Clementine (2004) User Reviews

Easily the worst film Steven Segal has appeared in, but he's in it for maybe 10 minutes total. This is one to avoid.

[dbborroughs · 2/10 · 4 August 2006]

Let's start with a warning: If you're looking to see this for Steven Seagal then rent it or borrow it do not buy it because you will be majorly disappointed. Seagal is on screen for maybe ten minutes if you include all of the shots of him on TV monitors. If you don't count the monitors its a couple of minutes less, and its a not very good fight scene.

The real star of the movie is Dong-jun Lee who is a karate champion who lost in a rigged match (which I think was against Seagal). The match occurred as his wife/girlfriend went into labor and gave birth to their daughter. The wife/girlfriend dies on the delivery table and the girl was put into an orphanage from which Lee retrieves her. Years pass and Lee becomes a cop. After he breaks heads while making a bust he is forced to retire from the force and turns to cage fighting to pay off his debts to the people who's heads he broke. He's such a good fighter (yea right) that the mob wants him to fight the world champion Steven Seagal. However in between all of that is a great deal of soap opera as the mother is found not to be dead and wants to get her little girl back (or some such nonsense).

Its awful.In between hitting the fast forward to get to something interesting and watching badly acted scenes at normal speed I sat there slack jawed at just how incredibly stupid this movie is. What kind of movie is it? Comedy? Family Drama? Its not really an action film. What is Seagal doing in this movie? If he did it for a paycheck he got all of the money. My guess is that this was suppose to be a family drama of some sort and somehow Seagal got roped in to doing a days shooting. The producers were happy because they now had a film that they could market as a Steven Seagal flick. Since there is no real release outside of Asia my guess is that anyone looking to release this saw it for what it was and dropped it. You will not be seeing this any time soon playing on American TV (or any other TV for that matter.)

Avoid this one. Its just not worth it. Yes, it has a few good moments, hence a 2 out of 10 rating, but its just a mess of a movie thats not even good enough to make fun of.

(NB:If you must see Seagals scenes fast forward to one hour and twenty three minutes in)

Waste of my time

[antal-wahlers · 3/10 · 14 January 2005]

A martial arts flick with only 5 mediocre fight scenes? The featured Seagal is only discernible in a fight for about 15 seconds. Most of the film is just family drama, which isn't a strong Korean trait. There's thousands of films more worth your while. OK. Just noticed I need to write 10 lines so here are some arguments to explain my vote: The acting is pretty OK, for an Asian movie of this style. That's why I voted it 3 out of 10. The problem is that the movie is lacking all the important parts. It is not funny. The script really has only one way to go from the start. I fast forwarded some parts of the film and didn't lose ANY context. And, most importantly, the film isn't exciting. There isn't a single moment where you hold your breath. Every action fan could forgive those points (I mean, be honest, most martial arts films are lacking on these points...) if only he were repaid with some spectacular fight moves. But this is really the killing blow. 2 of the fight scenes (with Kim as a cop) could be straight out of Maimi Vice and the rest are also just basic brawls. No cool kicks, no acrobatics, no grace, no nothing. There, I said it.

Seagal Did Not Appear Before I turned It Off One Hour In

[slightlymad22 · 3/10 · 14 July 2019]

Clementine (2004)

This is easily the worst movie I have watched so far in Seagal's filmography, obviously a quick payday for him. He brings nothing to this except his name. He had not even appeared in it before I turned it off an hour in.

Quick synopsis the main star of the movie is a karate champion who lost a rigged fight (possibly against Seagal) I'm not 100% sure. As he is fighting this fight his wife dies during childbirth and his daughter put into an orphanage. He gets her back, stops fighting and becomes a cop. He loses that job for being too aggressive and turns to cage fighting to pay the bills!! Then in a move only a soap opera writer from Days Of Our Lives could come up with, the mother did not die and she wants her little girl back.

Forgettable.

Steven Seagal in a cameo

[Conagher-7 · 4 May 2005]

This is a typical melodramatic Korean movie. Decent drama compared to it's genre, decent fight sequences (heavy on taekwondo, as expected). Seagal added nothing to this movie, really, except for his name and some face time. Oh, and two lines of utterly predictable dialogue. He didn't do anything more than any martial arts stunt man could have done.

