Best of the Best The Martial Arts Movie Series Ranked Worst To Best

Best of the Best: The Martial Arts Movie Series Ranked Worst To Best

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The Best of the Best series is a beloved martial arts movie franchise, but how do the films rank from weakest to strongest? Which is truly the best?

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Best of the Best The Martial Arts Movie Series Ranked Worst To Best

For fans of martial arts films, the Best of the Best series continues to remain a cherished favorite. To this day, their Rocky-esque training montages and astonishing fight sequences continue to amaze and inspire, with the series being held in the same kind of esteemed regard as the likes of Bloodsport and Kickboxer. Furthermore, the franchise would also turn Phillip Rhee into a cult favorite as the series’ protagonist Tommy Lee.

Despite receiving lower billing in the first two films, it was clear as day to anyone who laid eyes on them that Rhee was the star of the show (he also co-produced the first two movies, and has a story credit on the first). Rhee’s blend of Tae Kwon Do kicks and Hapkido throws was unlike anything other action stars were doing at the time, and still unique today. Rhee would subsequently direct the third and fourth movies, which transitioned the series away from the competitive theme that had been present in the first two, but both of which still had plenty of fantastic action.

In fact, looking over the entire series, something the jumps out is how different it is from one film to the next. The Best of the Best series would involve everything from a down to Earth tournament and an underworld arena where anything goes to a battle against white supremacists in rural America and a confrontation with Russian mobsters, while its fist and foot action would always remain a consistent core element.

4. Best Of The Best 3: No Turning Back

Best of the Best The Martial Arts Movie Series Ranked Worst To Best

For the first time in the Best of the Best series, Phillip Rhee was completely in the driver’s seat with Best of the Best 3: No Turning Back, with Rhee directing and Tommy Lee now carrying the entire film on his shoulders. No Turning Back sees Tommy paying a visit to his sister and her family in the American south, right as a local Neo-Nazi group is gaining a major foothold in the town. Despite being the smallest scale movie in the series, that’s obviously by design due to the small town setting, and Rhee keeps the action hard-hitting and impactful, if not quite a frequent as the other three movies. Rhee also adds a touch of levity here and there, such as in Tommy fighting off some enemies at a local fair while clad in a clown suit, giving way to the best line of the movie: “I’m Homey, the killer clown”.

However, the fight scenes also face an issue with the fact that no other character is anywhere near Tommy’s skill level. To be fair, this is a conundrum that Best of the Best 2 is partly to blame for. With the core of the story being centered on a white supremacist group’s spreading influence, the conflict is focused on Tommy’s efforts to put a stop to the violence as peacefully as possible. Peter Simmons’ Owen Tucker embodies the young impressionable minds that Tommy hopes to free from the group’s indoctrination, while his showdown with the group’s leader Donnie Hansen, played by Aliens’ Mark Rolston, is the movie’s most exhilarating – even with Donnie requiring a knife to level the playing field. No installment of the Best of the Best series is truly underwhelming, and recent events have arguably made No Turning Back acutely topical, but it’s ultimately the softest of the franchise.

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3. Best Of The Best: Without Warning

Best of the Best The Martial Arts Movie Series Ranked Worst To Best

Rhee returned to the director’s chair with the fourth and final chapter of the franchise, Best of the Best: Without Warning, taking the series out on note that’s largely disconnected from the three that comes before it, but which gives its audience everything they loved about it in droves. Tommy Lee is now a single father living in Los Angeles. He finds himself on the run from Russian gangsters and the LAPD alike when a disc from the U.S. Treasury unexpectedly falls into his possession. The return of Tommy Lee aside, Detective Gresko, portrayed by the always engaging Ernie Huson, is the character highlight of the film. Skeptical of Tommy’s self-defense lessons for his fellow officers, the verbal sparring between them is at once restrained and direct, with the movie even making room for a brief physical confrontation between the two.

Without Warning faces the similar struggle of pitting Tommy against challenging adversaries, handling it better than No Turning Back with genuine martial artists being among the bad guys. There are many well-orchestrated action scenes, with one seriously painful-looking arm snap in a convenience store smackdown, but the clear high point of the movie is the stick and sword battle in a gym between Tommy and a collection of enforcers for the gang. Like something out of Fist of Fury, Rhee’s command of the action here is astonishing, while the slow-motion sequence of Tommy’s police self-defense class over the end credits acts as a heartfelt curtain closer for the franchise. Without Warning’s international crime plot perhaps foretells what might have been the beginning of a Fast Five-esque transition for the franchise, but it’s a gripping final chapter nonetheless.

2. Best Of The Best

Best of the Best The Martial Arts Movie Series Ranked Worst To Best

Kicking off the series in 1989, Best of the Best is as timeless an ’80s classic as The Karate Kid. Bringing five determined American fighters together for an upcoming match against South Korea’s team, Best of the Best is the most training-focused of the whole series. On that criteria alone, Best of the Best would already belong in the hall of fame of training montages, with James Earl Jones also appropriately overbearing as Coach Frank Cuozo. The late Chris Penn brings his well-known snark to the team’s obligatory non-team player Travis Brickley, with Eric Roberts embodying the movie’s ex-fighter with another shot at the big time, Alex Grady. Still, as early as the competition from which the American team is drawn, it was blatantly obvious that Phillip Rhee was going to steal the show, with Tommy Lee bringing the thunder once more in the film’s bar brawl, itself an all-time great in that category.

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The climactic tournament in South Korea is packed with breathtaking action while bringing the emotional core of the film full circle, pitting Tommy against the formidable Dae Han, who infamously killed his brother in a previous match. Dae Han is played none other than Rhee’s real-life brother, Simon Rhee, and theirs is a brutal showdown on both physical and emotional levels, with the true victory emerging out of the common ground the two manage to find. As the first chapter in the series, Best of the Best is a true gem of its time that no collection of either martial arts or 80’s movies would be complete without – and no playlist of work-out music should be without Stubblefield & Halls’ blood-pumping theme song “Best of the Best”, either.

1. Best Of The Best 2

Arriving in theaters in 1993, Best of the Best 2 upped the stakes of the series higher than they’ve ever been. Set a few years after the first movie, Tommy Lee and Alex Grady find themselves battling for vengeance against the towering Brakus, played by Ralf Moeller, after he murders Travis Brickley in an underground match. Best of the Best 2 is easily the grandest the series has ever felt, with battles to the death held in an arena dubbed The Colosseum like a hybrid of ancient Rome and modern MMA, even snagging Wayne Newton as the sleazy host Weldon. The movie also gets in the right amount of training for Alex and Tommy’s impending confrontation with their adversary, while a few members of the first movie’s Korean team are also back for the fun, including Simon Rhee’s Dae Han.

Brakus is by far the best villain the franchise has ever seen, merging the body of a Greek god with comic book villain levels of pure narcissism, his determination to defeat Tommy born entirely out of a scar left on his face. His and Tommy’s final showdown is almost scientific in how well its built up, with Tommy first having to face three other opponents of increasing formidability in The Colosseum, the third wielding a set nunchuku with astonishing proficiency. When it finally arrives, Tommy’s battle with Brakus is among the best martial arts movie duels of the ’90s. So good, in fact, that it would create a major challenge for the third and fourth films in how much the series had clearly peaked in the villain department with Brakus. Add in a new electric guitar theme song, and Best of the Best 2 is simply a powerhouse of everything that made its predecessor work turned up to eleven. Every installment of the series is a genuine ballet of incredible martial arts action, but among all four, Best of the Best 2 stands tallest.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/best-of-the-best-movies-phillip-rhee-ranked/

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