Born & raised in Belgium as Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg, but better known by his screen name Jean-Claude Van Damme, and sometimes nicknamed ‘the Muscles from Brussels’; Van Damme is an intensely charismatic French-accented high-spin-kicking splits-flashing martial arts movie star who shot to stardom with Bloodsport in 1988 and has never really had a movie that brilliant since (in my eyes), but he’s built a vast filmography of decent movies still, including several very strong ones like Kickboxer, The Quest, The Order, Hard Target, Universal Soldier, etc.
Van Damme is a genuine martial artist – one of his first jobs in America was helping Chuck Norris as a sparring partner. He also did ballet for flexibility, and is often seen doing the splits in his movies. As a martial artist, both on and off screen, his style is very much external – good for sparring and point-scoring sports. He also has some down & dirty street-practical moves, but lacks the finer skills of someone like Steven Seagal or Bruce Lee, although he often acts like he has those skills in his movies. Still, he’s well built – he keeps himself in good shape. He looks the part, to the untrained eye, and undoubtedly had all the natural talent needed to excel in the finer arts if only he were interested and found the right teacher. Van Damme is also known for having had a bit of a drugs problem since the 90s, and for being a bit of a playboy around women too (he had a fling with Kylie Minogue while making Street Fighter). Van Damme also famously got beat up once – or sucker punched while sitting down, drunk and all messed up on coke and being a bit rude in a nightclub – by Chuck Zito in 1998.
Nevertheless Van Damme’s movies are convincing. He’s a great actor. He really takes on the role, with all his heart & soul, in so far as it fits in with his natural style anyway. He halfway lives his on-screen persona in real life. Most great actors do.
The pace of this movie is a bit slow. The drama and crying scenes are a bit longwinded. But we manage to build a good story within the first half an hour still. It’s an interesting story where a Chinese triad boss kills his wife, and his daughter sees it then runs away to America along with a bunch of other illegal Chinese immigrants. They all get found, and the girl gets taken in temporarily by a social worker who happens to be Van Damme’s wife. But the cops are bent – they help the girl’s father track her down, so he kills Van Dame’s wife but the child runs off along with Van Damme’s son. Now he’s trying to track them down – the temporarily adopted Chinese girl, along with his missing son, after finding his wife dead and his home watched by a bunch of Chinese men with guns. So it’s time to reconnect with the local mafia lifestyle that Van Damme recently retired from in order to find his son and seek vengeance for his wife’s murder.
About an hour in, there’s an explicit depiction of a man using a power drill to drill into a kidnapped cop’s arm, to make him talk, while Van Damme is asking him “who killed my wife”. This is an ugly scene but it’s kind of tolerable considering the circumstances in how such torture techniques are kind of warranted, considering how this cop was involved in the murder of Van Damme’s character’s wife. Still, it’s a bit unpleasant, and then the torture continues for several minutes more. These scenes would be condensed down and mostly replaced by other stuff in a better action movie, but the directors obviously have a passion for horror. They should keep it to themselves – it doesn’t belong in our genre.
The final action scene is quite longwinded and soul-less, letting down the whole movie which started off with a slightly interesting story. For this reason I have to rate this movie Watchable – no more. I even find myself fast-forwarding through much of the slower scenes here. After the first hour, this movie was on course for a Lower-OK rating, a bit better than those rated So-So, but after finishing the movie with its weak ending I have to rate it just Watchable – a bit worse than those rated So-So.
This movie kicks off with a gruesome explicit gory tooth-pulling exercise within prison, shortly followed by a sexual assault and murder scene. It’s clearly trying to distress the viewer while unravelling the backstory.
Van Damme’s character soon finds himself in jail, sentenced to life behind bars without the possibility of parole, for killing his wife’s murderer who paid off the judge and escaped all charges.
Within 20 minutes there’s a fairly explicit depiction of prison guard organised sexual assault by one inmate against another in exchange for money paid to the prison guards. Van Damme spots a resemblance in the rude mannerisms of the perpetrator, to the guy who killed his wife, and starts a fight with him. From here, he’s locked away in a filthy solitary cell, and tries to kill himself, but fails. Next, he finds himself sharing a cell with someone who has a habit of killing his cellmates.
