Best of the Best (1989)

A team of five American martial artists, coached by James Earl Jones and including Eric Roberts, Chris Penn, and Phillip Rhee, is brought together to compete against Team Korea. The movie keeps referring to the martial art as karate, but it both doesn’t look like karate as I know it nor explain why they are competing against South Korea. The Koreans are portrayed as being ruthless with year-round, state-paid, no-holds barred training against the thrown-together, slacker Americans who haven’t yet discovered there’s no I in team. The stakes are about as low as they possibly can be while still portraying a competition. Luckily it doesn’t forget the important parts of a 1980s sports film and totally brings the blood-pumping soundtrack and training montages. Somehow this film managed to spawn three sequels.