User Reviews

This is an unusually plotted film in as much as Eric Roberts is top billed as martial arts fighter Alex Grady, but the job of bringing the story to an emotional climax is given to Phillip Rhee in his match against Dae Han Park (Phillip Rhee's real life brother, Simon Rhee). The movie resonated with me much more when I saw it years ago, closer to it's original release. Today it has a rather tired look against some of the more outstanding martial arts movies out there. For all the talk about the fighters selected for the American National Karate Team to operate as a unit, it took the longest time for Travis Brickley (Chris Penn) to realize that he was being a jerk most of the time, something which came naturally to him. James Earl Jones on the other hand, had to work at being a jerk as coach Frank Couzo, who's over-emoting and general lack of self awareness was embarrassing most of the time, and very much in evidence when Grady's son was seriously injured in an accident. It all works out over the course of the story, with the championship tournament in Korea proving that you don't have to win a fight to maintain integrity and reveal true sportsmanship. The moving tribute offered by Dae Han to his defeated rival Tommy was the kind of scene designed to bring a tear to the eye of the viewer, followed up in due fashion by the rest of his teammates. It can be an inspirational story for younger viewers, though not to be confused over the idea that three months of training is sufficient to over power practitioners of Tae Kwon Do who have been doing it for a lifetime.

Eric Roberts, Phillip Rhee, James Earl Jones and Chris Penn star in this 1989 drama. Five U.S. martial artists, Alex (Roberts), Tommy (Rhee), Travis (Penn), Virgil (John Dye) and Sonny (David Agresta) are chosen to compete in a karate tournament against South Korea. They are coached by Frank (Jones) and begin getting to know each other as well as studying their opponents. Tommy is up against a man who killed his brother in a tournament years before and tries to get past it. Travis and the others are off to a rocky start, but begin caring about each other and they learn that's what a team is all about. I've always liked and recommend this great martial arts drama.

The 80's had some good martial arts movies, and some bad ones (really bad ones), this movie is a good one. While yes it does suffer some of the typical things in a martial arts flick, one lines, bad jokes, and some great fight scenes. The US tournament, the bar fight, and the match against the Koreans were all preformed very well.

I'm a martial artist myself, who goes to tournaments, and trains as well. The training scenes are done very well, and James Earl Jones who I must saw is a wonderful actor does a good job as the coach. The coach at first is a old school type coach (Tough training and very strict), who seem to have a softer side, when he learns that the team members need Tommy and Alex to win.

Overall a good movie, that any body can enjoy and or relate to if they have had a coach who was tough.

Best of the Best starts as washed-up Oregon martial artist Alex Grady (Eric Roberts) is invited to try out for one of five places on the US national Karate team that is due to fight team Korea in an invitational Taekwondo tournament in Korea itself. Alex jumps at the chance to try out for the team & is one of the five lucky ones who are picked to represent the US along with Tommy Lee (co-writer & co-producer Phillip Rhee), Travis Brickly (Christopher Penn), Virgil Keller (John Dye) & Sonny Grasso (David Agresta). Under a tough training regime run by Coach Frank Couzo (James Earl Jones) & guidance from sports psychologist Catherine Wade (Sally Kirkland) the five martial artist's home their bodies & minds to become the best of the best but will even that be good enough since team Korea are considered near unbeatable...

Directed by Robert Radler this rather tame martial arts film seems to have developed a bit of a cult following over the years & has spawned no less than three sequels (although in name only to be fair), personally I didn't think that much of it & a half decent cast is wasted on broad sentiment, questionable metaphors & bad dialogue. The basic concept of Best of the Best is the same as Rocky really, the underdog in the fighting arena (be it boxing or martial arts) comes through in the end despite personal issues & fearsome, seemingly unbeatable opponents. Also, much like Rocky it has to be said, Best of the Best features several musical training montages that are horribly dated thanks to the lame 'Best of the Best' theme tune & the training methods. The character's are stock clichés, the fighter who wants a second chance to prove himself, the big fat strong one with a bad attitude & one who is scared to fight as his brother was killed in the arena ten years ago & thus seeks redemption & a chance to overcome & control his fear. Of course no martial arts film would be complete without a tough, but likable & fair coach & Best of the Best is no different, did you really think it would be? The film also tries to have a stab at a few moral messages like team spirit, if you try your best you will always be a winner & the pinnacle of Best of the Best's deep meaningful plot is a scene in which two young brothers are at a petrol station & the younger one drops his ice cream onto the ground & starts crying so his bigger brother lets him have his ice cream, with depth & meaning like that why was Best of the Best never nominated for best picture at the Oscar's?