About half an hour in, Van Damme makes some friends – with the victim from earlier, and a guy in a wheelchair. Soon after that, it gets more interesting, as we start to see organised prison fights. Unfortunately the fight announcer is an extroverted cross-dresser, but when that’s out of the way we can start to see the meat & gravy of this movie warming up nicely. Still, it’s not till nearly an hour in when Van Damme first participates in one of the organised prison fights. There’s a lot more drama and a lot less action in this movie than there probably ought to be, so far as Van Damme’s usual fan base are concerned. Add to that the various forms of unpleasantries and I don’t think I can rate this movie any higher than So-So, on a par with Death Warrant – another Van Damme prison movie released 13 years prior to In Hell.
To its credit, the final boss that Van Damme fought in this movie probably inspired the final boss that Scott Adkins fought in Undisputed 4, some 13 years later again.
The last Universal Soldier movie had shades of B movie quality, but this one takes it to another level. It’s got really bad POV camerawork for a start – not a million miles from Scott Adkin’s barely-watchable zero-budget movie One More Shot.
While the last movie never caught fire but dwindled in an area that made us think it could be about to catch fire; this movie doesn’t even hit that spot – the whole thing is flat from start to finish, making it a chore to watch, and that’s saying something coming from someone who is such a fan of this genre that I made a website dedicated to it.
Some of the action scenes are so mixed up with CGI they look cartoony.
Some of the concepts are pretty cool, kind of like waking someone up in The Matrix, but when white noise is the favoured sound effect and flashing light is the favoured visual effect, it couldn’t have been executed much worse if they tried.
It gets a bit gruesome too, when explicitly chopping off bodyparts with an axe.
It gets slightly interesting around half way through, as Scott Adkins’ character starts digging into his past, trying to remember who he was, what he did, and who his family’s murderer is. But it’s still very cold and disjointed – I can’t rate it any higher than barely Watchable. It was really a chore to watch this far – I only did it for the benefit of this review. Scott Adkins’ first serious fight scene, a little over an hour into this movie – after the car chase – started off boring, but it soon got tasty when it became apparent that Adkins’s character is a far superior fighter to the most modern UNISOL – the main antagonist – from the previous movie, played by Andrei Arlovski. Does this mean Adkins is in fact the best of all the UNISOLs? Is he capable of beating the whole crew including Van Damme? Now it’s getting slightly interesting – just a shame we’re already an hour in and have had to endure a barely watchable movie up until this point. The back end of the movie is more comfortably Watchable, pushing on So-So, but still quite cold & gloomy.
Scott Adkins is the main character in this movie. He’s the main protagonist. After him, Jean-Claude Van Damme appears to be the main antagonist, for most of the movie, although he may actually be a good guy. He doesn’t get much screen time, but is still one of the main characters after Adkins. Andrei Arlovski also gets a fair amount of screen time as the main active handyman working for Van Damme. Dolph Lundgren also makes a few appearances – he appears to be second in command of the guys working in Van Damme’s crew of freed UNISOLs. You may have also noticed Roy Jones Jr – possibly the greatest boxer of all time (in the TV era, under Queensberry rules) – having a scrap with Andrei Arlovski in the UNISOL mess hall. After getting beaten up by Arlovski, then pummelled by the whole crew, Van Damme steps in and shoots him dead. Honestly, I thought I saw him, but then I thought that’s not possible – then I saw the rolling credits at the end and yes, it really was him. That’s probably the coolest thing about this movie.
In summary, I’m going to rate this movie Watchable, owing to its So-So second half. I’m being a bit generous with the rating here, because the first half is probably best described as Unwatchable, so it seems a bit unfair to the other movies rated Watchable which are a bit better than this one, and the other movies rated Unwatchable which are really no worse than this one, if focusing on the first hour. The second half is really its saving grace, and is my only excuse for rating this movie Watchable.
The basic concept is a good one but the script and cinematography never catch fire, they seem a bit soul-less, a bit like a B movie. The UNISOLs are meant to be cold, not the whole movie.
This movie lacks any significant female role. It had potential for a bit of warmth with the introduction of a non-UNISOL soldier played very well by Mike Pyle, giving Andrei Arlovski‘s latest generation of UNISOL a run for his money. But just as Pyle was growing into his role he got killed off. Interesting plot twist at the very end though, as Pyle’s character appears to have been cloned to create a load of new UNISOLs – this whets the appetite for the fourth & final movie in the saga (Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning, 2012) which brings back Van Damme & Arlovski while also co-starring Scott Adkins, but unfortunately does not feature Pyle so the ending to Regeneration is a bit of phony cliffhanger.
