Best of the Best 4: Without Warning (1998 Video) User Reviews

Tommy Lee + kidnapped child = loads of dead bad guys

[Bezenby · 6/10 · 5 October 2015]

Is there a Best of the Best 3.5? I'm just asking because in this film Tommy is a widower with a six year old kid and last time we saw Tommy he was young free and single. He's also got his Tae Kwon Do school back after telling folk in the last film he gave it up. Hey-ho. Let's not over think things.

Who's gonna mess with Tommy's family this time and then act all surprised when his cheesy feet start zooming towards their faces, knocking their teeth out and stuff? This time you've got the bad guy from Saw, some other guy, and Killian's henchman from The Running Man out to get a disc from Tommy that he didn't even know he had, as some girl slipped it into his pocket shortly before being machine gunned to death by a bad guy from some counterfeiting gang.

This gang steal and entire truck at the start of the film and waste loads of cops so we know they mean business. They also prove to be the biggest bunch of morons Tommy's had to face, as they do the one thing that Tommy hates the most – That's right, they target his family.

Blah blah fight scenes, blah blah threats. Tommy kicks his way through a lot of bad guys in this one, but I reckon we spend a bit too much time with the bad guys in-fighting rather that Tommy jumping all over their heads. He's also managed to go up against bad guys that take themselves out! Not only are they all threatening and shooting each other, one of them manages to kill more bad guys than Tommy.

Seriously, there's loads of bad guys chasing Tommy at one end of a tunnel on motorbikes, and this one guy at the other end of the tunnel grabs a truck and speeds towards them, then misses Tommy, then hits the rest of the bad guys causing a huge explosion that takes out a helicopter too. All Tommy had to do was get out of the way.

Phillip Rhee also directs this one too, and it'll do for a quick action fix. The second film's the best one in the series by my reckoning. I think there was plans for a fifth one where Tommy didn't even bother getting out of bed while the bad guys just took care of themselves.

You should see this one if you love that implausibly-plotted-but-who-cares-let's-have-fun action style pioneered in the 80's.

[tarbosh22000 · 6/10 · 24 February 2012]

Tommy Lee is back! Not the Motley Crue drummer of course (in the press he's always Rocker Tommy Lee, and he's called that so often he should just legally change his first name to Rocker) - It's Phillip Rhee, and this time he teaches martial arts to police officers. He has a young daughter, Stephanie (Jessica Huang), and life seems good. All this ends when a gang of Russian-type mobsters, working out of an abandoned warehouse (where else?), begins a large counterfeiting operation. The details of this illegal activity are on a disc, and Tommy inadvertently ends up with it.

Now on the bad side of criminal mastermind Slava (Bell), as well as his many goons, including Boris (Thorsen), he entrusts Stephanie to a priest (Gleason), so he can go off on his own and fight the baddies. But while he has some friends on the force, notably Jarvis (Lemmon), he also butts heads with the hard-line Detective Gresko (Hudson). Can Tommy Lee stop the counterfeiting agents, rescue his friends and daughter from imminent doom, and clear his own name in the process? Some people might think about the Best of the Best series, "there are FOUR of them?" While it may seem puzzling and hard to justify, this fourth entry in the series was solid fun and worth seeing. Phillip Rhee is a very talented guy - he stars in the film, he directed it, co-wrote it, and he's a gifted martial artist and worked on the choreography. He's also likable. Rhee does seem to have well-rounded skills, and because of this, his name should be more well-known outside of die-hard action circles. He's so badass, he doesn't turn off his lights at night using a lightswitch like a sucker, he JUMPKICKS his lights off.

Supporting him is an impressive array of B-movie names. Tobin Bell puts in an understated, low-key villain performance, which was a welcome change from the frothing-at-the-mouth baddies we usually see. He pulls off a tricky balance - be subtle but not be boring. He does a great job, and, interestingly, there's some pre-Saw torture he's involved with. Coincidence? Or did the makers of the unending Saw franchise see this movie and picture him as the ultimate torturer? And speaking of people who probably saw this movie, there's an American Beauty (1999)-like fantasy sequence one year before that film. Is it possible the American Beauty people saw this movie and thought, "If we rip this off, no one will know, because we don't share any of the same audience"? Hudson plays the BYD (instead of Black Yelling Chief, here he's a detective) and there's even a fight scene between him and Rhee where Hudson attempts some Hudson-Fu on him. Chris Lemmon's not in it that much and resembles Joe Piscopo. It's no Firehead (1991) for him. Paul Gleason, Art LaFleur and Sven-Ole Thorsen round out the cast of familiar faces, and someone who's been turning up a lot lately, David "Shark" Fralick (Deadly Reckoning, 1998, Executive Target, 1997 Inside Edge, 1992) is on board as well.

