It is very rare and exceptional to have martial arts drama on big screen, or fighting drama films, well we had "Rocky" series, but this movie is not about boxing, it's about Karate and Taekwondo. The movie follows five best US contestants in full contact world karate/taekwondo championship against Korea. Trained by one of the best coaches in the US, the two leading characters are facing their own demons through training, now that was for the sense of drama
The film holds pretty interesting acting cast, starting with James Earl Jones, who plays coach Frank Couzo. Don't know how Jones ended up in martial arts film, but, I think he loved the character. Well, later he filmed another martial arts action film "Excessive Force" (1993), so he is fine by it, and he did his acting well as always. Now, we get to our two leading men
Eric Roberts, who plays a veteran fighter Alex Grady who returns after a long time absence, due to injury, to fight again on big competition. Roberts was solid in his performance, he always had that tough guy/martial arts image on his face, but he was funny on some occasions. Standing next to him as another leading man
Phillip Rhee who plays Tommy Lee, a real life martial artist and expert in Taekwondo and Hapkido. Tommy Lee participates in the tournament only because of revenge of his brother, who died by the hand of Dae Han, the leading captain of Korean taekwondo team. Rhee is not that quite good in acting, but I think he tried hard in some important scenes, but his martial arts scenes were great. Now, we get to our supporting cast
Chris Penn
well, Chris was a great actor, really intense in his performances, and I was pretty confused by his appearance here, because I saw him before in "Reservoir Dogs" and "The Funeral". But, maybe he took the role because of his martial arts skills and
he was good as the tough, troublemaker, bully member of five best fighters. And than we have Sally Kirkland (wow, she was something back then), as a second trainer, that appears from nowhere to show a true spirit of Koreans and their taekwondo. And we also have such great actors as Louise Fletcher, a great actress
but her career was washed up, even back then and John P. Ryan as a manager of US team. Now, in the Korean fighting team we have two well-known fighters as Simon Rhee (brother of Phillip Rhee), who plays Dae Han, a very skilled Taekwondo master in real life, but not a great actor, and we have James Lew, who was known as a supporting opponent to many martial arts stars during 90s.
OK, now
fighting scenes were good, the atmosphere during the fight was good, most of other things were solid
And, we have that "usual" effect of Korean team
they were presented as a real villains here. You know, because the US team is a leading team in the film
and of course, the Koreans look really evil here, they are really stone cold, crazy and scary, but that was to increase the drama
And we have that usual cliché of fighters who are fighting with themselves before they enter the tournament, you know, the good old, "you'll never win until you defeat your demons". Overall, it's a solid movie and I recommend it.
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