Best of the Best 4: Without Warning (1998)

I was put of by all the negative reviews for this movie, but in the end I said what the hell the previous 3 were all very good, with 1 and 2 being personal favourites. to my surprise, part 4 although a different theme than 1 and 2, still maintains the spirit of the series somewhat, from the acting to the action and even the music. As a fan of best of the best, this movie was highly entertaining. its somewhat in the mold of die-hard type action, however nobody does fight scenes quite like Phillip Rhee (still known as Tommy Lee in the movie), and so calling it an imitator is misleading since rhee brings so much more to the action due to his martial arts background. In these type of movies its never about the plot, but how the overall movie flows and entertains. tommy lee is a likable hero as usual, and the supporting cast are as well. the bad guys are even very entertaining to watch. while this movie can never have the budget of die hard, in my opinion it has more likable and realistic characters. If your a fan please ignore the haters, just don't expect this to be anything like 1 and 2 or as good. its better than 3, which itself was good and underrated in my opinion. I can understand fans complaints that this movie has nothing to do with the best of the best universe, that is true, however its still a movie that stands on its own, and provides fans of Phillip Rhee yet another good action movie with heart. Im glad I watched it, and sad that it ended here.

Best of the Best: Without Warning is set in Los Angeles & starts as two Russian gangsters Yuri (Thure Riefenstein) & Karina (Jessic Collins) bluff their way into city traffic control & kill everyone there, they cause chaos on the streets & every road is gridlocked, this confusion gives their Russian mobster mates the chance to steal a federal truck with blank bank note paper & a CD of US dollar bill typefaces. Together it's an easy way to print up untraceable money, Russian mobster Lukasz (Tobin Bell) can now print real money on real bank note paper using the real typeface. A young woman named Mickey (Jill Ritchie) develops a conscience & decide to steal the CD & hand it over to the DA but the Russian mobsters find out her plan & go after her. They shoot her dead in a shop but not before she slips the CD into the pocket of martial arts trainer Tommy Lee (co-writer, executive producer & director Phillip Rhee) who the Russian mob then go after, using his daughter as a hostage the Russians want Tommy to hand the CD over but he is unsure of who he can trust...Co-written, executive produced & directed by Phillip Rhee who also stars in the thing I didn't have particularly high hopes for the fourth entry in the Best of the Best franchise but to my surprise like the previous sequels I didn't think it was half bad, sure it's no masterpiece & Best of the Best 2 (1993) is still the best of the Best of the Best (!) films but to be fair they all are all quite watchable. Series continuity disappeared a long time ago, from being an only child the original Best of the Best (1989) martial arts star Tommy Lee suddenly got a sister from nowhere in Best of the Best 3: No Turning Back (1995) while here he was not only married but he actually has a five year old daughter, where did she come from? Then there's the oath never to instruct martial arts again in part three but here he's training the LAPD. To be fair the Best of the Best films have little in common, they all seem to have started life as routine action film scripts that were then slightly rewritten to include Tommy Lee who is the only consistent between the four films. Having fought illegal pit-fighters & Nazi racists this time Tommy Lee comes up against the Russian mafia. Now, having seen all four Best of the Best films I can say that it's dangerous to know Tommy Lee, I mean trouble follows this guy around like a bad smell. Bad cops, drunks, mobsters, racists, thugs, hit men, illegal fighters & his drunken brother have all given him a hard time & targeted his friends & family. In Best of the Best: Without Warning his mate the shopkeeper, his daughter & a Priest all get a rough deal merely by association with Tommy Lee. As far as action potboilers go this is fairy good, the plot moves along at a decent pace, the character's are alright even if the good cop bad cop twist is too obvious & it passes the time harmlessly enough I suppose.The action scenes save this really, the fights are again well choreographed & there's an audacious if far-fetched hijacking at the start in the middle of Los Angeles. There's some shoot-outs, a cool scene with Tommy Lee on a motorbike in a tunnel with a huge taker truck heading straight for him & a cool scene of a plane on fire crashing & exploding. Some of the CGI effects look dated but all the fights seem like they were shot on set with no digital touch up. The violence is fairly strong, the fights are brutal & there's plenty of blood & a bit when a man is tortured with golf balls. While the previous Best of the Best films all featured prominent moral messages this one doesn't for some reason & is far more straight forward, there's something about baking a cake but I didn't really care to think about it that much. Unlike parts one & two there are no musical training montages this time.A few familiar faces pop up here, Ernie Hudson needs to loose some weight, Art LaFleur, Paul Gleason, Chris Lemmon & the bad guy is played by Tobin Bell before he became famous for playing the bad guy Jigsaw in the Saw franchise. There is no credit for Kane Hodder who played various thugs in the previous three films so I guess Phillip Rhee becomes the only actor to have appeared in all four Best of the Best films.Best of the Best: Without Warning is a decent end to a surprisingly decent series of martial arts action films that have deviated more from the original concepts with each entry. You could do a lot worse I suppose. Part two is probably the best while I thought part one was the weakest.

Best of the Best 4, is better than 3, but just barely. Basically, I say this because part 4 doesn't contradict parts 1/2 (like 3 does), (ie. their is no reference to Tommy Lee having siblings).Anyway, I liked the Russian plot line of the story, and especially Sven Ole-Thorsen's bit part as Boris. Aside from that though and a few fighting scenes, the movie is nothing special. The limited budget is also very noticeable (especially in the airplane blow-up scene).Also, part 4 does not really have a moral or say anything like part 3 did, there are a couple of more better known actors (Hudson, Thorsen) in part 4, but alas nothing like the beginning of the series (and even these characters have very small roles).Alas, it seems Best of the Best is the Rhee show, and to be truthful, he cannot carry a movie.Saw on tape, Rating:4

I am a fan of the previous Best of the Best films. But this one was awful. No wonder I had such a hard time finding it. I tried 4 video rental stores, until I found one with a copy of this movie. The acting was terrible, the plot was a joke, and the action was bad as well.I really miss Alex Grady, Travis Brigley, and the original kickboxing characters and theme that this film had with the first 2 movies. John