At over an hour & a half Best of the Best is kind of boring, it's well over an hour before team US even get to Korea & apart from a bar fight all the combat takes place during the last twenty minutes in very controlled tame bouts. I mean it's even rated PG so don't expect any gruelling fight scenes, a few kicks & punches & that's it & no-one dies either. In fact best of the Best features one of the slushiest endings I have ever seen in a martial arts film where the object of the character's is to beat the living hell out of one another, at the end of Best of the Best both the US & Korean teams hug & make-up & become friends. What? We don't want hugging & friendship we want to see people's teeth knocked out & bones broken.

There's a few surprising names in the cast not least James Earl Jones who probably just needed the money & wanted a free holiday to South Korea. John P. Ryan has nothing more than a cameo & his character is totally forgotten by the end as are the themes of corporate sponsorship that his character raises while Oscar winning actress Louise Flethcher has a small role too. Eric Roberts has a very bad late 80's mullet hair do while Christopher Penn is as thin as I can ever remember seeing him in this. Phillip Rhee & his opponent Dae Han Park played by Simon Rhee are in fact brother's in real life.

Best of the Best is a musical montage fans dream, there's about six of the things but everyone else is going to be disappointed. There's far too much pointless training filler & the broad morals raised are paper thin, a good cast wasted really. Followed by Best of the Best 2 (1993), Best of the Best 3: No Turning Back (1995) & Best of the Best: Without Warning (1998).

'The Best of the Best,' though an American martial arts production, is just as corny (minus some decent fighting sequences especially in the finale) as the Asian productions (and there are plenty to choose from). This movie combines the drama and martial arts genres to develop a product chock full of conventions and cliché.

The basic story is that of the newly formed U.S. Martial Arts team, which is preparing to compete against the highly disciplined (could you imagine doing this for your whole life?) Korean team. James Earl Jones, whose character doesn't seem quite developed, plays the coach of the team, Coach Cuzo, a guy who often wants his fighters to excels, but sometimes enjoys a bit of innocent rule breaking. Eric Roberts is Alex Grady, the oldest fighter on the team, who joins the team to I suppose prove something to his young son, Walter. Not much is stated about his intentions to join the team in regards to the relationship with his son (unlike other films, there is a close father and son bond), but he does claim that the opportunity is "the only thing he's got." Walter embodies your dramatic elements and devices in the movie and does so to such a degree that Eric Roberts comes off as a rather pathetic fellow. Joyous and proud, I suppose were the intentions, but really, it's hard to take him seriously towards the end. They just packed the dialogue with too much moralistic gushiness and inspirational "blah...blah".

Your martial genre is symbolized by one of the team's best fighters, Tommy Lee (Phillip Rhee), who is paired against Korea's best fighter that Tommy knows all too well, because like all martial arts movies, Dae Han (played by Simon Rhee, Phillip Rhee's real-life brother) had killed Tommy's brother in a fight when Tommy was much younger. Tommy is both scared that Dae Han, an extremely powerful fighter, would kill him in a match, but also that Tommy's emotions might get out of hand and that he could kill Dae Han in a fight. This martial arts genre cliché, develops half-way through the movie, when the Korean team is finally introduced. Prior to that, we just see juxtasposing scenes of the Americans and Koreans training in their own way. It's hard to believe that the Americans were able to muster any strength against the Koreans, given their training discipline versus the slacker Americans. But then again, this movie, included with the genre, also manifests that American pride and goal-setting structure so common to movies like these. So, even if it is corny and predictable, we still anticipate it.

