Review of Best of the Best (1989) by Rajay S — 19 May 2014

I'm stopping my USMLE Step 2 board review just to give this movie the review it deserves.

This review has SPOILERS!

First, if you're watching this movie and you're not 13 years old, it's not really for you. If you want something more adult, I'd suggest something rated R not PG-13. With that in mind, young adolescent males love this movie. There was just enough plot to make the fight scenes stick together for a semblance of cohesiveness. After reading the reviews from the "real critics," I have to make some responses. The bar-fight scene is unrealistic in that it draws no media attention. It's movie. The team got away before the cops came. Or, maybe the bar owner had many health code violations and would never think to call the authorities. Regardless, the bar-fight serves as the first bonding experience for the team. Eric Roberts' kid learns how to ride a bike and then gets hit by a car riding his bike. It's called foreshadowing and 13 year olds love it. Realistically, he could have developed childhood leukemia, but I think the child actor felt he wasn't getting paid enough to shave his head to simulate chemotherapy so the directors went with car accident. Sally Kirkland's character is a rip-off of Mr. Miyagi... I could see where this comes from except that Miyagi had the awe and respect of his student from the outset. Sally Kirkland earns this respect as she demonstrates her prowess breaking bricks. The Texan character, Travis, should satisfy viewers who think Zen mind exercises are bullshit, as Travis clearly shows his disdain with his actions. But, Sally Kirkland is pivotal in the film for trying to show how disjointed the American sense of warrior spirituality really is, in comparison to the seemingly deep and unified tradition of the Korean team. Why do we keep having to look at a black and white falling ice-cream cone... it's pointless. The falling ice-cream cone serves as a metaphor for Tommy's loss of his brother. Or maybe he just really really misses that ice-cream, you know... cause once ice-cream is gone it's not like you can just get another one. It's gone forever and all the memories you had with that ice-cream will never continue onward... oh wait.... maybe it IS a metaphor for Tommy's brother's death. Either way, for 13 year olds, loosing ice-cream is enough to cry over. And, seeing some kid loose his ice-cream and have his older brother give him his is an illustration of Tommy finally coming to terms with the loss of his brother. Is this so far fetched for him to have had an epiphany just from that... it's magical... maybe even hokey. Is it hokey that Tommy has to fight the same guy who killed his brother. This would be very hokey, if Sally Kirkland didn't bring it up to James Earl Jones in the movie. This would be very hokey if Tommy simply won the match at the end. This would be very hokey if Tommy wasn't there as a child when his brother died in competition. This would be very hokey if Tommy wasn't conflicted by this throughout the entire movie. This would be very hokey if he entered the tournament solely to fight his brother's killer. But, it isn't hokey. It's pretty poignant during the last fight when Dae Han is helpless against a seemingly raging avenger. The inner struggle for the character to draw closure to his brother's death, and gain victory for his team comes across well via Phillip Rhee's acting. He is deciding then and there to take vengeance.... to concentrate his loss and suffering into a single spinning back kick, the same that knocked Virgil out during training. But, he hesitates and ultimately preserves his own sense of humanity. He does not become the monster when facing the monster. He stands at the precipice of the murderous abyss and feels its beckoning... then simply walks away. Add to this entire hokey subplot the fact that Dae Han is actually Simon Rhee, Phillip Rhee's older brother, and the movie becomes EVEN BETTER.

But, putting all that away, this movie is a great example of training montages done well. For a young person newly discovering their limits, seeing the training montages for both the US team weight training and the Korean team endurance training is thoroughly motivating. Wonderful 80s music with excellent lyrics would make anyone want to improve their body. Thinking on this, all the music in the movie is wonderful. I especially like the first song in the bar "Someday I'm gonna ride in a Cadillac" and the song during the bar-fight, Golden Earring's "Devil made me do it". The 'whoa oh oh oh!' part was awesome as the team were fighting. It glorified the violence and showcased how badass the karate team was.

Another thing that came up was the Texan being a racist and then having a character change off screen. I don't think this is entirely correct. I think over the course of the bar-fight, training side by side, and 1 on 1 sparring he came to respect his other team mates. Additionally, it's pretty easy to realize that a 3 man team can't compete in a 5 man competition so there doesn't NEED to be an offscreen realization or character evolution because the US team would forfeit.

So, about the way the Koreans are portrayed. None of the "critics" seemed to bring this up. As a person who has lived in South Korea in the late 2000s, I think the movie did a great job portraying the stoicism and machismo of South Korea. The spoken Hangul was dead on down to the insults. There was a flub where the crowd was changing "Korea!" which is bullshit. They would have done a *clap-clap... clap-clap-clap* and yelled "Dae Han Mingu!" But, they make up for that by showing how freaking hardcore the Korean team trained. Wheel-barrow pushups, Knuckle pushups while getting hit with a kendo training sword on the back, meditating under a big ass waterfall, running in mountain snow, chopping trees with no shirts on to make the snow fall were all very cool things and any actual Korean would be a little embarrassed and feel pride at the same time.

So, if you happened to miss this movie when you were 13 years old and you want to check it out, try and remember what it was like when you were that old. The story is relatively simple with a few turns, but action and characters make this movie awesome.

RDS.

MD candidate 2015.