 Best of the Best came out in 1989, and not only is it the great martial arts movie, I feel it's a fantastic representative of the art of Taekwondo. Now, despite the onsite of comments I'm sure to get, today we're going to look at Best of the Best and why I feel it is the ultimate Taekwondo film. Now, before we get started, I just want to thank all of you who have supported this channel for the past couple of years. Now, we do have a lot of goals and places we want to take content, produce more art history, material, interviews, and so many big projects, and we can only do that if we can devote more resources and time to that. So, we do have a Patreon site, but now we're happy to announce that we also have YouTube memberships unlocked. And with YouTube memberships, it's the same exclusive content that you'll find on Patreon, but now you can do it right here through YouTube. So, we'll talk about it more at the end of the video, but if you look down below at the subscribe button, right next to it you'll see the button that says Join. If you click on that, it'll give you a lot more information about what your contributions go towards, and what kind of perks are offered with that. So, thank you so much. Now, as we go into this, like I said, I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of comments and people suggesting other Taekwondo movies that might be more definitive Taekwondo films. I mean, there's movies out there like The Kick and The Miami Connection, which feature Taekwondo, but in my opinion, I don't feel they do the art justice. I mean, you take a film like Miami Connection, which is basically a spoof. You can't really take it seriously. It takes place in Miami, lots of feathered hair with ninjas. So, I feel that while Taekwondo is in it and it's featured as an art in it, it kind of only goes so far as to represent its actual authenticity. I also want to say that I don't want this video to be a debate on the legitimacy of Taekwondo. I know there's a lot of people out there who hate the art, and there's a lot that love it. That's not what this argument is today. It's more about the representation of the art in the film Best of the Best. Now, the great thing about Best of the Best is that while Taekwondo is definitely the featured martial art present here, it doesn't beat you over the head with the art itself, with the style, the history, the kates, or anything like that. And I think that's its greatest strength, that it shows you more than it tells you about the art. So, just as a quick warning, there will be spoilers. If you have not seen this film yet, we're going to be talking about plot points and even the endings. So, if you don't want it ruined for you, hit pause, go watch the film, and then come back and join the discussion. Otherwise, let's take this sucker apart and see how it ticks. Now, let's be honest. The plot of this movie is pretty thin. It's essentially about five American athletes who are joining an American karate team that are going to go to Korea and compete in some national championships. It's pretty ambiguous, and, you know, as far as the skeleton, it's pretty thin, but they do manage to pack a lot of meat on these bones. And now, while this is primarily a Taekwondo film, there are little pepperings and flavors of other martial arts in there, which we'll get to in a little bit. Now, the term karate is used quite a bit in this film, which is not entirely inaccurate, as Tonsudo and Taekwondo are often referred to as Korean karate. But you're going to see here that Taekwondo definitely is the featured art of this film. Best of the Best showcases the strength of Taekwondo through the example of its players. This is not an action film. This is a character building drama with martial arts at its base. And even though it feels like it's a little bit stuck in the 80s, down to the hair, trophy bar fights, and obligatory training montages, this film still stands as a great example of how martial arts can be used to develop strength, character, honor, build relationships with teammates, and to overcome any challenge, whether it be an actual opponent in front of you or personal grievance. So let's start off by looking at the characters, and then we're going to look at all the great ways that Taekwondo was showcased in this movie, and then finally how it all comes together in the end becoming one of my personal favorites. Now, this story is centered on five Americans competing together on an American national team. We have Tommy Lee, Alex Grady, Travis Brickley, Virgil Keller, and Sonny Grosso, with character development built in that order. To be honest, the character development in this film is a bit thin, especially with the last three. Travis serves well enough as a bad boy plot device to show the struggle of the team congealing together, but doesn't really offer much else. And sadly, Virgil and Sonny are pretty much throwaway characters. It's like the movie acknowledges that they're one-dimensional because they're serving as fillers with maybe the occasional moment of comic relief. Do you know where you are? On the floor. Now, the real meat of the story comes from the characters of Tommy Lee, played by the Taekwondo great Philip Rhee, and Alex Grady, played by Eric Roberts. Tommy's story centers around him following in his brother's footsteps as a Taekwondo competitor. The movie slowly reveals that his brother was killed in a tournament when Tommy was a little boy, and his memory haunts him and drives him to push forward. He's a lifelong martial artist in this film. He runs a Taekwondo school, which by the way is a Junchang Taekwondo school, and Taekwondo is part of his character makeup, and he is by far the most impressive of the American fighters. And it takes a turn for the dramatic when Tommy realizes that the person he's pitted against in the tournament is none other