Dolph Lundgren does well in his return to the Universal Soldier movie series, as of course does Jean-Claude Van Damme – the main star of every movie in the series except the last (Day Of Reckoning) where Adkins takes over as the main protagonist since Van Damme is getting quite old by this time (in his early 50s) while active soldiers in the real world are generally young (with elastic bodies and impressionable minds). It’s just a shame they’re working with a weak script and deadpan cinematography, so I can’t rate it higher than So-So even if the genre, stars and concept are all excellent.
The Shepherd is a movie of three parts, in terms of quality. Excusing the pointless, irrelevant & boring opening scene that drags on for 5 minutes, it soon gets off to a very interesting start after that, with a great bar scene reminiscent of the iconic scene outside the bar in Hard Target. Then it tails off into a still interesting but less brilliant movie, as Van Damme deals with criminals crossing the border in his usual kickass style, massively outperforming his comrades. Then the backend of the movie becomes a bit monotonous though, as Van Damme gets trapped in a Mexican prison then handed over to the cartel where he gets tortured a bit and eventually fights his way out, and that’s pretty much the end of the story although there’s half an hour to burn while he’s in the cartel’s hands so the ending is over extended and gets a bit boring for those who’ve seen this movie a few times before even if not in the last few years.
Scott Adkins plays the main muscle of the bad guys. He does a fair job as usual – nice moves but skin-deep emotion.
Natalie J Robb plays the lead female quite well, with vibes of Kate & Ziva from early seasons of NCIS. She plays Van Damme’s boss in the New Mexico border force that he’s assigned to.
Overall I rate it an OK movie, although it had so much more potential early on.
Derailed is train hijacking movie a twist – the twist being there’s also a contagion released on the train. It’s a bit like Under Siege 2 in how there’s an elusive good guy (Van Damme instead of Seagal) taking out all the hijackers one by one. And it’s a bit like Transporter 2 in how it pushes contagion theory with all the usual trappings.
It gets off to a low budget but attention sustaining beginning, then it gets extremely one dimensional in the second half when the contagion is released. Still, with decent acting and interesting cast members, I rate this movie somewhere between So-So and OK. On a par with other semi-weak Van Damme movies like Cyborg, Death Warrant and Double Team, all of which have a similar balance of entertainment and unpleasantry in their own unique ways.
This movie also features Van Damme’s real life son, Kris, who plays Van Damme’s character’s son in this movie, and shows off some of his own high kicks early on.
This movie gets started with a cocktail of unpleasantries, from extreme queer exhibitionism to crying babies.
But it gets interesting shortly after 20 mins in, when Jean-Claude Van Damme gets essentially kidnapped by the agency he worked for, after disobeying a direct order. He’s held on a mysterious prison island and presented with the choice of keep working from a tight leash else be killed immediately. He manages to escape, and goes after the man who kidnapped his wife & child, with the help of his heavily pierced weird friend played by Dennis Rodman. Mickey Rourke plays the main antagonist in this movie. That’s all the significant characters already.
I rate it somewhere between So-So and OK, due to its balance of strengths and weaknesses. The last quarter an hour can get particularly boring for people who have seen this movie a few times before, even if not in the last few years.
From the outset it’s apparent that this movie is a better production than most of Van Damme’s movies. Sudden Death is a proper movie and has a very similar concept to Die Hard.
Van Damme plays a fire marshal working at a Pittsburgh Penguins v Chicago Blackhawks hockey game where he also brought his kids, and it turns out the Vice President is having a party in the owner’s box and has a large security detail but it’s been infiltrated by a highly organised gang of crooks who hold the Vice President and all people in the arena to ransom after rigging the whole place to explode, while everyone’s watching the game oblivious. Van Damme’s character smells something’s up when his daughter gets kidnapped after she witnessed a murder, so Van Damme tracks her down and begins to get to the bottom of the whole operation.
I’m generally not a fan of political dramas, but this movie contains just the right amount of that stuff and has just about strong enough actors to make it work well between the faster action scenes.
There aren’t really any boring bits in this movie, so long as you’ve not seen it already within the last few years. But it’s also pretty standard, in a way. So I rate it Upper-OK.
Death Warrant is an OK-ish movie from early in Jean-Claude Van Damme‘s career.
Supporting cast includes Paulo Tocha from Bloodsport two years prior. He also appeared a few years later in another Van Damme prison movie called In Hell.
