Bad Movie Club: Kindergarten Ninja
1994 action comedy
Bad Movie Rating: 4/5 (Johnny: 5/5; Fred: 6/5; Josh: 4/5)
Rating: 4/20
Plot: A former football star is inexplicably forced to work as a kindergarten teacher as punishment for drinking while intoxicated. Meanwhile, Bruce Lee is trying to earn his wings or something in heaven and is sent down to help out Blade Steel. Because that's the football player's name--Blade Steel. Bruce connects Blade with a karate guy who trains him in a series of montages so that he can rid the community of crime. And the kids just love him.
1) This starts with a friendly police officer talking about the dangers of drinking and driving.
2) You know the guy who plays the lead, as long as you know anything about football. Dwight Clark is the guy who caught "The Catch" from Joe Montana back in 1982. He was wide-eyed and mostly out of his element here in his only movie role. I almost believed in him as an action star and was impressed that he could show off his kicks and punches in slow motion without the benefit of any effects. He was slow all by himself.
3) You know who else is in this? George Chung, who plays the blind Mr. Miyagi role in this. Who the hell is George Chung? Well, that's the guy who played Alexander "Hawkeye" Hawkamoto in Hawkeye, another movie we enjoyed with Bad Movie Club. He brought a similar comedic charm to this action blockbuster that he brought to that movie. And that means he was neither funny nor charming.
4) This movie has somewhere around 19 montages. It starts with a montage actually, something that caught me off guard. Then, it had a variety of other montages--a date montage, kindergarten teaching montages, several action montages. After a while, I figured Anthony Chan was just messing with us.
5) The scene in heaven is a trip. Aside from Bruce Lee, played by an actor whose face is hidden in all of his scenes for what I believe are supposed to be comedic purposes, you get a guy who sort of looks like Elvis and a guy who sort of looks like a tall Charlie Chaplin. If I'm remembering correctly, I think Charlie and Elvis are about the same height. I can't tell you how pleased I was that Charlie Chaplin was a character in this movie. He's played by Mike Moen, by the way, and it's that guy's only movie, too. Erik Masalin was Elvis, also his only movie role.
6) The main villain--Hector Machete--is played with gusto by Juan Chapa. It's a fantastic performance.
7) I swear there was a scene where there were two George Chungs. He was playing the keyboards in a musical performance (see below) and then it showed his character walking in and being greeted by the hostess in the restaurant. I was perplexed.
8) During that musical number, some thugs come in and mess with Blade Steel's girl. But he's singing, so what can the guy do? Easy--he can simultaneously take care of those thugs and finish his song. It's not something I've seen before.
9) This movie has a little too much fun--breaking the fourth wall, throwing text on the screen for laughs--to get a 5/5 bad movie rating.
10) Lot of head scratching going on with some of the decisions in this movie. It's a lot of fun for bad movie lovers.
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