?" Rocky replies, "Does it matter? You can't count past one anyway." Rocky hits him with his hat and kicks him against a jukebox, then an upbeat Mariachi song plays and everyone fights to the music. Later on, Rocky and Tum-Tum kick the same biker against the jukebox again and a tango plays. Rocky and Tum-Tum do the tango, hitting every biker as they go, then they kick the same biker against the jukebox once again and the Mariachi song starts up again. Afterwards, the boys find Jo tied to a chair and, after knocking out all the bikers, they rescue her. They finally get to the courthouse and knock out J.J., Jimmy and Hank. After that, they finally get to the hearing, where Jo's father tells everyone about the disk and shows it to the Environmental Protection Agency. With the disk, the Indians win the case. When they get back to the cabin, the boys remember what Grandpa taught them about them learning to be like the flowers: they don't want to show off how pretty they are, they just want to be pretty. So the boys don't have to be cocky and show off their ninja skills. Then Grandpa teaches the boys how to "fly" by doing really high flips in the air. The movie ends with the picture freezing and a voice-over of Tum-Tum asking Colt if he's gonna kiss her and Rocky and Tum-Tum chanting, "Colt's gonna kiss Jo! Colt's gonna kiss Jo!"

In comparision to "3 Ninjas Kick Back"

Rocky, Colt, and Tum Tum appear younger than they were in the previous films because "3 Ninjas Knuckle Up" was actually shot in 1992, a year before "3 Ninjas Kick Back", and features the same three actors who played the Ninja brothers in the first film. However, "3 Ninjas Kick Back", which replaced two members of the original cast, was released first due to the delay of "Knuckle Up".

Characters

*List of characters from the 3 Ninjas movies

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0112255|title=3 Ninjas Knuckle Up