See this one if you enjoy Korean cinema or if you absolutely must see every celluloid moment of Seagal's career. Oh, and if you're just dying to see it, see it soon. There's apparently some contractual issues that could get this one pulled.

Good movie.....but not enough SEAGAL!

[dolemite72 · 5/10 · 29 September 2004]

Before i watched this, i knew STEVEN SEAGAL wasn't going to be in this movie much (despite the movie being marketed around his cameo) so i was expecting to wait, to see my favourite martial-artist perform his stuff. However, i was quite taken in by the rest of the movie, during this wait. JUN LEE plays a maverick cop, Kim (aren't they all?) who gets kicked out of the force, and finds himself lured back to his fighting days (he was once a jeet kune do champion) and the lure of the money, to fight the world cage fighting champ Jack Miller(SEAGAL) This sense of indecision, is heightened by his trying (and mostly failing) to single-handedly bring up his 8 year old daughter (who's actually the best thing in this movie) and the fact that SHE is doing just as much looking after HIM (due to his drinking and brawling) Things are not helped when a familiar (feared dead) face from the past comes between father and daughter. And everything comes to a head, when gangsters kidnap the young child, in order to force kim to lose the fight against miller. And it's a race against time to find the girl, before kim loses more than his title.

Whilst not on the artistic and emotional level as a TAKESHI KITANO, the movie has it's aspirations (and it's plot is a little similar to HANA-BI) and as mentioned, the young actress playing the daughter, is a joy to behold (carefuly balancing sweetness with an adult-like attitude) and she certainly knows how to belt out the tears (quite convincingly!) but the movie itself is falsely advertised as an 'action' movie....it is not. Imagine a Korean 'KRAMER VS KRAMER' with medium level violence, and you're on the right track. SEAGAL, when he arrives, gives a pretty confident performance (for all of about 8 minutes!) and even though a lot of the long takes look doubled, he still has amazing hand speed. But i think his appearance, was more of a favour to the director. There's nothing wrong with SEAGAL taking a different role, but he does need to put more of an input, in different movies like this one (a bit of extra background material on his character, would be helpfull)

All in all, though, CLEMENTINE is a good movie (different to most Korean action movies) and the young girls out-take at the end of the movie (she proclaims her love for SEAGAL!) is the icing on a very 'different' kind of cake.

More SEAGAL would have helped, but nevertheless, a solid 7 out of 10

Beware.... this is bad.. really bad.

[gundar79 · 1/10 · 13 November 2004]

This is quite possibly THE worst movie I've ever seen in my life. I cannot believe all the positive reviews on this travesty of so-called 'film'. Only explanation to those reviews are that they're probably not native Korean speakers and therefore cannot comprehend what's really going on. Poor acting, poor casting, and one of the most unoriginal plot in history of movie making makes this movie a classic. Steven Seagal? Why? They spent more dough on casting him than the entire film making. Not to mention the first part of the movie... where Seagal is fighting years back... and it's somebody else! I think Seagal signed a contract where he CANNOT participate in a movie if his role plays over 5 minutes. They dubbed this garbage as a 'mixed martial arts movie' in Korea when it got all trendy all of a sudden, to target the UFC and Pride fans. What a disappointment.. There is at least one positive aspect of this film, at the end... a classic humor, I might add. Main character goes, "Taekwondo is a state of mind" with the worst Korean accent and Seagal touches his heart saying, "I know..." if this isn't the cheesiest line of all time, I don't know what is. It did make me laugh hard... so I got my money's worth on this one.

"Jack already kicked a bunch of asses!"

[Anonymous_Maxine · 5/10 · 3 May 2009]

It was with some trepidation that I watched Clementine the other day, because I had heard nothing but a relentless stream of terrible things about it. I was surprised to see that it's a Korean film in every way, given Seagal's background in Japanese martial arts and the fact that he speaks fluent Japanese. But make no mistake, Clementine is not a Seagal movie, it's an action comedy that's heavy on the comedy (and cheap drama, for some reason) and light on the action. The only problem is that the comedy is spotty at best and Seagal's presence on the cover box serves only to make us wonder where he is for the whole movie.