In this movie, Van Damme plays an undercover cop, who enters a prison where a lot of people are mysteriously dying. He’s on a mission to get to the bottom of it – to find out who is killing who and why – and of course to put an end to it. But everything turns to sheet when the guards pin someone else’s murder on him, then bring in his nemesis from the outside world to torture him.
It’s excessively uncomfortable on multiple occasions and for this reason I rate it barely OK. Let’s call it So-So. It’s got its strengths and its weaknesses – it’s got plenty of the good stuff you’d expect from any Van Damme movie, but when I set out to watch a Van Damme movie I don’t really want to be watching the kind of extended uncomfortable scenes that this movie has in several places, including repeated graphic depictions of Van Damme’s nemesis ‘the Sandman’ slowly embedding the tip of his knife into Van Damme’s abdomen as Van Damme gasps in agony. This stuff should have been condensed and made less explicit too.
This is one of Jean-Claude Van Damme‘s first movies – it was released just a few months after Bloodsport, in 1988. But Sho Kosugi is the real focus of this movie – Van Damme is only a supporting cast member.
The plot is very basic – it’s like a thinned-out very early James Bond movie with less of a star and less of a script. Still, it’s not unentertaining – it is Watchable, once in a blue moon. It’s mildly entertaining if you’re terribly bored and lack anything better to do or watch.
Sho Kosugi’s real sons (Kane & Shane) also take key roles, as his kidnapped sons in this movie.
Van Damme plays a Russian secret agent with slick back hair and a very similar demeanour to his character in No Retreat, No Surrender.
Sho Kosugi plays the CIA’s best secret agent, tasked with recovering weapons technology from an underwater plane wreckage in Malta. The Russians are trying to beat him to it.
Knock Off is a familiar format of action movie, but not one we would expect Jean-Claude Van Damme to appear in. His character is a bit different here to how we normally see him – it’s a bit more slapstick than usual – it’s not a comedy but there is lot of goofing around here. Still, Van Damme delivers a good balance of action, humour and seriousness like we’ve come to expect from him.
Supporting cast members include Rob Schneider who plays Van Damme’s partner quite well; and Lela Rochon who plays the main female character well; Paul Sorvino who plays the CIA boss well; and Glen Chin who plays a local mafia boss adequately.
Timecop is an interesting, creative story about a time-travel cop played by Jean-Claude Van Damme whose pregnant wife is murdered – he eventually goes back in time to fix it. It’s an interesting story albeit a bit simplistic & monotonous in patches for many-time rewatchers. There’s some good action as you would expect from any prime Van Damme movie. I rate it as an upper-OK movie.
Other key cast members Ron Silver who plays the main antagonist quite well. Ron’s character is a senator who goes back in time to earn money the easy way and support his campaign to become POTUS. There are two significant females in this movie: Mia Sara plays Van Damme’s wife adequately, and Gloria Reuben plays Van Damme’s corrupt partner quite well.
Cyborg is a Mad Max style post-apocalyptic action drama starring a young Jean-Claude Van Damme just one year after his breakout movie Bloodsport.
Due to the amount of pain & suffering depicted, including plenty of murder & torture, this movie could qualify as borderline horror. The most gruesome shots are omitted but there’s still enough unpleasantry to warrant a bit of fast-forwarding.
Van Damme plays a ‘slinger’ called Gibson who helps get people out of a ruined New York City. He stumbles across a female cyborg (a robotics-enhanced human, like Robocop without the strength & weaponry) played adequately by Dayle Haddon. She needs help getting to Atlanta to deliver vital information to doctors so they can make a cure for the plague that’s ravaged the world.
He also stumbles across another female, played terribly callously & nonchalently by Deborah Richter, with an outwardly-confident nervous twitch, not dissimilar to the demeanour of an adult industry worker – no surprise therefore that she has multiple scenes of nudity here. She tags along with Van Damme’s character because she’s otherwise quite helpless in this scary wasted world, plus she’s trying to convince him to help the cyborg deliver the cure to Atlanta.
Along the way, Van Damme’s character Gibson faces a ruthless gang of pirates led by a guy called Fender (played very convincingly by Vincent Klyn) who rejoices in misery and wants to own the cure for himself. The same guy also murdered Gibson’s family, so Gibson has a vendetta to fulfil.
Due to its originality and its frequent action, with a fair bit of quality, while being let down by plenty of slow scenes with empty filler content that ought to have been condensed out, and due to the overwhelming amount of horror genre infesting this movie, I rate it So-So / Lower-OK from a smooth action hero movie fan’s perspective. It’s more than Watchable, but only just.
