Paul Andrews Best of the Best 3: No Turning Back starts as martial artist Tommy Lee (co-producer & director Phillip Rhee) arrives in the small town of Liberty where his sister Karen (Anzu Lawson) lives with her husband Jack (Christopher McDonald) who just so happens to be the local Sheriff. Jack informs Tommy about a missing black Reverend named Luhter Phelps (Andra R. Ward) whose Church was burned down, Jack suspects a local group of racist neo-Nazi thugs lead by the vicious Donnie Hansen (Mark Rolston) but no-one in town will testify out of fear so the Sheriff's hands are tied. Hansen & his white power group hate all foreigner's & the Chinese Tommy Lee & his sister Karen are next in line for the racial abuse & violence but Tommy, being a world Karate champ & general brilliant martial artist, fights back. Things become personal as Jack & Karen's kid is kidnapped & the true extent of Hansen's plans become apparent, Hansen wants to start a war between black & white...Directed by & starring Phillip Rhee this is the third entry in the Best of the Best franchise & while it's not as good as Best of the Best 2 (1993) it's better than the weak original Best of the Best (1989). Right, first things first series continuity has gone right out of the window here, for some reason Tommy Lee now refuses to teach martial arts & despite being an only child (after his brother was killed by Dae Han in the original Best of the Best) now magically has a sister, gone is his mate Alex Grady played by Eric Roberts in the previous two & this time he's on his own. In fact Best of the Best 3: No Turning Back has very little to do with the previous two films except that it features Tommy Lee (anyone else think the character was originally meant as a homage to Bruce Lee?). A little bit of research actually reveals that the script was originally written as a stand alone film called No Turning Back about a black soldier returning home & finding his town overrun with racists but Phillip Rhee saw the script & turned it into a Best of the Best film. This is all about racism, the effect of it, the causes of it & Tommy Lee single handedly stopping it. There's no great depth here, the racists are seen as pure scum while the abused are pretty much perfection, the biggest problem with the script is why was Hensen stockpiling so many weapons? What was he going to do with them? Kill all the blacks in his town? The State? The whole of the US? What? There's just no reason for it. Having said that the bad guy's are bad enough, the good guy's get to kick ass & there some decent action once it kicks in during the final thirty odd minutes. A little slow to get going Tommy Lee doesn't doesn't beat up his first racist until after the thirty minute mark but from then on it continues to move along at a nice pace until the action packed climax. Not as deep as some films might have been considering it's touchy racial subject matter but as pure action entertainment then this is worth a watch.The fights are well staged & look impressive, the last thirty minutes are great with lots of shooting, explosions, out of control buses, car & motorbike stunts & a final climatic knife fight between Tommy Lee & Hansen. The violence has been toned down from Best of the Best 2, while still violent it's not that bloody or graphic. All current UK versions are missing about 45 seconds of the attempted rape of Margot, anyone who has this cut shouldn't worry too much as the excised footage is tame & nothing more than Margot being held on a table while someone rips her top off. Set in a small town in the US the picturesque opening credits feature kids playing in fields & fishing & a rickety old school bus picking them up in a really syrupy scene but things soon turn nasty as a Church is burned down.Filmed in Indiana & Ohio this looks nice enough, first time director Rhee does a decent enough job here although the action scenes & fights predictably fare better than the human drama. The acting is alright, Gina Gershon & Dee Wallace-Stone appear as does R. Lee Emery in a small role while Kane Hodder joins Rhee as being the only actor to have appeared in all three Best of the Best films but unlike Rhee as a different character in each although always as a bad guy.Best of the Best 3: No Turning Back tries to mix a hard & emotive issue like racial abuse & tension with mindless martial arts action & is somewhat successful, while not that deep it does entertain on a basic level with some good action scenes during the last thirty minutes. Followed by Best of the Best: Without Warning (1998).

