Best of the Best

Best of the Best is a 1989 American action film directed by Robert Radler. The story was conceived by Phillip Rhee together with Paul Levin, who wrote the screenplay. Rhee also produced the film and stars in it. An American team of fighters, led by coach Frank Couzo, prepares for an international tournament against South Korea. The team includes the widower and welder Alex Grady, who enters with an injured shoulder, and the instructor Tommy Lee, whose brother was once killed by the Korean fighter Dae Han Park. The film's central martial art is taekwondo. Tommy Lee is played by Phillip Rhee, a 6th-dan holder in taekwondo and 3rd-dan in hapkido, who also trained in Wing Chun and boxing. The Korean opponent Dae Han Park was portrayed by his brother Simon Rhee, a martial artist and actor who runs a taekwondo studio in Woodland Hills, California. The film received three sequels (1993, 1995 and 1998). Phillip Rhee appeared in all four and directed the third and fourth instalments himself. The film critic Leonard Maltin called the film yet another in a line of Rocky imitations, while the fighter Chuck Liddell named it in his book as his favourite fighting film.

Martial arts in this work

Origin

According to English Wikipedia, the screenplay was based on Phillip Rhee's own appearance for the American taekwondo team against a South Korean team. We have not been able to confirm the specific tournament or year of that encounter in an independent source. The plot of the film is fiction and its characters are not real people. Filming took place in Los Angeles and in Seoul from 13 February to 6 April 1989, partly in South Korea itself, where the opposing team in the film comes from. The Movie Group, SVS Inc. and Kuys Entertainment took part in the production, and the budget was 5 million USD.

People and martial arts

• Robert RadlerDirector
• Phillip RheeActor — as Tommy Lee· Taekwondo (real practitioner)
• Simon RheeActor — as Dae Han Park· Taekwondo (real practitioner)