The story is about Kim, a fallen Korean Taekwon-do champion who leaves his country when a bad referee call costs him the championship title. He moves to Los Angeles and becomes a cop and never goes back to Korea, although he must live in Korea tow because he and he speaks nothing but Korean, as do his colleagues and his daughter. Having lost his fighting career, he decides to concentrate on a career in law enforcement and taking care of his daughter. A fight promoter is trying to get him back in the ring but Kim doesn't want to get back into fighting.

Kim's daughter is impossibly cute and takes after her father. When Kim gets called in to talk to the principal because his daughter beat up some kid that was teasing her, Kim scowls at the kid and says, "Well you got what you deserved, didn't you!" Unfortunately, there is a stupid sub-plot involving the girl's mother that serves to do nothing but make a light- hearted, half-witted comedy pretty thoroughly depressing. The little girl who plays Kin's daughter has some great scenes, but it seems like she was just screaming and crying for about the last 30 minutes or so of the film.

Oh and remember that huge black guy in Underworld? The one that did that weird thing where he's trying to make his voice so deep that it just calls attention to his crappy acting? That guy is in this movie, and he's still doing that stupid thing with his voice. Maybe someone forgot to tell him that he's not in a vampire movie anymore. But it's pretty much in tune with the rest of the awful acting in the movie, although Dong-jung Lee, who plays the main character, does have some pretty funny moments, especially in the first half of the film, which is the best part of the movie and I would argue that it's even pretty entertaining and fun.

It's revealing about the rest of the movie that the formidable talent of Seagal himself is completely wasted. He has nothing to do in the entire movie except do what he does worst in all his other movies – show up at the end and make some goofy speech and then wander off screen in slow motion. Yawn. But this is not a Seagal movie, it's a Korean martial arts comedy where he makes a brief appearance at the end, in one of the film's only English scenes. If they had kept up the almost family comedy sitcom story of the first half of the movie it could have been fun, light-hearted fare, but trying to give us this dramatic social situation involving the little girl and her missing mother and the whole thing with Seagal just turned it into a muddled mess.

A waste of time if you are not Japanese

[carstengp-2 · 1/10 · 12 January 2007]

I really like Steven Seagal, but this is a really crap movie. Japanese actors in soap opera, is the nearest description that comes in mind.

The sound is like an early 80's movie. And Seagal is not really acting at all.

If you understand Japanese, maybe you'd get more out of this movie. But the sub-translation is really the worst of the worst.

Don't get me wrong, the story is quite OK, but at least they could spend money on a translator who speaks just a little English.

Only one star from me on this one!

Sorry Seagal... You can do better than that

Irritating...

[swedzin · 2/10 · 13 October 2012]

I felt really tense during this film, but not in a positive way. You see, I love Steven Seagal's earlier films from the late 80s and early 90s. You know, when he was thin, handsome and charismatic. His "characters" were kind of more tolerable. But, from the end of 90s and beginning of 2000s... What can I say? Extremely boring C films, straight to DVD features. Now, this is one of those rare Seagal films, very different, very rare, legendary, if you will. You don't see Steven Seagal every day in some martial arts drama, just like this one. Yep, you read that well - it's a martial arts drama. But, that doesn't mean that the movie is good, it was pretty irritating and cringing.

Our leading man is not Seagal, but a man named Kim (played by Dong-jun Lee). He is a former Taekwondo champion who retires from professional fighting to take care of his daughter. However, in order to survive, he decided to fight in illegal matches and he proves once more that he is the best. And, bunch of mobsters wants him to fight a cage champion Jack Miller (Seagal), who is, of course, being a Seagal - indestructible.

The fight scenes were solid, and that is the only thing I like here. Drama was a bit forced and cringing as hell. Steven did his typical job of being in front of the camera and playing a non-emotional badass. But, when it comes to acting - no luck. Actually, when it comes to the martial arts scenes also, you can clearly see that in most fighting scenes, Seagal uses a stunt double. The dude needs to accept that it is over for him. This film was released in 2004 and he still looked like a large, funny walrus in his close up shots. Most of other actors were Korean (well, apparently), starting with Dong-jun Lee. The man is not the best actor around. He showed some good martial arts skills, but acting... well, not that much. His accent was too strong. They could at least hire an English speaking coach to teach him how to properly pronounce English words. And of course, to avoid stereotypes. When he spoke Korean, I understood all. And I don't speak Korean. His character has only one motive and that is fine, but not enough to save the film. Our leading "actress" who plays Kim's daughter SaRang was really forced into her performance. Most of scenes were so painful to watch. OK, I understand that she is a kid and still has a lot to learn about acting and it's not her fault. I think director forced her too much and her performance turned into this ear shredding tirade. Other actors and characters didn't do much. And to mention... one of the leading mobsters and fight organizers is played by Kevin Grevioux (Raze from the Underworld films), but he was uncredited for the role. I would recognize his deep voice anywhere. But, why not credit him? Maybe he didn't want to be credited in Steven Seagal film.