spywatcher459 Part one was about teamwork...part two was about vengeance...in this third chapter of the Best of the Best series, Tommy Lee finds himself fighting for the greatest prize of all: salvation. A lot of people look at this movie as a step down for the Best of the Best series, but in my opinion, it isn't. If anything, it was a growing step up until Without Warning (the fourth Best of the Best) was created.Picking up from the events of Best of the Best 2, Tommy has left his good friend Alex Grady behind and comes to Liberty to see his sister Karen, brother-in-law Jack (who's the town Sheriff), his nephew Justin and Luther, Justin's friend who's father is a preacher who goes missing earlier in the film. Tommy is glad to see his family and is enjoying the love and warmth that he receives, but when he learns that local supremacists have taken over the town and are responsible for the death of Luther's father, Tommy must decide whether or not to use his lethal skills again in order to help the locals take back their home from predators who use fear as a weapon and violence against the innocent just because they're 'different'.A lot of people think that this Best of the Best just follows a tired old cliché story that people have seen and heard hundreds of times before. Yes, the topic at hand does revolve around racial conflict, but in this story, the victims in this decide to butch up and fight back. Most movies I've seen about 'hate crimes' in the past have the same plot: a hate crime is committed, people want to come forward but are too scared for fear of retaliation from the haters, the law does all they can to put a stop to it but are unable to and the people who are victims just try to rely on religion alone to get them through the incident. But how often do we see movies where those who are unjustly persecuted for their race decide to take a stand against that kind of tyranny and terrorism? The movie has many messages mainly about redemption and salvation. Tommy is trying to live a life of peace, but the supremacists make that extremely difficult and force him to use lethal countermeasures to put a stop to their bullying and he hopes and prays that the situation won't result in more death at his hands.Another message in this film is that even if you despise violence, you have to be ready to use it at a moment's notice. Nobody likes violence and would like to resolve conflicts without it...but violence is all some people know in this world. And the enemy won't learn anything about respecting another individual's rights until someone 'teaches' it to them. And rest assured, Phillp Rhee's character has a lot of teaching to do in this film.Basically put, there's plenty of gunfights galore, high-kicking action, explosive pyrotechnics and behind it all, a message about being ready to go to war if you ever want peace on your land. That's the main thing everyone should pay attention to when they watch this film...God knows, it got my attention.

Jsimpson5 I had the chance to see this film last Saturday on TV, and well I wasn't very impressed by what I saw.Basically Tommy Lee (Rhee) return again now to help a town against a white supremacist gang that is planning to tear the city apart.The plot is just a retool of the basic hero comes to town plot. The violence in this film near the same as Best of the Best 2, and it sorta feels like it at times. There is clearly a anti-racist message in the film, and so obvious from the start.The acting at times, could be better, as most of the white supremacists sound like their are rednecks, and the other characters just sound a tad wooden. Some of the fight scenes are good, some I have to wonder, what in the world the producers where either drinking or smoking, because they are good, it's just the set up to them is just plain bad.If you don't like racial slurs, then avoid this film, since that's pretty much every other word out the mouth of the racist, and everything else is about Tommy not teaching any more. If you are not offended by racial slurs, then you can watch this film, but like my summary says it not the "best" of the best

drfrancisgross-1 I picked this up 2nd hand and really enjoyed it, in a campy way. Tommy turns up in some rural town and steps right into a race war. Tommy is basically given reason after reason to take on guys of 4 or more and throw them through various fruit stalls, ticket offices, coffee tables, and french windows. The gorgeous Gina Gershon does her best as a choir teacher helping Tommy out, but whenever she needs to be "helpless" it kinda doesn't work because she now plays such strong, female roles.The acting and direction are seriously questionable but this film is obviously about fight scenes and they are entertaining enough, from the moment we see Gershon's house is full of glass tables, flimsy bookcases and china filled cabinets we know we are in for a treat.Terrible, patronising attitude toward racial issues but, hey, its got a rocket launcher and plenty of flying kicks.