Despite these genre conventions however, and the flaws therein, the movie does offer up a significant amount of fast-action fighting sequences, both in and out of the contest. To watch Chris Penn, who plays the arrogant cowboy type (from Miami of all places), swing kick a cigarette out of guys mouth is pretty cool in the scenes just before the bar brawl. And the final competition between Dae Han and Tommy Lee are guaranteed for a little jaw dropping awe. I suppose, if you're going to watch a martial arts movie, the fight sequences should dominate more than anything else, even stupid stories. I mean, hell, if the stories were what mattered, half of the martial arts movies out there (especially from the 70s) wouldn't be around because they are all based on one repeated story: to avenge the death of a master/father/brother/uncle, etc.

This movie was mediocre. The ending really pissed me off cause in the end Tommy Lee could have finished the korean dude if he just shoved him a little.

Alright, I've seen over 3 dozen martial arts movies in my life time and this one is a good one, but I'm sorry to say...the acting doesn't deliver.

The plot to the movie is VERY good on paper. The world's Tae Kwan Do championship is coming up and a team of 5 different Americans is chosen to face the reigning champions from South Korea. The Americans led by Coach Couzo (James Earl Jones) has to face themselves before facing their opponents, in more ways than one.

We get your 80's character cliché of The best fighter but with troubled past: (Philip Ree), your guy who looks like a geek but could snap your neck in two (John Dye) your resident a-hole (Chris Penn), your supporter guy just to fill out the roster (David Argresta) and your leader who happens to be the star of the movie (Eric Roberts). We also got your female trainer who happens to care more about the fighters than their training (Sally Kirkland).

Like I said, the on paper storyline development is phenomenal and James Earl Jones does a hell of a job in his role. Unfortunately other than Chris Penn, the rest of the cast leaves a lot to be desired. Sometimes Eric Roberts was a little too melodramatic in his role of Alex Grady and just looking at David Argresta in his role of Sonny made me laugh every time he appeared on screen.

Now, as the movie progresses we learn that Tommy Lee (Philip Ree) happens to be pulling his punches because its discovered the leader of the Koreans Dae Han (Philip's real life brother Simon) had killed Tommy's brother years ago. Tommy doesn't want to hurt anyone but he's forced to literally knock out Virgil (Dye) to prove he can beat anyone. We also learn that Alex has a son who's injured in a car accident, and James Earl Jones comes off as a complete jerk to get Alex's mind off it. However in the end, James shows mercy and drives home the fact he is the best actor of the cast and his scenes later in the movie only prove it.

Now for the plot holes....and there are a few. Apart from the shoddy acting, there's a scene where the 5 fighters are forced to run 20 laps around an outdoor track, which is 5 miles. We're supposed to believe Chris Penn....the fat guy from Reservoir Dogs and To Wong Foo....can run 5 miles without dropping dead? Also he supposedly does 165 sit-ups in a row, HA! Don't get me wrong, Chris Penn in his prime could play the antagonist as well as anyone but they really stretched the character's limits by having him cast. The next part is the bar fight where Team USA cleans house of the rednecks in the bar, how they didn't get arrested is what I'm trying to figure out.

The ending is a little cheesy but it actually set up a "we're all winners" touching moment that even I thought was good. I won't give away too much but I'll get to the point and say the martial arts were good, James Earl Jones was good, the storyline itself was good, the ending was touching....but the acting was mostly ridiculous.

My favorite highlight is actually something you'd miss it if you blinked. Wade (Sally) is getting Team USA to stretch and Travis (Penn) simply lays down, puts a towel over his eyes and goes to sleep while everyone else stretches and struggles.

Overall its a very watchable movie with great fight scenes and Chris Penn and James Earl Jones delivering the goods. The rest of the cast...ugh.

6 out of 10

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.