BEST OF THE 5Qs

Tonight: The Best of the Best

Who: Eric Roberts. You know him because Chet did such a fine job introducing him yesterday.
Also: James Earl Jones, you know him as the black dude with the awesome voice; Phillip Rhee, you know him as the guy who made his career out of "Best of the Best" movies; Chris Penn, you know him as Sean's fat younger brother, or from Reservoir Dogs, Corky Romano, Mulholland Drive, Footloose, shit I don't know it depends on your viewing habits; various Korean actors.
What: The preparations for and action of an international karate tournament between the American and Korean national teams.


When: Late 80s.
Where: Training scenes in the U.S. and Korea, then the throwdown in front of 15,000 people in Korea. According to Ahmad Rashad (before his NBA Inside Stuff days), Koreans take their karate as seriously as Americans take our baseball. Which is to say seriously enough that they'll do uppers and steroids. So you know it's going to get real in a hurry.
Why: Because Phillip Rhee wanted to have a career in movies I guess.
How: Majestically and with non-lethal force? And with plenty of soaring 80s music and training montages to go around.

What (subcategory motivation): Eric's wife died so now he and his son live with his mom; his son gives him permission to leave only if he's going to give the kid his medal after he wins. Also, Phillip Rhee's brother was killed a number of years ago by one of the guys on the Korean team. So we've got a dual heartwarming/revenge thing going on. Motivational bases: covered.

What (subcategory things that happen): Turns out that Mr. Jones (Mr. Earl Jones?) was the coach of the team back when Phillip's brother got killed and feels entirely responsible because the guys on that team were wholly unprepared and, you know, a guy died. So he rides this team hard, requires complete dedication. This is a problem when Eric's son breaks his leg; Eric leaves the team despite coach's admonitions that he can't and remain on the team. Of course he eventually rejoins the team.

What (subcategory how it plays out): Typical David/Goliath thing to start, Koreans are kicking major ass. The final match pits Phillip against his brother's killer. Phillip has the chance to kill the killer, natch, and doesn't. Now I don't think 80s karate movies are the place to admonish reality, but a couple things were beyond implausibly realistic in this sequence. One: killer is teetering on his feet, eyes rolled back in his head. Two implausible things here: how is he standing? Why hasn't the ref pushed him over with a finger and called him knocked out? Two: after an awesome slow-mo sequence and JEJ yelling "NOOOO" to keep Phillip from killing the guy, the Koreans win the tournament. Then, in a move that seventy five examples in sports have proven would never actually happen, the Koreans, led by killer, give their medals to the U.S. competitors for their honor, spirit, strength, etc. Instead of acting like they're the king shit of the world they give some props. Never happen when there's a medal to be had.

(Yes France, I'm talking about you and Thierry Henry's bullshit handball goal that got them into the World Cup. And yes France, I'm laughing at you now that the principal of the country called you into the office to scold you for your poor showing in South Africa.)

Anyway, for as implausible as it may have been it was really the only plausible ending for the movie, and the big speech the killer makes in the process of handing the medal over is primo stuff. Then it just gets better as the rest of the hand-overs and subsequent raising-of-the-opponents-arms gets cheesy in that gloriously 80s way that got me so excited to do this Summer of Action thing.

How (subcategory quality of the movie): Fair. If I told you I didn't get excited when I found out the exact same actors reprised their roles for BotB2 and immediately moved it to the top of my ququeuqeuqeeqeeee so I can watch it this weekend, that would be as unbelievable as Chris Penn being good at karate, right?