You know, the movie shouldn't have been made period seeing as Ralph Macchio (Daniel-San) was pushing 30. The sorry fact is it was still watchable...but for the wrong reasons.

The plot is Daniel and Mr. Miyagi come back from Okinawa (where the 2nd movie took place) and have to re-locate due to the dilapidated hotel being sold. Danny forgoes college and uses his tuition money to help Mr Miyagi open a store to sell Bonsai Trees.

Now think about that for a second, the kid (in name only) just gave away his future to help an old man with a store sell something maybe 10 people out of every 100 want.

Meanwhile evil dojo owner John Kreese (played by Martin Klove) is down on his luck, avoiding bill collectors after his students ditch him after his outburst in the second movie. He plans to retire but his old Vietnam War buddy Terry Silver talks him out of it. Terry convinces Kreese to go on vacation while he plans revenge against Danial and Miyagi. He enlists the help of renegade karate kid Mike Barnes (Sean Kanan) to pester Daniel into defending his under-18 title.

The funniest thing is that the actor who played Silver, Thomas Ian Griffith, was 27 at the time making him a year YOUNGER than Ralph Macchio. Its just hilarious knowing this fact to see Thomas bully Ralph around like he's a little boy. Sean Kanan was supposed to be playing a 17 year old and he was 23 himself. In fact, only Robyn Lively who played Jessica Andrews was the age she was supposed to be, 17. John Kreese and Terry Silver were supposed to be Nam buddies, now with Martin Klove at 45, I could believe him but with T.I.G. only 27, I found it really hard to believe HE was in nam. Its unintentional comedy at its best, you got T.I.G. playing a character who he's too young to be and Ralph Macchio playing a character he's way too old for.

Now here's where the ingenious plan takes place. Silver's plan is to befriend Daniel into turning against Miyagi and being put into position to be swerved and humiliated by the Cobra-Kai. This is actually a very brilliant idea since Daniel is (in the storyline anyway) getting a little old to be hanging around Mr. Miyagi so in his mind its time for a change. I won't bore you with the rest of the plot because you've either seen it anyway or need to see it to appreciate, but I have one very large complaint....the ending.

The first 2 movies had rather unfufilling endings, but while Part 2 pretty much filled us in on the events after Part 1....part 2 was pretty much forgotten. This one however takes the cake. Daniel is able to defeat Barnes and win the tournament, which is all fine and dandy but the movie ends with him hugging Mr Miyagi. What happens with Cobra-Kai, what about Jessica, with Terry Silver? Ralph Macchio was pushing 30 so there was no way a 4th movie could be made (with him as the lead character) so why have an ending where NOTHING is settled? Imagine you're watching in a theater, Terry Silver does all these devious antics to humiliate Daniel and Miyagi and all that happens is Mike Barnes loses the fight.....so we are to assume Terry just goes back to his normal job and Kreese re-forms Cobra-Kai with Barnes? The ending left a bad taste in my mouth and if it wasn't for T.I.G. the movie would have been a washout.

The highlight of the movie is where Mr. Miyagi beats up Barnes, Kreese and Silver single-handedly and they still taunt him 25 seconds later as he walks away with Daniel.

I give it 4 out of 10 because Pat Morita and T.I.G. deliver the goods