A highlight of the movie is a combination stickfighting/fencing fight scene. We don't believe we've ever seen that before. While the movie falls prey to a cliché we see often "We've got to get the disc!" - a movie about a disc - Best of the Best 4 has a lot to offer in the pure entertainment department. Regardless of how you feel about the other Best of the Best movies, you should see this one if you love that implausibly-plotted-but-who-cares-let's-have-fun action style pioneered in the 80's.

For more action insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

Die Hard 4.0 with Low Budget

[diegovb-60754 · 6/10 · 29 November 2017]

I loved the first 3 best of the best movies. Yes they are just simple action movies, with no great plot or story, but i liked them for what they are. This one reminds me of a low budget Die Hard 4.0 remake(in fact Die Hard 4.0 was made many years after this one) The story is very simple and easy to follow, Tommy Lee gets a disc and evil Russian Mobsters want it back, so Tommy Lee is gonna kick some Russian Butt, it did however not feel like a best of the best movie(the previous movies did not seem to matter, i mean Tommy Lee has a cop brother in law , why didn't he asked him to take the disc, and what about the girl from the third movie?) All in all, a action movie with some good martial arts. 6/10

Not as bad as it could have been.

[poolandrews · 5/10 · 3 August 2010]

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.

Final entry in the series offers cheesy action and lots of familiar faces

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 9 November 2015]

BEST OF THE BEST 4: WITHOUT WARNING is the fourth and final of this martial arts-based series. Now that I've seen all of them, I can report that the second one is by far the best; the first one was weak and unfocused and the third too derivative a thriller. The fourth is much like the third was: it has some good action scenes but the plot is entirely derivative and it's not as good as the second in the series.

Phillip Rhee once again returns to write, direct, and star in the whole thing. Oddly, he's now a widower with a six-year-old daughter, which is bizarre given he was single in the last movie which only seemed to take place a couple of years previously. Rhee falls foul of the Russian mob, who are searching for a plot MacGuffin in the form of a computer disc that just so happens to fall into Rhee's possession. Action ensues.

BEST OF THE BEST 4 is a film with cheesy stunts and cheesier action, including an explosive encounter with a tanker and plenty of motorbike action. The action is pretty cool, especially the early encounter in a corner street store between Rhee and a couple of goons, even though the story and characters are sub-standard. Still, there are a few familiar faces in this one, not least Ernie Hudson (GHOSTBUSTERS) as a tough-talking cop, SAW's Tobin Bell as the villain of the piece, Schwarzenegger double Sven-Ole Thorsen as a henchman (what else?), Paul Gleason (DIE HARD) as a priest, and Art La Fleur (THE BLOB) as an ally.

Awful movie

[jwolf6589 · 1/10 · 1 May 2000]

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

Best of a bad series...

[fmarkland32 · 6/10 · 16 June 2009]

Phillip Rhee stars as Tommy Lee, the same martial artist who must rescue his daughter from Russian (?) spies who want him to give them back the disc that he's gotten a hold of in exchange for his daughter safe and sound, much kung fu ensues. I actually enjoyed this the best, to be fair I sort of liked the first one, but this one had all the silliness and action that I've come to expect from the typical kung fu/actioner. This loses the racist elements of the abominable third entry and gives us more martial arts, stupid plot threads and a hot love interest for our hero. Phillip Rhee, while no gifted thespian, is surprisingly likable and seems far more exciting in the fight sequences than he was in parts 1-3. Indeed, his fight sequences are intensely choreographed and Rhee proves to be an excellent director as martial arts sequences go. Also the cast includes Ernie Hudson, Tobin Bell (Jigsaw from Saw) and Art La Fleur. Also there is torture that involves a pitching machine, bad guys who screw up a traffic light, to cause an accident and tons of kickboxing. Indeed the film is an excuse to give us Phillip Rhee at his ass-kicking best and frankly, who on earth can hate such a flick?

