Clementine (2004)

User Rating:

3.5/10   

Director:

Du-yeong Kim

Writer:

Hye-rim Eun (writer)

Release Date:

14 December 2004 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama

Plot:

Kim is a Taekwondo champion who decides to give up his fighting career for good in order to take care of his daughter Sa Rang...

Plot Keywords:

Fighter | Fight | Single Father | Father Daughter Relationship | Tae Kwon Do

Cast

Dong-jun Lee	...	Kim (as Jun Lee)
Steven Seagal	...	Jack Miller
Hye-ri Kim
Seo-woo Eun
Ju-bong Gi
Ho Lim
Hyeok-pil Lim
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Joe Halpin	...	Bodyguard #1
Nick Hermz
So-yeon Kim
Simon Rhee	...	Korean man in crowd

Runtime:

Brazil:90 min

Country:

South Korea | USA

Language:

English | Korean

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

South Korea:15 | Germany:16 | Singapore:M18 | UK:15

Company:

Pulstar Pictures

I wanted an action movie, not a bloody soap opera!!!

STAR RATING: ***** Jodie Marsh **** Michelle Marsh *** Kym Marsh ** Rodney Marsh * Hackney Marsh

Taekwondoe champion Seung Hyun (Jun Lee) is cheated out of his championship title and forced to quit it all. Some time later, after the death of his wife and becoming a single father to his young daughter, he has become a cop who doesn't like to play by the rules, getting on the wrong side of local mobsters and his superior officers. But it looks like his fighting career might be about to be revived- some unscrupulous fight promoters have seen some footage of him in action and want to arrange a showdown between him and current champion, American Jack Miller (Steven Seagal) and even go as far as to kidnap his little girl to ensure it. With his daughter's life in mortal danger, Seung must pull out all the stops and come out the last man standing.

That at least is the basic gist of the story here, but the film seems to veer off from this plot line and most of the film is full of unbelievable soppy melodrama and sentiment involving the little girl discovering her mother isn't who she thought it was (or something) that would be better suited to a daytime soap opera than a supposed action/martial arts film, with hardly anything in the way of action going on and what little juicy fighting action there is is very unremarkable and forgettable.

I'm at a loss as to why Seagal appeared in this, with a role that comprises only about a few moments. I know his career is right down in the buffers at the moment, but this is a strange choice of role even for him. Aside from this, there's also just no way I'm buying a 50+, over-weight, puffy looking man as a 'current' big time fighting champion, and his fighting moves are just very cheap looking slaps and strikes.

A film you'll struggle to see right the way through to the end, as an action movie, Clementine is simply hard to recommend in any way at all. It is quite a spectacle, though. *