The Phoenix Knife made it's first brief appearance in the low budget action flick Solo. Mario Van Peeble's character (Solo) uses it multiple times as a sort of one man army tool. He cuts wires with the side blades, stabs people with it, and even clips a rope to it and throws it like a spear to the top of a cliff into a tree and climbs with it. Now I'm not sure how he did this when there is no clip loop on the knife itself and in the movie it's briefly seen to be the exact same knife.
The knife is sturdy and sharp for being a Replica, and has gained a lot of noteriety as being a REAL knife that people actually use. However, it's very impractical as much as it is beautiful. The side blades are extremely dull and the handle is uncomfortable and does not feel very strong. The flip out mechanism is quite impressive, allowing for a quick flick to pop the side blades out or a slow and steady slide for a more intimidating unfolding action. However, since the side "blades" are dull and designed so that they cannot be sharpened, it's a pointless feature. The knife itself is heavy and feels like it could dish out some serious pain if struck by it. It fits perfectly into the leather sheath with its cool emblem inlayed into it. However the sheath merely has a large leather loop that lets the knife dangle quite freely from your belt. This seems a bit cheap and lazy compared to the find detail in it's design to fit so fluidly together. The large size of the loop makes it dangle so freely that it flops around and doesnt feel as tactical as the rest of the knife tries to be. The handle is small and the plastic feels delicate, however it contains a spiked ball at the base designed to strike an attacker in the head. It feels so weak though that it seems more like a design element than a practical feature.
This knife is commonly confused with the Klingon D'k Tahg knife used in the movies and tv series, however with closer inspection, despite the knives having very similar designs, they are in fact more different than alike. They both have a bashing spike on the base of the grip, two fold out side blades, arrowhead-shaped main blade, and blood letting slot down the center, but outside of that the knives are very different. The Klingon blade has straight angles at the knife tip instead of the curved leaf shape of the Phoenix, and a more robust handle. The side blades dont rest on the same side as each other on the Klingon knife either where on the Phoenix they do. Also the Klingon seemed to have a different release mechanism, however since there have been a wide variety of knives made throughout the history of the movies and shows, it's hard to say they didn't at some point. When viewed side by side the difference is noticable, however I'd love to find out how or why they share so many similarities.
Note: I've included a picture of the Klingon knife in a screen capture straight from the movie for comparison to prove the difference in their designs. I am not advocating that this knife is a D'k Tagh by including it.
