Desafio Final

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)

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!

Clementine (2004)

This is easily the worst movie I have watched so far in Seagal's filmography, obviously a quick payday for him. He brings nothing to this except his name. He had not even appeared in it before I turned it off an hour in.

Quick synopsis the main star of the movie is a karate champion who lost a rigged fight (possibly against Seagal) I'm not 100% sure. As he is fighting this fight his wife dies during childbirth and his daughter put into an orphanage. He gets her back, stops fighting and becomes a cop. He loses that job for being too aggressive and turns to cage fighting to pay the bills!! Then in a move only a soap opera writer from Days Of Our Lives could come up with, the mother did not die and she wants her little girl back.

Forgettable.

this movie doesn't really qualify as a Seagal movie since Seagal appears in it for ten minutes in total,at the most.it's really a just a generic action drama,emphasis on the drama.it's a three hanky weeper at times,and hard to get through.even in the action scenes,(most of which Seagal does not appear in)there is nothing to distinguish this from countless others of the genre.it's a Korean film,so that might or might not explain the heavy emphasis on the drama.regardless,it doesn't work for me.i found it too boring and the acting was just too overwrought for me to enjoy it.plus,i found the story pretty depressing.but maybe that just me.for me, Clementine is a 3/10.

I am a huge Seagal fan, and you will find my reviews on most of his films on this site. I ordered Clementine via Amazon more to complete my collection as I had read that Seagal has "little more than a cameo" in this film. My biggest compliment to Seagal is, this film had to have been filmed on a small budget...and I highly doubt Seagal is hurting for cash...so he must have done this film in gratitude to somebody involved with either the production or direction. The fight scenes are decent-however one can clearly see that it is not Seagal in the cage when the camera is shooting from a farther distance. It reminded me of the fight scenes in "Half Past Dead" thugh they lasted a little longer. Decent movie, hard to get into because of the subtitles, definitely a film only for hardcore Seagal fans.