* *1/2 Out Of 4-(Pretty Good)

plot line better, acting worse

[ryangilmer007 · 4/10 · 22 February 2001]

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

What happened to this series...

[Prefect · 6/10 · 20 December 1998]

BEST OF THE BEST was good movie, BEST OF THE BEST 2 was even better, and BEST OF THE BEST 3 was the most solid. With the improvements between each film, I figured the 4th would rock. Man, I was sure mistaken. The plot is old, the F/X are poor (very poor that is), and the acting (except for Rhee) is terrible.

As directed by Philip Rhee, BEST OF THE BEST 3 was a very confident, well directed film. I find it hard to believe that Rhee directed 4 too. The directing is haphazard, and everything, except for 2 fight scenes, is very poorly staged.

This film was a major disappointment.

fair, nothing spectacular

[awlauter · 5/10 · 20 February 2001]

I thought this was the worst of the four Best of the Best Movies. Although Phillip Rhee in my opinion does a good job in all, I thought the acting was for the most part subpar in this film and didn't think the plot was all that great. Some decent fight scenes.

It was pretty cool...

[Jackson-12 · 8/10 · 8 August 1999]

The first two best of the best films, I feel, were the most entertaining but this fourth addition with Ernie Hudson was watchable and contained 2 really good fight scenes and one amazing shootouts! In general with it's low budget the film made due very well and I was glad I had watched it. If you liked the first two or three you will certainly enjoy the fourth.

Best of the Best of the Best series

[frickabee · 7/10 · 8 May 2013]

I caught this movie on TV and wondered why I had never heard of it before. I love cheesy popcorn action flicks such as Cliffhanger, Speed and The Marine - movies that you might not enjoy as much unless you check your brain at the door first. This movie has it all: motorcycles, helicopters, machine guns, explosions and even some ridiculous one-liners. After seeing this, I couldn't wait to watch the first three movies in the series, seeing how most movie franchises hit their peak by the second movie. I was extremely disappointed in how slow and boring the first three movies are and the first one isn't even worth watching a second time. The fourth movie in the series isn't exactly Shakespeare, but unlike the first three movies, it maintains a good pace and has several recognizable, well-established actors in it such as Ernie Hudson, Paul Gleason, Tobin Bell and Art LaFleur.

4th in the series(in name only)

[disdressed12 · 2/10 · 24 September 2007]

believe it or not,this movie is worse than number three.it's slower,the acting is worse,and the story is very weak.there isn't a lot of good to say about this movie.even the fight scenes are more dull than number three,and i would have thought that impossible.this is a very slow 90 minutes.painful,in fact.i stuck it through,hoping it would get better.if you really want to see this movie,you should try to find a cheap rental of it.it is hard to find(for purchase,that is)and probably for good reason.like number three,this movie has nothing to do with the first two.it is the same in name only.anyway,the most i can give Best of the Best:Without Warning is 2/10

Going Out On A Low Note

[refinedsugar · 4/10 · 30 September 2023]

If bad movies bore or make you upset, don't watch 'Best of the Best 4'. The initial opening displays a burst of energy in setting things up, but there's also some real stupid moments. How far in the future from 'BotB3' does this take place? The cracks are starting to show.

Tommy Lee (Phillip Rhee) is now a single dad and teaching martial arts classes to law enforcement for a living. Bad guys successfully hijack a shipment of the paper that money is printed on by the US Treasury Dept. A young lady working for them in possession of the mini-CD that stores the template to print currency has second thoughts and in one of the those only-in-the-movies moments slips it unbeknownst to Tommy. The rest spells itself out as the German bad guys led by Lukasz (Tobin Bell) want it back.

