Movies

There are a number of great Taekwondo and other Korean martial art movies. Below are a few posters and links to some of the most outstanding ones.

Original Theatrical Poster for the film Best of the Best Poster created by Taurus Entertainment Company.

Best of the Best is a 1989 American martial arts film directed by Bob Radler, and produced by Phillip Rhee, who also co-wrote the story and co-stars in the film. The film also starred Eric Roberts, James Earl Jones, Sally Kirkland, Simon Rhee and Chris Penn. The plot revolves around a team of American martial artists facing a team of South Korean martial artists in a martial arts tournament. Several subplots pop up in the story — moral conflicts, the power of the human spirit triumphing over adversity and the meaning of life are some themes. Set and filmed in Los Angeles, California, and Seoul, South Korea, between February 13 and April 6, 1989, Best of the Best was released on November 10, 1989. (Source: Wikipedia) This movie upgraded the entire genre of martial art movies by showing relevancy, timeliness, diverse training methodologies, real live conflict, and of course super Taekwondo.

Above is poster for Fighter in the Wind (바람의 파이터) attributed to the distributor Big Blue Film Cinema Epoch (U.S.) It is one of my Top 5 fight movies of all time. Taekwondo? Not exactly, but a grand partly fictionalized biography of Choi Yeung-Eui (최영의, 崔永宜) who suffered poverty and indignities in Korea and went to Japan during World War II to become a fighter pilot. In Japan however he discovered a new world of extreme challenges and transformation ultimately leading to transcendence and success. He is more commonly known as Mas Oyama, founder of Kyokushin full-contact Karate.

Poster of “Clementine” (2004 film) Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Clementine_(film).jpg

Clementine (Korean: 클레멘타인) is a 2004 action-drama film directed by Kim De-yeong. In this film, the actor Steven Seagal plays a 10-minute role as “cage fight champion” Jack Miller. Kim is a Taekwondo champion who decides to give up his fighting career for good in order to take care of his daughter Sa Rang. But when an evil gambling kingpin kidnaps Sa Rang, Kim must agree to fight in a rigged boxing match in exchange for Sa Rang’s freedom. Kim now finds himself face to face with “King of the Cage” fighter Jack Miller, a man who has never lost. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406661/