than Dae Han, the very competitor that killed his brother. Alex Grady is a single father who had a rising career in martial arts competition until he suffered a severe shoulder injury and was forced into retirement. His invitation to qualifying competition gives him a spark and one more shot at fulfilling his martial arts dream. And there's also some sweet father-son moments, which help us empathize with him in his family situation. And also is a fun fact, the character of Walter, his son, was actually named after Eric Roberts' real-life father, Walter Grady Roberts. Travis is unfortunately little more than the cowboy from Miami with a big mouth, a temper, and cheap shots. Even when he's losing, he's spewing slurs and insults. His only redeeming factor is the believable performance by the late Chris Penn in the few moments where Travis becomes a team player and shows a glimmer of likeability. For you, Travis, take that. Sonny, played by David Agresta in his only movie role, and Virgil, the late John Dye, also seen in The Perfect Weapon as Justin's brother, have almost no story here. Virgil is a Buddhist vegan, and Sonny is from Detroit who likes a good fight. And unfortunately, we're not really offered any much else in their background, so that's pretty much what we get with him. Then we have the great coach Kuzo, played by the legendary James Earl Jones. His booming voice and large onscreen presence gives the movie an appropriate authority. He has no nonsense and he does a great job keeping the team focused on their task. He even serves as a personal obstacle to Tommy and Alex later in the film when they are forced to choose between their loyalty to the team and their personal lives. Contrasting against him is coach Catherine Wade, played by Sally Kirkland. She is the counterbalance to Kuzo's harsh coaching. Where he is booming and authoritative, she is soft spoken and peaceful. She brings in the harmony and the Eastern philosophy. He drives their body, she guides their minds. There is good chemistry between them and she even gets a moment to show she's not all huff and puff. Then we have Don Peterson, played by Tom Everett, as a technical coach, providing stats, data and video study of all the competitors. His role is very minor, but these three coaches together serve as a great example to demonstrate that in order to overcome what might seem as insurmountable odds, you need to be best physically, mentally and technically. Now, even though this movie has moments of ham and cheese, the story of an unfulfilled man chasing his dreams and another man wrestling between vengeance and forgiveness is enough to carry this along, especially given the performances by Eric Roberts and Phillip Rhee. And onto the martial arts portion. Yes, the movie does have some slow pacing, but when we do get to the parts where we see Taekwondo in action, it's satisfying. And I think overall, this film is a great job of showing Taekwondo in a very positive light. First, the way the Korean team is portrayed here serves well to give the competition some serious weight. Their intense training sessions and demonstrations show incredible uniformity and discipline, and the movie gives us a taste of their traditional culture. Combined with some great performances of Taekwondo greats Simon Rhee, James Liu and several others, we're presented with a Korean team that feels formidable. They are dramatized as almost superhuman to the point that we can completely empathize with our heroes when they see their opponents for the first time. Overall, best of the best provides some great build-up and anticipation for the final tournament. We also get Taekwondo presented to us in a few different ways. We see it in a qualifying tournament, which looks and feels like a real-life tournament does. We also see it later in the bar fight in use as self-defense, albeit in a fictional and cinematic way. And then we get a beautifully stylized and choreographed final act, which totally moves up to the anticipation the film builds to. And a quick fun fact about the bar scene. The character Bert is played by actor Kane Hodder. For those of you who don't know his face, that's because he's more famous for covering his face with a certain iconic mask. Yes, Kane Hodder actually played Jason Voorhees in several Friday the 13th films. He also has cameos in Best of the Best 2 and 3. The techniques in this film are sharp. Philip Rhee has to be one of the best kickers I've ever seen. And him, along with his real-life brother Simon Rhee, playing Dae Han, have some of the most beautifully executed moves I've ever seen on screen and really showcase the powerful kicking that Taekwondo has to offer. And even though this movie is fictional and, you know, choreographed entirely for entertainment, it's still incredibly engaging. And just as I brought up in the perfect weapon movie, Best of the Best also has some great sound design, and some of those sound effects really sell the intensity of those landed strikes. So in terms of the martial arts presented in this film, Taekwondo is front and center. Philip Rhee is very notable in the art, and he's also the student of another Taekwondo great, Jun Cheong. Now, Jun Cheong's name has come up before on his channel, as he was the owner of the school featured in the Karate Kid series. Even the Korean coach is a highly respected Taekwondo master, Hee Il Cho. So between Tommy and the Korean team, this is a Taekwondo film hands down. Although, there are peppered references to some other arts in there, if you look close enough. Now, we're not really given a lot of background information on the training of the other four Americans, but if you look close enough, there's a couple of clues you can draw from. First, Travis, even his red gi, he's wearing some sort of goju-kai or goju-ru patch. His techniques in the film demonstrate it by