Fun fact: this movie was put together using the sets & costumes of the abandoned Masters Of The Universe 2 plus an abandoned Spider-Man movie. Due to budget issues, those movies were scrapped even though a lot of money had already been spent on them, so they made this movie Cyborg to put those sets & costumes to good use and it turned out to be quite a hit – well played Cannon!
This movie offers a novel twist on the already creative concept established in the original, while also featuring strong new co-stars in Bill Goldberg and Michael Jai White. This is actually the fourth movie in the Universal Soldier franchise, but the second & third did not feature Jean-Claude Van Damme or anyone else of note (the main protagonist in both was Matt Battaglia) so you’ll be forgiven for watching the first movie then jumping straight to this one – the fourth.
We don’t see enough of wrestling superstar Goldberg in this kind fast action movie – he makes a very convincing tough guy. Plus, this is easily one of Michael Jai White’s better performances – the robotic superiority-complex role matches his real life demeanour.
Overall I rate this a Decent movie – it’s a bit less of a revelation than the original but still quite creative with a fresh new concept, and features multiple action superstars, but on the downside the plot is a bit one dimensional – the script could have easily been developed more to make it an even better movie. There are multiple females in this movie, including a reporter and a fellow UNISOL, but none of them are particularly worth mentioning – they all deliver bland performances.
Fun fact: this was actually Van Damme’s last widely-released-in-cinemas English-language movie until 2 and a half decades later, when he released Darkness Of Man in 2024 (excluding movies where he wasn’t the main star, such as The Expendables 2 in 2012). Maybe he wasn’t totally playing ball with Hollywood’s sickest shenanigans, but they eventually rewarded him for keeping quiet during the deceptions of the 2020 era? Or maybe his movies had only a small niche audience? The fact that Inferno (1999) had only a limited cinematic released is odd, and the fact that The Order (2001) went direct to video is outrageous.
Further Sequels
If you enjoyed the original Universal Soldier movie from 1992, as well as this one – Universal Soldier: The Return – from 1999, which is the second one starring Van Damme; then you’ll be pleased to know there are a couple more decent Universal Soldier movies to enjoy after this one.
Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009) rekindles the rivalry between Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren, then they both come back again for Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012) with the addition of Scott Adkins as the main protagonist in the final movie. Both of these movies from 2009 & 2012 also make a significant role for Andrei Arlovski, the former UFC heavyweight champion who still holds the record for the most wins in UFC heavyweight history to this day.
If you’re a massive fan of Ricky Gervais in The Office, and couldn’t get enough of the Jean-Claude Van Johnson TV series, you might enjoy this movie because it’s so not-funny that it’s almost funny. And I must admit, it has its decent comedy moments occasionally. But if I never watch it again in the rest of my life, I won’t be missing anything.
This movie is tolerable only because I was waiting for it pick up, but it never did, and I really struggled at times to stay watching at times. It’s slightly entertaining occasionally, and when I say slightly I mean only if you’re desperately bored – exception being if you’re a massive fan of this weird genre, in which case you might actually love this movie.
If someone told you to check out Welcome To The Jungle and never specified it’s a Van Damme movie, they’re probably actually referring to The Rundown (2003) starring Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Christopher Walken and Rosario Dawson – that movie was also marketed under the name Welcome To The Jungle and is a really good action-packed super funny comedy adventure movie, unlike this 90 minute mess around featuring Van Damme. It’s like they all got high and made it all up on the fly, no pre-written script, just winging it.
I can’t even say Van Damme is the star of this movie – he’s probably an equal co-star alongside half a dozen other strange characters, especially those played by Adam Brody (main protagonist) and Rob Huebel (main antagonist).
Van Damme’s children Kris and Bianca also take extremely minor roles in this movie, as two of a dozen nobodies standing around, saying practically nothing for the whole movie. I’m really not sure whether this movie helped their careers or harmed them!
There’s also loads of rude words and naughty adult gestures throughout, so it’s not very suitable for young families.
Lionheart is a fun concept for first time watching, and for infrequent rewatching, but if you see it too often this movie becomes simplistic and drags on a bit – especially the fight scene at the end, and the sobbing scene that follows it – so leave it a good few years between each viewing.
This movie was also released under the names AWOL: Absent Without Leave (in the UK) and Wrong Bet (in Australia & Oceania).