You got Ernie Hudson sporting a bald look as an a-hole cop. Paul Gleason (The Breakfast Club, Die Hard) plays a priest. Sven Ole-Thorson is bad guy muscle naturally. None of them really help this movie or stand out. Phillip Rhee is still able to shoulder the lead role though, but the story is boring. Low budget limitations show up in some laughable special fx and someone obviously had a fondness for slow-mo which gets used in many of the fight scenes bringing them down. The finale of the series, last sequel but also slightly better than the original.

There's not a whole lot to bite into with 'Without Warning'. If you've seen your share of movies, you know where this is going before it even gets there. There's no real energy to the proceedings. Nothing to make it even a guilty pleasure. I wanted to like it, but it feels subpar. Boring at times.

I Wish They Hadn't

[damianphelps · 4/10 · 9 August 2023]

They should have warned us :(

This is a long way from the excellence of the first two movies and really the movie doesn't belong to the Best of the Best franchise.

All the heart has been sucked out of it and we are left only with a below average actioner that has a plot that can only be described as cliched.

Are there some good fight scenes? Sure but you have to wade your way through a fair bit of rubbish to get to them.

Watch it as a stand alone film and convince yourself that is is not part of the above average franchise that is Best of the Best.

Unlike the producers, I have given you plenty of warning :)

Enough is enough

[samuelturriers · 7/10 · 12 December 2020]

The two first one was nice but the third one was stupid. This last one is the last and it's for the best beacuase it's very stupid and involuntarily hilarious ! A good moment if you dont have any movie th laugh at

Worthy of its title

[ebiros2 · 7/10 · 19 October 2012]

Best of the Best is well named, because this is one of the if not the best martial action movie series ever made.

All the sequences are beautifully choreographed, and the action and the story comes together as one - which many martial action movies fail to do.

Phillip Rhee is a multi-talented director, actor that puts the likes of Chuck Norris, and Michael Dudikoff to shame. Only Bruce Lee had his kind of precision movements on screen.

The series also gets cudos for not losing quality through out its four episodes. Every other series of this type was a hit or miss proposition. They never were as consistent as this series.

The movie is also beautifully made, that has crisp looks, and elegant style.

Maybe this was the swan song for this type of martial arts action movie, but as they say, swans last song is its most beautiful,as this movie is.

better than 3, and highly underrated. good movie

[aouadralph · 9/10 · 3 November 2014]

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.

I gotta go bake a cake.

[Hey_Sweden · 6/10 · 16 May 2022]

The fourth and final entry in this franchise, directed and co-written by franchise veteran Phillip Rhee, is decent enough if hardly inspired. This time, our intrepid martial artist hero is working as a self-defense advisor for the police force when he gets caught up in a plot hatched by murderous Russian counterfeiters. When he's forced to kill a crooked detective who's in on the scheme, he must take it on the lam - all while doing everything possible to protect his little girl (Jessica Huang).

"Best of the Best 4: Without Warning" doesn't have *that* much to do with the martial arts, although it does feature the requisite scenes with Tommy Lee getting a chance to show off his impressive skills. It's pretty standard, unimaginative stuff, with no surprises and a bunch of typical characters. That said, Rhee is still enjoyable to watch as he struts *his* stuff, and there's one fairly good chase sequence. At least there's a respectable body count, and the baddies are mostly irredeemable garbage whose demises are eagerly anticipated.

One good thing that the movie can boast is a solid lineup of character actors in supporting roles, even if they've been better utilized in other things: Ernie Hudson (the "Ghost Busters" movies) as a jerk detective, Art La Fleur ("Cobra") as a store owner, Tobin Bell (the "Saw" franchise) as the main baddie, Chris Lemmon ("Just Before Dawn") as another detective, Sven-Ole Thorsen ("Conan the Barbarian") as one of the many disposable henchmen, and Paul Gleason ("The Breakfast Club") as a helpful priest. It's particularly good to see Gleason cast against type here, since he's best known for jerk characters himself.

Mindless fun overall, mostly for die-hard action fanatics who aren't particularly demanding.

Six out of 10.

My Fav Of Them All, And Rhee's Finest Hour!!

