A bullied teen who fantasizes about being Chuck Norris' sidekick trains in martial arts to fulfill his dreams.A bullied teen who fantasizes about being Chuck Norris' sidekick trains in martial arts to fulfill his dreams.A bullied teen who fantasizes about being Chuck Norris' sidekick trains in martial arts to fulfill his dreams.
Julia Nickson
- Noreen Chan
- (as Julia Nickson-Soul)
Featured reviews
The great thing about this film, and yes it is indeed a great thing, is that it knows it is corny. It is well-cast, and it maintains a great sense of humor throughout the story. As far as Barry's dreams being too violent for a kid to be having, are you joking?!? Our society today is becoming so numb to violence,and often it film it is gratuitous. But in this film it's more slap stick humor than anything else. You can't compare this to any other Chuck Norris film. It is a genre all it's own. I saw this film as a kid and recently it was on Encore and I watched it again and had a great time. Taken for what it's worth, this film will make you do a happy dance.
Aaron's firmly in the driver's seat while brother Chuck lays down the action yet again in this enjoyable and harmless action romp, a re-hash of The Karate Kid only less involved and played mainly for laughs. Brandis is the asthma-induced child who dreams of fighting alongside his screen hero Chuck Norris. Mako plays loveable sage Mr. Lee who teaches the kid a little confidence and karate and soon enough his dreams form reality as the man himself soon turns up in the flesh at a martial arts tournament. Tame and undemanding, Sidekicks is an idle gem that whiles the hours away.
This movie is a good one for Jonathan Brandis. His acting is good, and so is the way he plays his part. This movie really brings out the way Chuck Norris deals with kids in his movies. He spends the movie as an imaginary friend to Brandis, who is finding junior high life hard. "Norris" teaches him discipline and how to deal with bullies.
This is definitely not the usual Chuck Norris movie, as you can see from the cover. In his other movies, he usually plays some kind of heavy duty hitman with lots of weapons and sometimes armor. This time he has none of that. He is just a low-key character, and even when he finally fights Joe Piscopo in the end, he acts like he is just trying to show Brandis how its done.
This is definitely not the usual Chuck Norris movie, as you can see from the cover. In his other movies, he usually plays some kind of heavy duty hitman with lots of weapons and sometimes armor. This time he has none of that. He is just a low-key character, and even when he finally fights Joe Piscopo in the end, he acts like he is just trying to show Brandis how its done.
This movie was just great! Jonathan Brandis was a great actor and will be sadly missed by all of his friends and fans... This movie was about an teenage boy with asthma always getting into trouble because of his vivid fantasies and daydreams of Chuck Norris teaming up with him to rescue his teacher. In order to help the boy (Jonathan Brandis) overcome his daydreaming and his asthma, his teacher's restaurant owning uncle takes the boy under his wing to teach him healing and strengthening techniques.He does so well that the uncle signs him into a martial arts competition.As a surprise, the mentor sees Chuck Norris at the competition and Chuck Norris introduces himself to the boy.In the end he teams up with his the boy to compete in the martial arts competition. A Great Film!
This is intended to be sort of a martial arts drama for kids, but it is in fact one of the best unintentional comedies ever. Most really bad movies are just bad and will bore you and make you not want to watch anymore, but Sidekicks is entertaining throughout. Mako, the martial arts instructor, and Joe Piscopo, the evil rival dojo owner, are clearly in on the joke and really ham it up. Brandis and Norris generally play it straight, although I'd have to honestly wonder if Chuck knows how cheesy the stuff is, I'd imagine not, having made Walker Texas Ranger.
I will not spoil the ending, but it fits perfectly with the movie. Watch this one with a group of friends and/or on an intoxicating substance for best effect. Chuck fans and children will also love this, but don't expect a good movie or a plot and dialogue that make sense.
I will not spoil the ending, but it fits perfectly with the movie. Watch this one with a group of friends and/or on an intoxicating substance for best effect. Chuck fans and children will also love this, but don't expect a good movie or a plot and dialogue that make sense.
Did you know
- TriviaChuck Norris did this film as a favor to his brother Aaron Norris, who was the director.
- GoofsThe Frying Dragon team won the Weapons, Men's Fighting, and Breaking competitions and came in second in the Ladies' Kata, yet they only managed to only be tied with Stone Dojo.
- Alternate versionsThe original UK video version has an entire scene removed, at the end of the film the nunchuck display that Barry Gabrewski does as part of the competition is missing due to censorship rules in the UK at that time. Additional cuts were made to other nunchaku and throwing stars footage, bringing the cuts total to 4 mins 38 secs.
- ConnectionsEdited into Saturday Night Live: John Goodman/The Pretenders (1994)
- How long is Sidekicks?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Kick and Kick Back
- Filming locations
- Houston, Texas, USA(Eleanor Tinsley Park)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $10,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $17,180,393
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $250,003
- Apr 11, 1993
- Gross worldwide
- $17,180,393
- Runtime
- 1h 41m(101 min)
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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