This is a walking zombie, brain-dead movie. It pretty much ignores the action in Part II, and plucks up the villains and locations of Part I.
If Part I was a knock-off of ROCKY, then this is sort of a knock-off of ROCKY II, but with less heart. John Kreese, the villain from the original whose philosophy was "Mercy is for the Weak," is back, and wants to get even with our heroes. So he solicits the aid of business tycoon and martial-arts expert (Thomas Ian Griffith) - unfortunately, the new villain is a silly, shallow, cartoonish caricature - he pollutes, he's corrupt, he's a rich white guy, he laughs diabolically every few minutes, so you KNOW he's evil.
Gone is the sweet, father-son, vaguely homoerotic relationship between Daniel and Mr. Miyagi. Now the byplay is forced and predictable, and it revolves around bonsai trees - I guess they went for the most boring subject they could find.
There's another tournament, there's more bad people doing things to make Daniel breach his vow of non-violence, and there's another predictable climax. Have fun.
If Part I was a knock-off of ROCKY, then this is sort of a knock-off of ROCKY II, but with less heart. John Kreese, the villain from the original whose philosophy was "Mercy is for the Weak," is back, and wants to get even with our heroes. So he solicits the aid of business tycoon and martial-arts expert (Thomas Ian Griffith) - unfortunately, the new villain is a silly, shallow, cartoonish caricature - he pollutes, he's corrupt, he's a rich white guy, he laughs diabolically every few minutes, so you KNOW he's evil.
Gone is the sweet, father-son, vaguely homoerotic relationship between Daniel and Mr. Miyagi. Now the byplay is forced and predictable, and it revolves around bonsai trees - I guess they went for the most boring subject they could find.
There's another tournament, there's more bad people doing things to make Daniel breach his vow of non-violence, and there's another predictable climax. Have fun.