Cast
Van Damme is his usual self – good acting and exhibiting his trademark moves. But we don’t see any fun training scenes or learning scenes, he just begins as a decent fighter fleeing the French Foreign Legion to see his dying brother, then fighting to earn money to help his brother’s widow & child.
Decent supporting actors include Harrison Page who does a good job as Van Damme’s hustling manager from the streets, who was the organiser of his first paid fight and climbed the ladder with him. Deborah Rennard also did well as the higher level fight manager who has a crush on Van Damme’s character; and Brian Thomson did alright as her head of security. Ashley Johnson also did alright as Van Damme’s brother’s widow. There were no really bad performances – the whole cast was of a decent standard. Vojislav Govedaricaty was also very convincing as the legionnaire sergeant who followed Van Damme to America in order to escort him back home; and Michel Qissi (born Mohammed Qissi) played the sergeant’s accomplice, also tasked with bringing Van Damme back.
Good to see Michel Qissi get a role here, as he also played Tong Po, the main adversary in Kickboxer (1989) just one year prior to Lionheart, although he’s unrecognisable as the same person. He also had a minor role as a competitor in Bloodsport (1988) the year prior to that – again, that was a totally different look. It really looks like three different people. Michel also came back to play a minor role in Kickboxer: Vengeance (2016), which was the first official sequel to the original (the four Kickboxer movies in between were not affiliated with the original and did not feature Van Damme). Meanwhile, Michel Qissi’s real life brother, Abdul Qissi did quite well as the final boss adversary in Lionheart. Abdul later went on to play Khan, the final boss adversary in The Quest (1996), and he also had a minor role in The Order (2001).
It’s an interesting basic concept but that’s pretty much all it is. This movie is quite one dimensional. Van Damme plays both twins separated when they were babies after their parents were killed. They meet up for the first time and eventually agree to go after their parents’ killers. That’s the entire plot in a nutshell.
Van Damme does a decent job acting, considering the script he’s got to work with. Both of his characters are convincing, which is impressive considering how different they are.
Philip Chan does alright as one of two bad bosses, and Bolo Yeung does alright as his main muscle man. Nice to see Bolo and Van Damme do another movie together, just 3 years after their classic Bloodsport. They both do many of their trademark moves and mannerisms in this movie.
Geoffrey Lewis does alright as the bodyguard of the parents who were killed, and the man who ended up raising one of the twins by himself.
Alan Scarfe does a satisfactory job, but doesn’t wow, as the other bad boss, and Corinna Everson does quite well as his main muscle man (or woman).
Alonna Shaw does a satisfactory job, but no more, as the girlfriend of one of the twins, who also works for Scarfe’s character – one of the two leaders of the bad guys – until she learns what they’re really about.
All in all it’s a OK movie, not too bad if you’ve not seen it in a long time. It’s got a few cool scenes and a few boring bits – especially tedious for re-watchers who have a rough idea what’s coming.
Nowhere To Run is a decent little movie, a bit slower than Van Damme’s best but still featuring some cool scenes, and is generally well poised – decent sound and camera work. The plot is a very simple one and the action is less frequent than some of Van Damme’s movies, but it’s still a respectable film for Van Damme fans to enjoy.
Van Damme is his usual cool self. Rosanna Arquette plays the lead female role quite convincingly. Kieran Culkin and Tiffany Taubman play the woman’s kids – mediocre performances by them, but kids are rarely good actors. Ted Levine and Joss Ackland are convincing as the main antagonists – the muscle and the brains respectively. Anthony Starke is pretty good in his very brief appearance near the start, as the guy who busts Van Damme out of jail. Edward Blatchford does alright as the bent sheriff who was courting the lead female until Van Damme arrived to provide a better option. Gene LeBell also appears for a minute, as the driver of a digger who tries to kill Van Damme.
Street Fighter (1994) is more of a light-hearted fun movie than what we normally get from Jean-Claude Van Damme. It’s not strictly a comedy, but it has some great moments of humour. The violence is also toned down, making it more suitable for children. It’s like a cross between a classic Van Damme movie, and something from Marvel or DC universe.