There's nothing much special to say about this film, it is a really boring and irritating ordeal. You definitely have something better to do...

Advertised as a fighting movie, which it simply isn't

[todesnudel · 2/10 · 24 February 2013]

I was looking for an action movie. I saw this title, with Seagals face on the cover, with his name on it, with screen shots from the fighting scenes on the back cover, the description read as if this was some good action movie. But none of this holds true. Instead what we get is some kind of a melodrama about a single father and his little daughter.

The dubbing of this movie is awful. Seems like they got the worst of the worst voice actors for this movie, so I really advise you to watch this in original language with subtitles. It can only make the movie better! The story is very confusing as there are big plot holes. The father (Lee Dong-Jun) is fighting for the world champion title in Taekwondo, but after a wrong decision from the ref, he loses the fight. At the same time his wife is giving birth to their child. The mother dies.

Years later, the daughter runs into a woman in a supermarket, they both get to know each other. And it turns out that this woman is the thought-to-be-dead mother of the little girl. Oh wow, what a plot twist. How on earth can such a "mistake" happen? She was in a hospital. They declared her dead even though she really wasn't? And why didn't the mother try to contact her daughter or her husband? Or maybe it even was explained during the movie, but it was so boring (remember, I expected an action movie!) that I simply must have missed this "plot twist". But even if there's a "plot twist" there: What where the reasons for the mother to leave the family? And if she wasn't dead and did have her reasons to leave them... why doesn't she just move along after she discovers who the father of this little girl is? And what exactly where the reasons to kidnap the little girl, only for this show match to take place? Oh yeah, and who thought it would be funny to advertise this movie with Seagal if he only appears for like 6 minutes in it? Conclusion: If you are into Korean movies, you might want to take a look at this. Camera work is OK most of the time, some of the fight scenes that happen at the beginning of the movie are OK as well (the "5 against 5 cage match" and the final battle are poorly cut and there's no real flow to the fights). All the others, just stay the hell away from this.

Seriously the most worthless movie every watched

[barrynmr11 · 1/10 · 3 March 2021]

Short; most terrible thing ever seen. So sorry for the time lost. Never getting back. There are three 15 minutes moments in the movie where only a child is crying and singing. Without a doubt the most terrible thing ever made.

Another masterful career move from "The King of the Gate", Steven Seagal!

[EdgeofEpic · 10/10 · 24 April 2006]

I have been a lifelong Steven Seagal fan. Whenever a new direct-to-DVD Seagal movie comes out, I have my girlfriend pick it up at Blockbuster and send to to me in prison. Typically, these are the 3 or 4 best days of each year for me.

Where should I start? As you may have read already, Seagal makes a bold career transition, on par with Robin Wiliams giving up on Mork to go Dead Poet, or like Cruise dumping Ethan Hunt for his bad-guy role in Collateral. Seagal unveils his dark side as he plays Jack Miller, the undefeated fighting champion in this South Korean movie. But there is so much more, there is drama, a rekindled romance, action-packed fight sequences, bad subtitles, bad sunglasses, and a throw-down annoying kid who says "Momma" non-stop for the last 15 minutes of this film.

I am undeserving of bearing witness to the genius that we know as Steven Seagal. I had this movie for 3 nights and me and all the fellas from the license plate shop watched this all three nights. What a pleasant way to top off an evening after our institutional evening meal has been served.

Seagal's character is not prominent in the film until the conclusion. If you are on your deathbed and need to finish this quickly, fast forward to 1hr 20min and you'll have your payday. For the rest of us that have the time to watch the story unravel, grab your partner and set aside 1 hr and 40 minutes to be entertained in a way that Rob Schneider could only accomplish if he made a movie of himself swimming with hungry great white sharks.

