Sidekicks (1992) - Chuck Norris, Jonathan Brandis

[laagi]

I'm not sure why out of all the martial arts movies I've watched eversince I'm a Kid this one stuck with me. There's only a handful of these and we all have them, don't we

Probably some would just write this off as a cheap knock off to The Karate Kid. And you'd probably be right there's been a number of these kind of movies with the same plot.

This one sees the late Jonathan Brandis as our main protagonist Barry. He's a bit of loser who's only a hero in his daydreams. Where he joins his idol Chuck Norris in a variety of movie settings.

I guess that is one of the reasons I've always liked this I could relate to it. Who didn't have these daydreams sometimes where you could just be whoever you wanted to be. Not to mention back in the days you also had to find a way to entertain yourself one way or the other. Something I feel sorry for nowadays Kids somewhat. We've had to use our own fantasy to make up our worlds. Man, it was great fun and I miss these times!

It's interesting to see that there's a lot of The Karate Kid or maybe even a bit of The Karate Kid 2 story in here. As Barry tries to join a Dojo later on led by Kelly Stone (Joe Piscopo) i which of course he doesn't feel comofortable. Further helping this is that Kelly Stone has an old feud with his idol Chuck Norris. Not to mention Barry's school bully Randy is part of the gang.

So eventually Barry is introduced to a simple cook who turns out to be a Martial Arts master Mr. Lee (of all names) played by the late Mako. From there it's your usual training montage and leading up to the final showdown. Which is silly but again so much fun to watch. Also there's some really nice nunchuks choreography, which probably was cut in a lot of countries at the time of it's release.

It's probably nostalgia playing a trick on me but I still love this movie after all this time. Also it's surprising that there's a bunch of known actors in this. Others not mentioned yet include Julia Nickson Soul, Beau Bridges and Danica McKellar.

If you haven't seen this yet and don't mind the cheesiness of the 90's go check this out as soon as possible. Sorry there's no better trailer available atm.

 

[CaldoTheKid]

Yeah I liked it. One thing I always wondered did the Brandis character just make it all up about Chuck being at the tournament?