IMDb RATING
3.7/10
3.4K
YOUR RATING
A small-time hustler takes the pint-sized baseball team to Japan for a match against the country's best Little League baseball team, sparking off a series of adventures and mishaps.A small-time hustler takes the pint-sized baseball team to Japan for a match against the country's best Little League baseball team, sparking off a series of adventures and mishaps.A small-time hustler takes the pint-sized baseball team to Japan for a match against the country's best Little League baseball team, sparking off a series of adventures and mishaps.
- Awards
- 2 nominations total
Matthew Anton
- E.R.W. Tillyard III
- (as Matthew Douglas Anton)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Featured reviews
The franchise is getting very old and tiring here and the once funny antics of those rambunctious little leaguers on the Bears baseball team aren't even the least bit funny anymore. Many of the kids from the first two films chose not to appear in this one (that may be one of the problems) and Tony Curtis seems lost in his role as the team's new coach, a shifty con man who attempts to make some big money by sending the Bears off to Japan for a highly publicized exhibition game against Japan's best little league baseball team. Paramount wisely chose to end the series after this one.
This movie didn't know what it wanted to be. The whole plot simply doesn't make sense. Like with the first sequel, main characters disappear without explanation and new ones are added. Also like the sequel, they play horrible ball to start with despite being such a good team. Can talent be switched on and off like offense in a wrestling match?
The whole story of the team going to Japan just doesn't make sense. The side plot of Kelly pursuing a relationship is also thrown in without any thought. By the end, you don't care who wins or even if they play at all. In fact, baseball is not even the focus of the movie and the child actors play very minor roles.
Just a terrible movie that never should have been made.
The whole story of the team going to Japan just doesn't make sense. The side plot of Kelly pursuing a relationship is also thrown in without any thought. By the end, you don't care who wins or even if they play at all. In fact, baseball is not even the focus of the movie and the child actors play very minor roles.
Just a terrible movie that never should have been made.
This--dare I call it--film is, IMHO, one of the worst productions ever recorded onto celluloid and released by a studio. Our daughter loved the original BNB, and seeing original director Michael Ritchie as this installment's Producer gave us some reason to hope, but 3 minutes of this extreme dog-of-a-movie was enough to dispel all of THAT! It's hard to believe this was made only two years after the original came out. From Tony Curtis' boozy, utterly amoral character (was this an acting job?), to the very incoherent script and equally helpless direction, this is a testament, I can only imagine, to the power of greed. Greed by a studio and production company that had had a hit with the first BNB movie and was determined to milk it for all it was worth--regardless of the #&%@! they had to serve up! Thanks folks! Save yourself the considerable bother and DO NOT watch this movie!
This film didn't follow-up to the first two successful sequels! John Berry, was not a good director, and especially a bad script!!!
Tony Curtis (Father of Jamie Lee, starred in "Halloween" the same year), did an Ok job, and I say that this film was disaster!!!
NO STARS!!!
Tony Curtis (Father of Jamie Lee, starred in "Halloween" the same year), did an Ok job, and I say that this film was disaster!!!
NO STARS!!!
What is going on here?! Where are The Bears? This is a Tony Curtis film. And his character wears out after 5 minutes. There are lengthy stretches of the film where The Bears barely appear, if at all! Like the 15 minute karate exhibition, or the 10 minute Game Show nonsense. And how bout some subtitles for the long conversations in Japanese. Viewers outside of Japan don't need the realism of communication breakdown. The heart and cleverness of the original are completely missing here, and we're left with Tony Curtis (a great actor) rambling on like a cheap salesman. The newly added Mustapha (Scoody Thornton) gives us a few cute moments, but Kelly (Jackie Earle Haley), the leader of the team, is little to be seen. And where's Tanner!! Don't poke this bear.
Did you know
- TriviaIn an interview with the A.V. Club in 2012, Jackie Earle Haley revealed that he did actually fall in love with his on-screen love interest, Hatsune Ishihara and she reciprocated. However, because she couldn't speak English and he couldn't speak Japanese, their relationship didn't last long. He said: "And then, of course, there was one of the worst films ever made, 'The Bad News Bears Go To Japan' [Laughs]. But the experience of working on the film was a treat. I actually fell in love with that girl I was playing across from and she came out to L.A. [Los Angeles] and spent some time with me and we stayed in touch on the phone. And all of this is very funny because she didn't speak English. And I didn't speak Japanese [Laughs]. We both had, like ten words that we would just try to figure out how to organize them and communicate."
- GoofsThe character of Pennywall makes no sense. He knows Lazar personally, as evidence by him remarking about how Lazar knows of his bad back, but he is never shown arriving with the team in Japan or anytime before (or after) his part as the masked wrestler and he's obviously not a native of Japan.
- Quotes
Abe Bernstein: Marvin, if I take off my shoes, I'm going to get athlete's foot!
Marvin Lazar: Well, that'll be the only part of you that is an athlete.
- Crazy creditsThe Paramount mountain changes into Mount Fuji before the opening credits begin.
- SoundtracksSelected themes
from "THE MIKADO"
Written by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan (as Sir Arthur Sullivan)
- How long is The Bad News Bears Go to Japan?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- The Bad News Bears Go to Japan
- Filming locations
- 2 Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan(location)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $7,092,495
- Gross worldwide
- $7,092,495
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