Literally pitched as Home Alone meets Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the 3 Ninjas series was a fun and action-packed thrill ride for many children of the mid to late 90s. The series follows the adventures of Rocky, Colt, and Tum-Tum, a set of siblings trained in martial arts by their Grandfather (Victor Wong).
While Colt (Max Elliott Slade) had the same actor for the first three films, the second saw Rocky (Michael Treanor) and Tum-Tum (Chad Power) replaced. The final film of the series, which prominently features Hulk Hogan starred three all-new kids playing the roles. The acting throughout the series was plenty of fun, but this series shined in its fights. Here are the 10 best fights in the series.
First Fight (Original)
Kicking off this list is the fight scene that kicked off the movie. While at their Grandpa’s house for the summer, a man named Snyder (Rand Kingsley) shows up with a hoard of ninja dressed in all black to recruit Grandpa as a trainer. Seeing the danger that their grandfather was in, the three ninjas jumped into action.
This fight involved several items, including a serving spoon and several plants as weapons against guys with swords. Also involved in this, and every other fight scene from the 90s is the iconic shouting of the “kyah” on every single hit. It showed exactly what the series was going to be.
Landfill Fight (Knuckle Up)
The boys and newcomer Jo (Crystle Lightning) gear up to save Jo’s father who is being held captive. With improvised weapons including makeshift nunchucks, grappling hooks, pepper spray, caltrops, and blunt-tipped arrows, they break into the landfill owned by the big bad of the movie.
They steadily beat down their opponents until the plot point computer disc gets tossed onto a trash compactor belt and it becomes a race to grab it. The boys and the bad guys take turns pummeling each other to a Benny Hill-type tune until the boys escape with it, but not before almost being firebombed in a sewer.
Theme Park Fight (High Noon at Mega Mountain)
In this film headed by Hulk Hogan with Mathew Botuchis as Rocky, JP Poeske II as Tum Tum, and Power Rangers actor Michael O’Laskey II as Colt, the camp factor went up by a significant amount. The villain was a more cartoony Medusa (Loni Anderson) and her sidekick Lothar (Ernest’s Jim Varney).
This scene is set around a wild west reenactment show, where the boys fight ninjas. What makes this scene so poignant is the fact that a crowd watches and cheers on the boys kicking ninja butt, even though they clearly are not part of the show. Tum-Tum also has to check to make sure he didn’t kill a man, which doesn’t happen in any other fight in the series.
Pow Wow Punch-Out (Knuckle Up)
This fight is just one example of how this whole movie focuses on the boys constantly saving a Native American reservation. The fight actually kicks off with a minute-long dance number which is interrupted by the bad guys. After Grandpa shows up suddenly, everyone has the fighting spirit and it becomes an all-out brawl.
Everybody with a gun uses it like a bat and at one point, Tum-Tum throws a cactus at a man then kicks and pepper sprays him. The bad guys go running off after getting their butts handed to them.
Phone Fight (Kick Back)
While trying to escape capture with a sacred dagger, the boys, Rocky and Tum-Tum played this time by Sean Fox and J. Evan Bonifant respectively, and Miyo (Caroline Junko King) get into a fight with some ninja chasing them in Japan.
While that is already an interesting premise, this whole fight goes on while the boys have a phone conversation with their parents on a 90s cellphone, which belonged to one of the ninjas. They explain away the noise of them very clearly fighting by blaming it on a movie. Then after a short chase, Miyo slaps a man about 12 times while laughing.
Biker Boys (Knuckle Up)
On their way to the big court hearing to stop the landfill from dumping into Native lands, a bunch of mercenary motorcyclists stop and kidnap Jo while doing sick bike stunts. The boys then steal a car and chase after them to save her. The boys split up in a ghost town and face off against the worst mercenaries on film.
Rocky and Tum-Tum have a fight synched to a series of themed Mariachi songs while Colt goes on the offensive on a second-story balcony, beating his foes with an umbrella and a ladder. The boys jump through the windows of a guarded room and rescue Jo from captivity before heading to the trial.
Grandpa Vs Snyder (Original)
After a movie filled with children fighting adult men in ninja outfits with swords and men with guns, it takes a darker shift to have a showdown between Grandpa and Snyder. We learned that Snyder was the former student of Grandpa, so the two are ideally on equal grounds.
Snyder takes a bold move and throws a pepper bomb in Grandpa’s eyes, then proceeds to beat the crap out of him. It looks grim if that’s the only part of the fight you see. As Snyder celebrates his victory by picking up Grandpa, he gets a fistful of jellybeans shoved down his throat and then beaten down by the old man. Not one to admit defeat, Snyder pulls a gun on Grandpa, only to be shot by the boys’ father.
Escape (Kick Back)
After escaping their prison cell, the boys and Miyo fight their way through hordes of ninja wielding staffs and kendo shinai. After making it through two groups, they find themselves in a stairwell, stopped only by a sumo wrestler. After Tum-Tum slips under him, the boys send him crashing down into the hundreds of ninja climbing the stairs.
When the boys make it outside on the roof, they are met by two larger sumo wrestlers. Rocky and Miyo take on one while Colt and Tum-Tum take on the other. They get away by hopping on some wind gliders that happen to be on the roof, marking a successful escape.
Pizza Fight (Knuckle Up)
After Jo gets pushed around by some adults, including Patrick Kilpatrick and Donal Logue, in a local pizza joint, Colt and Tum-Tum step in to protect her, while a few dozen other people watch and cheer him on. During the whole fight, they both hold onto a pizza.
A pool table comes into play and, after missing throwing the first ball at Colt, one of the guys picks up two more to throw, only to be nailed in the crotch by Colt. Tum-Tum pushes one into Rocky playing an arcade game and oblivious to the happenings around him. Rocky then joins the fight, stopping a man wielding a butterfly knife, and the boys send the guys running.
Home Alone (Original)
This fight is where the Home Alone comparison comes from as this fight sees elaborate torture traps and karate kicks mixed together. After Snyder’s goons, aka the Dudes, break into the boys’ house, the boys take action setting up a plan. First, they suit up, hide, and let the Dudes split up. Colt hides in a room being remodeled and silently beats the Dudes.
After that, the boys use a series of traps including a belt-based throat snare, an oil slick, projectile CDs, homemade pepper bombs, and the ultimate tool, laxatives which the Dudes happily drink after the pepper bomb. It is perfectly overacted in the best ways and worth just watching this scene only.