Seagal is the genius of our generation. The night after I first watched this I logged onto MENSA.org and made a $25 donation in Steven's name. After watching a movie with the pedigree of "Clementine", I felt obligated to give something back (even if it meant I was donating $$ from somebody else's account).

SPOILER ALERT: For the first time I can recall, Seagal owns a WWE-style World Championship Belt in this film. It was probably designed for a smallish South Korean. Incidentally, Seagal is billed by the movie ring announcer as 6'4" and 225 pounds. I guess he's back on the Grapefruit Diet.

Trying something new...

[rynlarson · 6/10 · 16 December 2004]

I am a huge Seagal fan, and you will find my reviews on most of his films on this site. I ordered Clementine via Amazon more to complete my collection as I had read that Seagal has "little more than a cameo" in this film. My biggest compliment to Seagal is, this film had to have been filmed on a small budget...and I highly doubt Seagal is hurting for cash...so he must have done this film in gratitude to somebody involved with either the production or direction. The fight scenes are decent-however one can clearly see that it is not Seagal in the cage when the camera is shooting from a farther distance. It reminded me of the fight scenes in "Half Past Dead" thugh they lasted a little longer. Decent movie, hard to get into because of the subtitles, definitely a film only for hardcore Seagal fans.

Quite a mess

[SerpicoJones · 3/10 · 26 September 2010]

As a fan of Asian (especially Korean) movies I just had to look this up. Korean martial arts movie with Steven Seagal! How cool is that, huh? Well, not much. The film itself seemed do not know what it wanted to be.

It starts like some gangster/cop action drama. The protagonist, as an ex-fighter and martial artist, takes out punch of criminals in illegal casino. He retires from police and we see heartwarming relationship between him and his adorable daughter. Then the gangsters force the protagonist to fight again. Then we see one poorly directed and edited cage fight scene. The daughter cries. Then comes some woman who appears to be the biological mother of the girl. More drama follows and the girl cries again. The daughter gets kidnapped just to force the father to fight one more time but this time his opponent is unbeatable cage fight master (Steven Seagal). Another fight scene. The girl cries again (it becomes annoying). Then comes Steven Seagal and says something meaningful. The girl stops crying (finally). Happy end!

Steven Seagal's part is quite brief and we can't see him much in the final fight either. The drama parts between the Korean actors were played out pretty well and the story around the girl was rather interesting and quite enjoyable.

It would have been much better movie as a simple drama without those poor action sequences. And maybe if the father would have been played by Steven Seagal. The premise: An American Taekwondo champion living in Korea with his seven year old daughter and then the supposedly dead mother comes up. That would have been cool!

not really a Steven Seagal movie

[disdressed12 · 3/10 · 17 September 2010]

this movie doesn't really qualify as a Seagal movie since Seagal appears in it for ten minutes in total,at the most.it's really a just a generic action drama,emphasis on the drama.it's a three hanky weeper at times,and hard to get through.even in the action scenes,(most of which Seagal does not appear in)there is nothing to distinguish this from countless others of the genre.it's a Korean film,so that might or might not explain the heavy emphasis on the drama.regardless,it doesn't work for me.i found it too boring and the acting was just too overwrought for me to enjoy it.plus,i found the story pretty depressing.but maybe that just me.for me, Clementine is a 3/10.

Maybe Seagal's best

[chasingproductions · 10/10 · 8 May 2007]

I think this is a great foreign film, Even tho he is billed as a baddie. Seagal plays a genuine part. The performances all around were rather good, esp the little daughter of the hero. He has great Tae Kwon Do skill, at least that is what martial arts he appears to be doing . One of Seagal's more recent films Flight of Fury is not nearly as bad as the reviews, matter of fact I enjoyed it quit a bit, but the dubbing of Seagals voice is pissing me off every time i hear it. As a devotee Fan I own dvds of all his films, as fan Id appreciate something done about. I own a production company and it is not a difficult task to perform a redo for a few lines

www.chasingproductions.com

A Korean tearjerker, NOT A Seagal movie

[gridoon2024 · 6/10 · 21 March 2008]