his strong driving attacks. So we can reasonably conclude that Travis has a background in hard traditional karate. Alex is a little bit more ambiguous. He wears a plain black gi that is almost identical to the signature Ed Parker Kempo uniform, but his techniques don't look that Kempo at all. He wears no patches at all, and according to IMDb, Eric Roberts has experienced in Taekwondo, Shodokan, Jujutsu, Kyokushin, Hapkido, and Shaolin Kung Fu. So he's a little bit of a wild card in this mix. Sonny has two patches that are barely visible. One of them appears to be a patch for the United States Traditional Karate Association, and the other I couldn't fully identify, but it does seem to resemble a World Taekwondo Federation patch. Virgil wears a white karate uniform with the yin-yang symbol on it, and the patch that has the kanje for the word karate. So that's about all we're really given in his case. Now, on the surface level, this might look like your typical 80s martial arts film, but if you really take a closer look, you'll see there's a lot going on under the surface, and this movie showcases a lot of duality. There's America vs. Korea, power vs. mind, vengeance vs. forgiveness, pride vs. failure, self-devents vs. sport, realism of competition vs. dramatic presentation, new school training with technology vs. traditional old school methods, honorable vs. dirty fighting, family vs. team, and ultimately the choice between life and death. Now that's a lot to pack in an hour and a half, and I do feel that this movie delivers on that, and even manages to pluck on some heartstrings along the way. And speaking of heartstrings, let's talk about that final act. Do movies spend so much time building up towards the competition that when we finally get to it, we realize we're easily at the best part of the film? It delivers on the anticipation, and we're given an energetic and what is probably one of the most beautifully filmed tournament scenes ever. It builds on the stakes too. It works backwards from the expendable characters to our main heroes. Sunny and Virgil are completely outclassed and tossed aside. Their fights are compressed to just a couple of highlights as if the movie acknowledges they've served their purpose and they're just getting them out of the way for the better fights. Travis gets some more screen time and puts up a better fight. Although there really isn't too much to say here, other than it wraps up his temper vs. focus story path, but it's satisfying enough. Now Alex and Tommy's fights are much more dynamic and emotionally charged. Alex is beaten and pushed a distance, but with the help of his coaching and determination, he's able to stand his own and complete his personal conquest. Tommy's fight with Day Han is absolutely mesmerizing. Both fighters deliver the intensity and we can almost feel each hit landed. It's violent and emotionally charged, but damn is it satisfying to watch. And I'm not afraid to admit it and I don't care what anybody says. If you can watch this full sequence with completely dry eyes, then you my friend have some soul searching to do. If you put aside the thin plot and some of the 80's cheese, you have a movie that has a lot of heart. It gets a lot of mileage from the little it has to work with and I feel it showcases martial arts in a way that they should be. You know, it's about becoming a great fighter, but not only that though is, it's got lessons about using the martial arts as a base to your own life. It's about building character and making better choices and being able to draw strength from something when you have insurmountable odds to overcome, whether they be mental or physical. And I think that the best of the best really sums that up in a neat, tight, entertaining little package that shows Taekwondo in a way it should be shown. It has a good mix of action, humor, drama, and cinematic artistry that makes this a favorite in my collection. And yes, there are three other best of the best movies, but in my opinion, your time is probably better served just skipping them all together. Maybe part two, that one's kind of washable if you want to go in there just for a dumb action movie that kind of teeters on a wannabe Mortal Kombat film, but three and four are totally not worth it. But what's really sad is you've got this first movie that's so fantastic and so great with the way it builds character in the heart and the messages it fuses that it's all kind of thrown away and the sequels kind of become what the first one works so hard to break away against. So in my opinion, that's a little bit of a shame, but they are out there if you want some dumb action movies. The only redeeming factor at all for the sequels is honestly watching Philip Reed do his thing. But bottom line to wrap up the whole message of this video is you finish this movie off feeling good. When the movie ends, you feel like that you and everyone involved has won. And that's why I feel that best of the best is the ultimate Taekwondo film. So if you enjoy our content and you would like to support this channel, there's a couple ways you can do that. One, you can join us on Patreon where we have a bunch of exclusive content and we've got three different tiers available. But if you don't want to join on Patreon, we have the same content available here on YouTube now as we now are eligible for YouTube memberships. So if you click on the join button down below next to subscribe, you'll see a welcome video and an explanation of what each tier offers, what your contribution goes towards, and what our goals are as well as what you get in return. So please be sure to check that out. I love all you guys. I thank you all so much for the past couple years, your support for the channel, and I am really excited about where we can go moving forward. So thank you so much again and I'll see you all next week.