[Movie-Misfit · 8/10 · 19 June 2020]

Although made 3 years after the previous sequel, Best Of The Best 4 is set at least 6 years after, with Rhee now father to a little girl of 5 years old, and his wife having passed during that time. With Rhee back in the directors chair, and also having co-penned the screenplay, he takes his character Tommy Lee to new levels pitting him up against the Russians who are running a massive counterfeiting operation in his town. Rhee gets involved by accident, while he is shopping in a friends store. The shopkeepers daughter runs in, getting chased by Russian gunmen and before she is killed, slips a cassette (containing a stolen disc of information) into the action heroes pocket. Rhee then gets to work taking down the gunmen with some neat and painful looking moves!

For me, part 4 is the best of the best in the series. Yes it may have steered far and wide from what the series set out to be, but it takes the character of Tommy Lee on a whole new journey and highlights Philip Rhee in his best film to date in terms of acting and fighting backed by a good cast, including the wonderful Ernie Hudson and Tobin Bell, better known as Jigsaw from the Saw franchise. Best Of The Best 4 is technically the better looking film of the lot with its production values, nice cinematography and pacing. Rhee refines his directing, perhaps having learnt from his mistakes in part 3, and delivers a well-made action-thriller in the vain of Jeff Wincott's Mission Of Justice and Karate Cop, also starring Cynthia Rothrock, or Jeff Speakman's, The Perfect Weapon - with a taste of Die Hard.

Rhee now works as a self-defence teacher for the local police force, something that hinders more than helps him when trouble comes knocking. The Russian gangsters are led menacingly by Tobin Bell, with German actor Thure Riefenstein as his right-hand man. They make a mean team, and along with their minions, don't let anyone stand in their way as they search for the stolen disc, giving Rhee a difficult time with violent shoot-outs and attacks. Accused of killing a cop-friend, Rhee also must now go on the run as Detective Ernie Hudson and his men also give chase. Ghostbusters star, Hudson, does a great job here not letting the lower budget production hinder his performance in any way. In fact, I think its fair to say that the majority of the main cast involved don't disappoint...

Best Of The Best 4 rattles along at a great pace without a hint of that cheese that dripped from the previous 3 films. It's such a shame that Philip Rhee packed it in straight after this, only to return 17 years to direct and star in the so-so kids action film, Underdog Kids. I really would have loved to see him get the chance to star alongside Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen or get directed in some Hong Kong productions before throwing the towel in. His moves have always been great, and his charisma fun, and I would say that Without Warning is one of his finest moments.

With some neat car and motorcycle chases, helicopter stunts, and plenty of hand-to-hand, the final entry to the series keeps going with highlights being the attack on Rhee's home, the fight between him and the Russian's in the dojo, the vehicle stunts in the tunnel, and the action-packed finale of course!

Overall: While it forgets about its past, Best Of The Best 4 offers a lot of fun, harking back to the 80's action classics with a lot of positives, and is probably Rhee's finest hour!

Exciting 80's style actioner

[coltras35 · 8/10 · 8 November 2022]

Russian mobsters have stolen a computer disk which will allow them to print money, and have hijacked a truck containing blank currency paper. Unfortunately for the mobsters the disk is accidentally slipped into the possession of Tommy Lee (Phillip Rhee). Desperate to get the disk back, the mobsters kidnap Tommy's daughter, and in order to rescue his child Tommy must face deadly temptresses, high- tech gadgets and an array of explosive weaponry.

This shouldn't have been called Best of the best. Most people criticise this one because it's alien to the first two in the series. If it was just called 'without Warning', and Philip Rhee played a stand-alone character I am sure this lively and exciting actioner would get much more respect. It's fast-paced, has good production values, exciting car and motorcycle chases, helicopter stunts and some great hand to hand combat with Rhee taking on the bad guys with ease. The attack in Rhee's home and the Russians in the dojo are standout scene. The latter features some cool stick fighting and epee work. The finale with the cargo plane harks back to the grand 80's films. The sense of excitement never falters. There's great villainy, and Rhees makes a likeable and charismatic hero; it baffles me why he wasn't a big star.

NOT A MARTIAL ARTS MOVIE......

[theromanempire-1 · 8/10 · 10 December 2020]

Warning. while the first three best of the best films were solid martial arts films this 4rth entry although it's great too it's more like an action film with only two-three fights which resemble to martial arts rather than a pure martial arts film. the movie is worth it and u should check it out but it's a sequel in name only.