Well, I guess you know it by now: Steven Seagal has little more than a cameo in this movie. The real lead is Dong-jun Lee. One point of interest that comes out of this arrangement is wondering if Seagal, playing the seemingly invincible reigning cage-fighting champion, will agree to lose (or, to use a pro-wrestling term, "job") cleanly to the hero, as it would happen in nearly every other story of this type. But the fighting is by no means the focal point of "Clementine": there are essentially 2 long fight scenes, a 5-person free-for-all inside the cage and the climactic match between Lee and Seagal. Both are pretty messy and lacking in flow, and in the last match there are plenty of long shots from outside the cage where you can clearly see Seagal's stunt double. No, "Clementine" is basically a family melodrama, and I have to admit I found it quite moving at times. The characters are essentially good people trying to do the best but not always knowing how or even what it is, and the acting is genuine and heartfelt. Lee is definitely an above-average actor for a martial arts lead, the little girl is irresistible, and her mother is very beautiful. The story does depend on a very big coincidence (the daughter literally crashing into her thought-dead mother in a supermarket!), but if you can accept that, the actors (and the music score) make it work. To sum up: this is a martial arts tearjerker more suitable for fans of the latter genre. (**1/2)

if you expect an action film that is not your movie

[athena-no-sainto · 9/10 · 23 March 2011]

I rented these movie expecting other thing but I must say that it has been a nice surprise.Is not a Steven Seagal's movie, he just appears on a cameo, the real star of the movie is seo woo eun a little girl with an amazing acting skills. the movie is a drama about a father who quit his fighting career to look after his daughter. the action scenes are really well done as the dramatic scenes that are really well played by the actors.My personal favorite scene is the one in which the little girl starts singing the song Clementine and finally end up crying on the window looking the city lights.is a really great movie, a martial arts drama but if you only expect an action film is not your movie

a very emotional drama with barely any Seagal in it

[hizman · 6/10 · 12 January 2008]

I downloaded the movie just because I am fond of Steven Seagal and watched every movie with him both in English and Russian. This one was a very emotional story rather on parenting and family issues than action and Aikido. Seagal briefly showed up in but a few episodes so this is not really a type of movie for his fans.

I never saw a single Korean movie so I was moved by the family and parenting line. Overall directorship is what they call at Yahoo! "flawed but worthy" :) Seagal's acting is rather nominal.

A minor but striking flaw of the scenario was that the Korean godfather always had a Bible with him. No logic at all because he was the bad guy and his Scripture quotes were really inappropriate. It was an apparent attack on Christianity as the Western (American/European) religion. Steven Seagal himself never used religion in diminishing terms although his own choice is rather Zen Buddhism than Christianity.

My own rating would be "flawed but worthy" while for an action movie fan, it's fairly a waste of time.

A good film for that time

[Timofey1980 · 8/10 · 29 July 2021]

Kim is a taekwondo wrestling champion who is retiring from big-time sports to devote himself to raising his daughter Sa-ran (which means "love"). But the girl is kidnapped by the head of an underground betting shop, and Kim is forced to agree to a purchased fight to buy her out. Kim's opponent is the invincible fighter Jack Miller, nicknamed the King of the Cage.

A movie searching itself....

[destroyerwod · 6/10 · 22 February 2012]

Like most people i looked for this movie because of Seagal... But i am interest in any martial art movie anyway. I knew that Seagal only had a little more than a cameo... but the problem is, this role dosen't fit him at all. He is not the type of guy to put into a cage match in a movie. His martial art style dosen't fit at all for that. And the shot from far away, mixed with close shot where you don't even see Seagal made a very poor last fight. You need to put the kind of guy like Michael Jay White or Van Damme for these. When i watch a movie with Seagal, i know he is gonna beat 5 guys at the same type, not being touch once and making joke doing it and thats what i love, stunt double or not... BUT for this role... nah...

Then for the rest of the movie, it tried to be super emotional but i had a lot of trouble getting into it, the main character role seem a bit weird. He is some kind of super right cops then he work for them... money owned or not, i don't know, it felt weird... There is a couple fight scene at the beginning, then its all drama.... which is not bad usually, but not that style... more easy going and more action between. I dunno, i felt this movie first wanted to be an action movie, then a drama, then back to action... Anyway... not bad, but thats it. Im glad i saw it, i doubt i will ever watch it again... Seagal or not.