The Bad News Bears Go to Japan (1978)

Tony Curtis in his memoirs said he was not pleased with the results of The Bad News Bears Go To Japan. Probably he thought when signing on for this film in the first place he was going to be part of a hit series like James Bond. Unfortunately this film came up way short and The Bad New Bears ground to a halt. Try as I might I could not wrap my mind around the concept that the parents of this club would send their kids unchaperoned to Japan with an unregenerate conman like Tony Curtis. Not like Curtis hasn't played hustlers on the big screen, he has and quite successfully. But that character he has done is jarringly out of place in a family type film.Curtis is a down and out promoter who has the idea to promote the Bad News Bears to play the champion team of Japan. That's roughly like getting the Harlem Globetrotters to play the NBA champions, the Bears play in a style like the Globetrotters.When it proves successful all kinds of people want to cash in and Curtis has to reexamine his own life. Couldn't buy it and I doubt audiences in 1978 were buying it.

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.

I just turned on the telly this afternoon and was rather surprised to hear people speaking Japanese without subtitles. Turned out I was halfway through this film and I can't recall ever seeing a more realistic depiction of Japan (I lived there for five years). Another user commented on the Godzilla advert - a nice touch was the phrasing of the catch line. "With this bat you can beat the anyone!" An excellent film for anyone who has ever lived in Japan, and one which is surprisingly undated considering its age.I also think it was very brave - and realistic - of them to release a film in which more than half of what goes on does so in a language that most of the audience doesn't understand, leaving them in the same position as the characters. Lost in translation? Perhaps.

It had to happen. After the success of "The Bad News Bears" and "Breaking Training" the film execs at Paramount knew they had a goldmine on their hands and couldn't leave well enough alone. They started on the right track by enlisting Bill Lancaster to write the script. He also authored the original. Sadly that is where the similarities end."The Bad News Bears Go To Japan" is one of the worst films of the 70's. It's so bad the many of the kids from the first two don't even appear in this one. The ones that do are given little to do save for team leader Kelly Leak who gets to romance a young japanese girl. The love story is laughably bad.The coach this time around is Tony Curtis playing a con man looking for his next score. Curtis looks as if he is in a trance as he sleepwalks thru the film.And the worst part? There is very little baseball in a movie about little leaguers!!! We get more scenes of sumo wrestling. The one baseball game we DO get is badly directed and comes so late in the film you may have either fallen asleep or turned it off.And why send the kids all the way to Japan? A bit far fetched don't you think? Apparently the first film was a smash hit in Japan, playing in one theater for over a year. That says it all. The filmmakers knew that no matter how badly it bombed here (and it did) that they would have a hit in Japan (and it was). Too bad they didn't care that the product they were presenting was no better than a student film on a tiny budget. No. Take that back. A student film on a tiny budget would have to be ten times better than this pathetic "comedy."