Released in 1989, Best of the Best is a movie that I often wonder how it took me so long to see. Everyone I know that is my age seems to have seen it and at least one sequel, whereas, it took me until today to witness it.


The movie has no real singular main character, and really focuses on the USA National Karate team, helmed by Coach Couzo (James Earl Jones - Conan the Barbarian), a veteran coach who has taken many US teams through a variety of tournaments, and now finds his control threatened by the sponsorship of the team forcing a new assisstant in the form of spiritual martial arts sensei Catherine Wade (Sally Kirkland - JFK). His team is made up of 5 fighters from accross the nation, coming from all sorts of backgrounds, whom he has to mold into a team to take on the Korean national side in a championship match.
The team consists of Karate Instructor Tommy Lee (Phillip Rhee - LA Streetfighter), a man who as a child watched his older brother be killed in a karate fight with a member of the current Korean side, Alex Grady (Eric Roberts - Raptor) a single parent who has been in retirement for 3 years since he injured his shoulder, Travis Brickley (Chris Penn - Redemption) a portly and rather undisicplined Texan fighter, Virgil (John Dye - Making the Grade) a Buddhist and Sonny (David Agresta - in his only role) a half Italian.
The team go through many fall outs, and Grady's young son is involved in a car accident, but after all the mishaps, the five fighters make the journey to Korea, where they will be going up against opponents trained in the most extreme of conditions by their coach (Master Hee Il Cho - Bloodsport 2: The Next Kumite), with the last fight, the one that decides who truly is the Best of the Best, being fought between Tommy and his brother's killer Dae Han (Simon Rhee - Universal Soldier)...

The acting in the movie really isn't anything to write home about. James Earl Jones is solid as always, and the cast do well enough to keep it respectable, but they do have occasional lapses into cringe-worthy, such as Eric Roberts towards the end of the movie. But on the whole there were no performances that stood out as being terrible.

Music meanwhile, is hilarious. You know those songs that often appear in 80s martial arts movies, examples being Bloodsport,Kickboxer and Kickboxer 2: The Road Back where the lyrics tie into the film in some way? here they are, with none of the quality of the music that appeared in the aforementioned movies. It is pretty funny though, so it isn't a total failure.

The movie has no special effects apart from the battle damage the fighters take, which is good enough.

The fight scenes in the movie are actually of a pretty high standard with at least the majority of the fighters looking to have skills in martial arts that are decent or even above, especially in the case of the Rhee brothers, who have a great fight at the end. But the thing that ruins the fights for me, is that apart from the last two, we hardly actually see any of the fights. We only actually see poor Sonny throw one punch in his fight, the rest is cut out. There is a pretty good bar fight sequence though, which features a nice little show from Kane Hodder ( of Friday the 13th part 7-10 fame), as the angry boyfriend of a girl Chris Penn's character pulls.

On the whole, I found Best of the Best to be a fairly amusing movie, and it is very good for one of these Western martial arts movies made in the 80s, especially when you consider it doesn't have a 'name' like Jean Claude Van Damme attached.

The movie does feature a good few faults of course, one being that it is slightly predictable, well apart from the ending, which I have to admit was slightly surprising, but it wasn't exactly original (Rocky anyone?). At various points, both Grady and Tommy aren thrown out/leave the team, yet the team don't call in replacements? what? they are gonna take on 5 tough as nails Koreans with only 3 men?. It isn't hard to guess the pair will come back to the team. What martial art the tournament is using also caused me some amusement. We have been following the USA Karate team. The commentator calls it a 'Tae Kwon Do fight, and it is announced as being a mix of Karate, TKD, Judo and Kickboxing. Wait a minute, its the US Karate team! if the Koreans do 3 other martial arts as well the Yanks were screwed from the start!
It should also be noted that the outfits the teams wear to fight are horrible, I don't know if they wear these in real life, but they look stupid.
The movie really could have been doing with a few more fights. The fights where the team qualify werent shown in full, and neither were the climax fights, come on guys, that is why people watch these movies.

But on the whole, the movie presents enough good to be enjoyed by anyone with a liking for these 80s martial arts movies. The characters are, for the most part anyway, likeable, and while they are all fairly cliched (Penn even wears a cowboy hat for most of the movie, just in case you missed he is meant to be a rowdy character, from Texas), the actors do well enough to bring them to life and make it a fun experience. The fact that Dae Han sports an eye patch confused me a bit, I was half expecting to be told that Tommy's brother took his eye out in the fight, but thankfully the makers resisted the urge for that particular plot point, but then you have to wonder exactly why they bothered with the eye-patch, other than to make him seem menacing, but a ruddy great scar was always more intimidating for me anyway.

While I wouldn't go as far as declaring Best of the Best as a great movie, or even all that good of one for that matter, but as an example of the 80s martial arts boom, it is one of the better ones, and made for a pretty enjoyable afternoon's viewing. I wouldn't go as far as saying it is in the league of some of Van Damme's 80s movies, but it definitely outdoes a healthy chunk of Steven Seagal's work in terms of quality. Sadly, Phillip Rhee never really got a career in movies, with his only roles post BotB being in the 3 sequels, his brother Simon has carved out a good career for himself in stunts however.

At the end of the day, I would recommend BotB to fans of martial arts movies, and those who grew up with it. It isn't all that great a movie, and it is fairly cliched, but what it is is a fairly entertaining romp that isn't painfull to watch.

I think the three stars and a recommended I give this is pretty fair, it isn't all that good a movie, but it certainly is at least pretty entertaining, and I rate it a bit higher than other 'afternoon viewing' movies I have seen, so it gets an extra star, but it doesn't come close to any sort of real quality, so it ever getting higher than 3 wasn't happening.

Like I say, if you like 80s martial arts movies, chances are you will at least gain some enjoyment from Best of the Best. It has its good points, the fights, the acting isn't bad, the ending wasn't all that predictable, but it also has its bad, some plot points, most of the movie is predictable, the fights being cut short.

The movie was followed by 3 sequels, none of which I can claim to have watched in full, but I don't believe they really have all that much to do with this one.

Related Reviews
Best of the Best Championship Karate for Super Nintendo

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV