5
0
After nearly a decade of teasing the fact that he was looking to reboot his blockbuster martial arts franchise with a fifth film, filmmaker and martial arts action icon Phillip Rhee officially confirmed that a new entry is in deed in development and has even written a script to prove his point. Alas, nothing else has been announced and this is just the early stages of the project and there is a chance nothing may come about of all this.
Rhee made the announcement on his official Instagram page by highlighting the front page of his script and even sharing the title. The fifth and long-awaited installment is currently known as Best of the Best 5: Honor the Brave and you can see the post below along with screenwriter Mark Nemcoff credited as a writer as well. You can view his post below where he mentions that ““BEST 5” is going to be AWESOME! I promise.”
Fans of action and most notably martial arts action worship the Best of the Best series ever since Rhee, his brother Simon and Eric Roberts starred in the cult classic original back in 1989. 20th Century Fox, as it was known at the time, released the inaugural flick along with its much more violent actioner Best of the Best 2 in 1992. While the first film was about honor, loyalty and winning a championship, the second film was a full throttle revenge pic with Rhee and Roberts going after those who murdered their friend. Rhee did go on to direct two DTV sequels which didn’t quite reach the heights of the first two, but they are still regarded as solid martial arts thrillers by hardcore fans. Best of the Best 3, where Tommy takes on the white supremists has always been my favorite after the original. The climax was pure martial arts action bliss with Rhee unleashing his signature skill set on dozens of baddies. A true classic.
Both Phillip and Simon struck up excitement for a potential fifth film when they posted a selfie they took with fellow co-star Eric Roberts with the caption reading, “Mini reunion w @ericrobertsactor aka Alexander Grady from Best of The Best. We had so much fun sharing old stories and planning Best 5.“ Check out the pic below!
Rhee has written the script but there is no word if he will helm or give it to someone else. Also, it’s important to note that he says that there will be a new cast for a reboot so hopefully a few legends will still show up to pay respect to the franchise and I feel that Rhee, his brother Simon and possibly Roberts could be involved in front of the camera.
The Action Elite actually had the honor of chatting with Rhee when he was promoting his Karate Kid style family action film Underdog Kids and he mentioned that he was working on a new film.
“We’re going to reboot the whole franchise with a new cast. I have things… I’m going to bring in elements that nobody has ever seen before. I will produce the picture,” Rhee stated in the interview.
You can check out the entire interview with Eoin for The Action Elite below!
Of course, this means that Best of the Best 5 is still a twinkle in Rhee’s eyes but hopefully the powers that be and Rhee can work it all out and deliver one more round of bine crunching martial arts action to the masses. Lock N Load and stay tuned for more to follow!
In the meantime, while we wait, check out Phillip’s epic final fight with his brother Simon from the first Best of the Best!
