Clementine

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)

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.

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.

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!

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.