Best of the Best (1989)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

There's a reason why Best of the Best is not at the level of Bloodsport, The Karate Kid, and Rocky. There's a reason why Best of the Best is not as well known as Bloodsport, The Karate Kid, and Rocky. The answer: Best of the Best is an all-too cheesy copycat of of all three movies. Of course the movies have all drawn inspiration from one another, but Best of the Best is much inferior. But, having studied the martial arts and knowing different movies' intentions, I liked Best of the Best more than most people. Most people hated it, but not me! Mixed martial arts legend, Chuck Liddell called this his favourite fight movie growing up. It wasn't that good. Best of the Best is the prime example of a guilty pleasure. That's why I'm giving it 10/10.One thing I will give this movie credit for is it is about taekwondo. Most martial arts movies are either about karate or kung-fu, and lately, mixed martial arts. Many martial arts blend in well with each other, but I must give this credit where credit is due. It is about five taekwondo experts from all across America--Alex Grady, Tommy Lee, Travis Brickley, Virgil Keller, and Sonny Grasso (Roberts, Rhee, Penn, Dye, Agresta)-- who are chosen to compete against a team of unbeatable Koreans in a full contact fight. Each man must learn to work as a team and deal with their pushy coach (Jones) as well as their own personal demons. Sounds familiar? The main fighters it focuses on are Eric Roberts' and Phillip Rhee's characters, Alex Grady and Tommy Lee, whose subplots are actually pretty good. Grady is a widower who must provide for his young son, and Lee witnessed his soon-to-be opponent (played by Rhee's real life brother, Simon) murder his brother in competition and he swears revenge. Both subplots are good and provide the substance and seriousness that the movie needed. When Lee's subplot gets looked into more, it actually is heartrending and provides great sympathy for the characters. Best of the Best features training sequences, fights, and various situations that mirror the movies I mentioned earlier. Also, I mentioned that this was much cheesier. During the final fight scenes at the end, the Americans (good guys) are clad in black and the Koreans (bad guys) are clad in white. From a guy with fight knowledge, i can assure you that the fight sequences are very well done, but the fighters themselves are comical. Sonny Grasso is your stereotypical Italian, Virgil Keller is a hippy, Travis Brickley is a rude cowboy, and Alex Grady has beautiful hair. The Koreans don't have any distinctive features, but are still funny in how they try to look and act vicious. Tommy's opponent wears an eyepatch and looks like Snake Plisskin from Escape From New York and LA. Tommy is the only fully serious one. The fights are great and there's great emotion stirred up. It leads to a somewhat cheesy, but thoroughly wonderful ending.

This series gets better as it progresses, but in this seminal episode, the formula is very derivative and lacks originality.US team goes to Korea to engage the Koreans in a tournament. The strange thing is, the tournament only contains the US and the Korean team. There's an A hole coach (James Earl Jones) that has a chip on his shoulder, and a fighter (Rhee) that lost his brother in the previous tournament, and is a grudge match to avenge the guy who killed his brother.There's no fresh element in the story until way at the end. So the movie is bit of a bore. They should have shown Rhee as an individual contestant who's a sensei at at his Tae Kwon Do school. Someone who has outstanding humanity, and fighting skills. Focus of the story would have been lot clear that way, and Phillip Rhee's unbelievable martial arts skill would have been highlighted more.This is middle of the road martial arts movie that didn't cash in fully on the star's potential.

I don't know about USA but here in Bulgaria this movie was a cult 15 years ago. I mean it. It was not released legally here so we had to watch this and many other martial arts movies illegal on a VHS tape with a terrible video quality and many times dubbed in six or seven languages. It was pretty terrible but we saw many movies that way.But I did not see this movie on a VHS tape. I saw it on the TV about ten years ago. It was really terribly dubbed but I thought it was great. The fights were very good and the story was good enough to make an 11 years old boy happy.I saw it again a few weeks ago. I really enjoyed it but this time I didn't think it was that great. The fights were really good but the story was not that good. The acting was not good. Some people here say that it was good to hire actors instead of martial artists to play the roles but they are pretty wrong. Eric Roberts is an actor. But he has black belt in karate and that is why they hired him. Chris Penn had a black belt too. Not to mention Philip Rhee. But the characters were one-dimensional and not as developed as they had to be. The only really good actor here was James Earl Jones but his character was wrong somehow. I mean wrong. He was the trainer of the US karate team but he was FAT and completely out of shape. And he was not a martial artist. How could he train martial arts masters? He didn't show any martial arts experience or knowledge in the entire movie. Also the movie didn't need the character of Sally Kirkland. Really. May be she was supposed to represent the spirit of the martial arts or something like that but I think they put her in the movie just because there has to be a female character. But the big problem of the movie was... I don't know. I will call it americanism. It is obvious that the movie was made to make the Americans feel they are the greatest nation of the world. When you see a Korean guy yelling "USA! USA!" you will get what I mean. We could even see the Americans in the bar watching a martial arts tournament. That is not normal and you know it. They watch football or basketball or even boxing. But not karate. And what we saw was not a world karate championship. The only competition that actually happened was between the American and the Korean team. Why was this called "world championship"? But despite all I said this is a very good martial arts movie. It was much better than "Bloodsport" or "Karate Kid". At least it looks much more real.

Basically this film is one of the better low budget martial arts films to come our way in the late 80's and early 90's. The plot is for all to see within the first 20 mins or so, it doesn't really get anymore complicated than that other than 1 vital bit of info that is kept from us until 20-30 mins to go. Oh, and also the film doesn't end like most and was quite refreshing to see to be honest.....(I won't spoil it for you, you have to watch it to find out). Yes it's cheap but it is also chearful in a "got nothing else to do or watch one evening kinda way". The VOICE of Darth Vader - James Earl Jones is in a starring role as well as Oscar winner Eric Roberts (Julia's older brother) in a weird role for him, guess money must have been tight back then.....Go see it......worth a watch.