Clementine (2004)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

A Brilliant Conflict

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Like most people i looked for this movie because of Seagal... But i am interest in any martial art movie anyway. I knew that Seagal only had a little more than a cameo... but the problem is, this role dosen't fit him at all. He is not the type of guy to put into a cage match in a movie. His martial art style dosen't fit at all for that. And the shot from far away, mixed with close shot where you don't even see Seagal made a very poor last fight. You need to put the kind of guy like Michael Jay White or Van Damme for these. When i watch a movie with Seagal, i know he is gonna beat 5 guys at the same type, not being touch once and making joke doing it and thats what i love, stunt double or not... BUT for this role... nah...Then for the rest of the movie, it tried to be super emotional but i had a lot of trouble getting into it, the main character role seem a bit weird. He is some kind of super right cops then he work for them... money owned or not, i don't know, it felt weird... There is a couple fight scene at the beginning, then its all drama.... which is not bad usually, but not that style... more easy going and more action between. I dunno, i felt this movie first wanted to be an action movie, then a drama, then back to action... Anyway... not bad, but thats it. Im glad i saw it, i doubt i will ever watch it again... Seagal or not.

I think this is a great foreign film, Even tho he is billed as a baddie. Seagal plays a genuine part. The performances all around were rather good, esp the little daughter of the hero. He has great Tae Kwon Do skill, at least that is what martial arts he appears to be doing . One of Seagal's more recent films Flight of Fury is not nearly as bad as the reviews, matter of fact I enjoyed it quit a bit, but the dubbing of Seagals voice is pissing me off every time i hear it. As a devotee Fan I own dvds of all his films, as fan Id appreciate something done about. I own a production company and it is not a difficult task to perform a redo for a few lineswww.chasingproductions.com

This is a typical melodramatic Korean movie. Decent drama compared to it's genre, decent fight sequences (heavy on taekwondo, as expected). Seagal added nothing to this movie, really, except for his name and some face time. Oh, and two lines of utterly predictable dialogue. He didn't do anything more than any martial arts stunt man could have done.See this one if you enjoy Korean cinema or if you absolutely must see every celluloid moment of Seagal's career. Oh, and if you're just dying to see it, see it soon. There's apparently some contractual issues that could get this one pulled.

Before i watched this, i knew STEVEN SEAGAL wasn't going to be in this movie much (despite the movie being marketed around his cameo) so i was expecting to wait, to see my favourite martial-artist perform his stuff. However, i was quite taken in by the rest of the movie, during this wait. JUN LEE plays a maverick cop, Kim (aren't they all?) who gets kicked out of the force, and finds himself lured back to his fighting days (he was once a jeet kune do champion) and the lure of the money, to fight the world cage fighting champ Jack Miller(SEAGAL) This sense of indecision, is heightened by his trying (and mostly failing) to single-handedly bring up his 8 year old daughter (who's actually the best thing in this movie) and the fact that SHE is doing just as much looking after HIM (due to his drinking and brawling) Things are not helped when a familiar (feared dead) face from the past comes between father and daughter. And everything comes to a head, when gangsters kidnap the young child, in order to force kim to lose the fight against miller. And it's a race against time to find the girl, before kim loses more than his title.Whilst not on the artistic and emotional level as a TAKESHI KITANO, the movie has it's aspirations (and it's plot is a little similar to HANA-BI) and as mentioned, the young actress playing the daughter, is a joy to behold (carefuly balancing sweetness with an adult-like attitude) and she certainly knows how to belt out the tears (quite convincingly!) but the movie itself is falsely advertised as an 'action' movie....it is not. Imagine a Korean 'KRAMER VS KRAMER' with medium level violence, and you're on the right track. SEAGAL, when he arrives, gives a pretty confident performance (for all of about 8 minutes!) and even though a lot of the long takes look doubled, he still has amazing hand speed. But i think his appearance, was more of a favour to the director. There's nothing wrong with SEAGAL taking a different role, but he does need to put more of an input, in different movies like this one (a bit of extra background material on his character, would be helpfull)All in all, though, CLEMENTINE is a good movie (different to most Korean action movies) and the young girls out-take at the end of the movie (she proclaims her love for SEAGAL!) is the icing on a very 'different' kind of cake.More SEAGAL would have helped, but nevertheless, a solid 7 out of 10