Review of BEST OF THE BEST 3: NO TURNING BACK

Korean-American martial arts expert/champion/instructor Tommy Lee (Phillip Rhee) goes to visit his sister, Karen (Cristina Lawson) brother-in-law Jack Banning (Christopher McDonald), whose also sherrif, and nephew Justin (Kitao Sakurai) in Liberty, USA. He is appalled to discover his hometown has become a hive of racism. The Church of the Aryan Crusade, led by Donnie Hanson (Mark Rolston), seeks to do what the Nazi's and KKK have failed to, destroy all non-WASP's. They've already murdered the town's Baptist minister Reverend Phelps (Andra Ward), apparently disgusted at his sermons of a God who doesn't judge people by race or creed. It's up to Tommy, with a little help from Sherrif Jack and schoolteacher Margo Preston (Gina Gershon) to drive these neo-Nazi's out of Liberty once and for all!!!

Review of BEST OF THE BEST: WITHOUT WARNING

Martial arts insructor Tommy Lee lives in L.A. with his daughter Stephanie (Jessica Huang), now as a single father. He has recently began training the LAPD in his techniques of Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido. While in a local grocery store just trying to get a cake for Stephanie's birthday, Mickey (Jill Ritchie) comes in screaming, being pursued by Russian mafiosos after the disc she has containing evidence of their organizations counterfeit money crimes. The thugs kill Mickey, but Tommey kicks the stuffing out of them, and escapes unharmed, not knowing that Mickey has slipped the disc into his pocket. The Russian thugs blast into Tommy's house looking for the disc, but Tommy fights them off and drops Stephanie at the local church while he seeks help from the cops. All he encounters is a crooked cop who Tommy is forced to kill in self-defense. The L.A.P.D., led by grouchy Detective Gresko (Ernie Hudson), belieing Tommy to be a cop-killer are hot on his trail, as are the Russian mafiosos, putting Tommy in one hell of a pickle.

I'll start by declaring my one and only disappointment with both films, and that is that after Phillip faced off against massive former Mr. Universe Ralph Moeller in BEST OF THE BEST 2, he really has no single formidable opponent in either NO TURNING BACK or WITHOUT WARNING. Fights in both movies where Tommy faces off with only one opponent routinely become instantly achieved victories on his part, save for a thrilling knife fight with Donnie Hanson at the end of NO TURNING BACK. But this was probably to be expected anyway. As a result, Phillip routninely takes on two, three and more opponents in the majority of both film's battles. Of course, that's what martial arts guys do. Phillip Rhee certainly provess both his well known martial arts skills and directing ability in both NO TURNING BACK and WITHOUT WARNING. It's an absolute mystery to me why he has been doing these movies ever since.

And the end-credits sequence of WITHOUT WARNING, showing Tommy displaying a wide array of self-defense techniques on his students (with him flowing like water, just as Bruce himself insisted martial arts are about) is another gem of beautiful, slow-motion martial arts action.