According to new reports, Best of the Best 5: Honor the Brave is happening, and if you just scratched your head in confusion, you’re not alone. Phillip Rhee, the martial arts legend and heart of the franchise, confirmed the news himself on Instagram. The script is done. The film has a title. And the news is giving us total nostalgia.
Rhee posted a photo of the script, co-written with Mark Nemcoff, captioned: “BEST 5 is going to be AWESOME! I promise.” And honestly, after waiting nearly three decades for this, that’s all we needed to hear.
If your martial arts movie diet was anything like ours growing up, Best of the Best was probably right there next to Bloodsport, Kickboxer, and The Karate Kid. The 1989 original introduced us to Alex Grady (played by Eric Roberts) and Tommy Lee (played by Rhee), who joined the U.S. karate team to face off against South Korea in a high-stakes, full-contact tournament. While Roberts was the “lead,” Tommy was always the emotional center of the series. His arc (fighting the man who killed his brother, who also happened to be his real-life brother Simon Rhee) is still one of the most memorable martial arts movie storylines of all time.
The sequel, Best of the Best 2, dropped in 1993 and swapped sportsmanship for vengeance. After the death of their friend Travis (Chris Penn), Tommy and Alex end up in a brutal underground fight arena called The Colosseum. This is where we meet Brakus, played by Ralf Moeller, a hulking villain who loses a fight and gains a facial scar courtesy of Tommy. Cue every martial arts fan rewinding their VHS tapes to rewatch that fight scene over and over.
What made Best of the Best 2 so great wasn’t just the action (which still holds up, by the way). It was Rhee’s blend of Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido, plus the film’s ahead-of-its-time use of mixed martial arts choreography. Before UFC became mainstream, this film was already doing it in the ‘90s.
Rhee followed it up with two straight-to-video sequels: Best of the Best 3: No Turning Back (1995), where Tommy battles white supremacists, and Best of the Best 4: Without Warning (1998), where he faces off against the Russian mob. While those didn’t reach the heights of the first two, they still had their fans.
In 2025, Cobra Kai gave Best of the Best 2 a shoutout in Season 6. Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka), preparing his dojo for an international tournament, puts the movie on for his students. Which means Eagle Fang Karate is basically team Best of the Best. And you should be too.
Rhee has teased Best of the Best 5: Honor the Brave for years. In a past interview with Eoin Friel at The Action Elite while promoting Underdog Kids (2015), Rhee said, “We’re going to reboot the whole franchise with a new cast… I’m going to bring in elements that nobody has ever seen before. I will produce the picture.”
While it’s not yet clear if Rhee will direct or just produce, he’s heavily involved. There’s talk of a new cast, but fingers crossed we still get cameos from Rhee, Simon, and Roberts. A recent selfie reunion between the trio, captioned “Mini reunion with @ericrobertsactor aka Alexander Grady… sharing old stories and planning Best 5”, only adds fuel to the nostalgia.
We’re ready. The fans are ready. The question now is, will Best of the Best 5: Honor the Brave deliver the punches, the heart, and the high kicks we’ve all been craving? If Rhee’s involved, bet on it.