Raul Julia (who played Gomez Addams in the Addams Family movies of the 90s) does a good job as General M Bison, the larger-than-life cape-wearing comicbook-style supervillain with tech-based superpowers (fighting ability, tesla beams from hands, automatic self revival kit, flying boots, etc). Apparently, he wasn’t sure about the role until he mentioned it to his kids and saw the look on their faces – they were very excited because they were keen players of the Street Fighter video game. Raul Julia even had stomach cancer while filming this movie, and died within 6 months of the movie’s release date. He turned up to filming while very underweight, which he pretended was due to getting sick while filming in Brazil recently. The writer & director Steven E De Souza (who wrote many massive action movies of the 80s and 90s including Die Hard, Judge Dredd, Commando, The Running Man, etc) moved all but one scene of Raul Julia’s forward to give him time to gain weight.
Ming-Na Wen does a good job as Chun-Li, the reporter with secret ninja skills, on a vendetta to take out the supervillain.
Many other cast members also give decent performances here.
Van Damme and Kylie
The main hero of this movie, Colonel William F Guile, is played quite well by Jean-Claude Van Damme. His sidekick, Military intel officer and aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Cammy White, is played quite jovially by the beautiful Kylie Minogue (in her mid 20s) who Van Damme had an affair with while making this movie – something rumoured for a long time, which he eventually admitted to publicly in 2012.
Van Damme and Kylie made a lovely couple, so it’s sad that they never stayed together, although it wasn’t practical since he was married to the model & stripper Darcy LaPier (in her late 20s) who was pregnant with his son Nicholas at the time. Darcy was also credited with a minor role in this movie, allegedly playing “Guile’s date”, although I didn’t spot where this was in the movie – maybe it didn’t make the edit I saw. Van Damme’s relationship with Darcy also began as an affair while she was married to Ron Rice (founder of Tropic Thunder sun cream) and Van Damme was married to bodybuilder Gladys Portugues with whom he had two children and later remarried and is still officially with today (although simultaneously having long-term relationships with other women, most notably Alena Kaverina). So I guess, for Darcy, what goes around comes around. She cheated with a cheater, then got cheated on by him. Live by the sword, die by the sword! Anyway, back to the movie…
Street Fighter vs Mortal Kombat
It’s ironic that Van Damme took the lead role in the Street Fighter (1994) movie, which is based on a classic video game that began in 1987, when two years prior to this movie being released, an equally classic rival video game series called Mortal Kombat was created (in 1992) by a rival studio, based mainly on the idea of Van Damme being a key character in that game (called Johnny Cage). Van Damme turned down the role of Johnny Cage in the Mortal Kombat video games (which also went on to make some great movies), however the game still featured Johnny Cage who continued to be based on Van Damme (with a few small changes for legal purposes), then Van Damme agreed to take the lead role in Street Fighter! Maybe he regretted turning down the role in Mortal Kombat after seeing how popular it became, although he was stuck in a non-compete contract with a different video game, so I guess when he was free 2 years later he jumped at the chance to take on a similar role to what he missed out on. Unfortunately for him, while Street Fighter was a massive hit in the arcades, it was never based on Van Damme the way Mortal Kombat intended to be, and it was also never so serious about movies even though it made plenty of them. I may be biased as someone who played a lot of Mortal Kombat, and never Street Fighter, but as far as I see it, Mortal Kombat has much cooler and more memorable characters, making it far more crossover-friendly for the big screen.
In summary
All in all, due to it’s consistent albeit shallow level of entertainment value, I rate Street Fighter (1994) an OK movie, alongside most of Van Damme’s other movies, which generally all offer a respectable level of entertainment for fans of his work. It’s not quite pushing into the upper-average level of his filmography, where stronger movies like Inferno and Assassination Games exist, and it’s far from the higher levels of screenplay where rock solid films like Bloodsport, The Quest, Kickboxer and Hard Target are ranked. But it’s a mildly entertaining fun movie nevertheless.
Maximum Risk has some cool scenes but a lot of slower drama too. It has some decent performances by supporting cast members, and of course Jean-Claude Van Damme performs very well as usual. The script is just a bit thin and the action is a bit sparse, it’s more like a 90s action-drama show. Not totally big screen material unless you’re into drama. Still there’s a decent amount of action, it’s not a bad movie for Van Damme fans, it’s not his worst either, but it’s a bit below average. The plot has some interesting ideas and the screenplay shows some strong scenes it’s just a bit few & far between with all the slower drama style stuff.
Natasha Henstridge does alright as the lead female in this movie. Her charm is sufficient and her acting is pretty good here.
Zach Grenier is unpleasant but convincing as the lead antagonist, a Russian mob boss, originally second in command until he has the top man killed. Paul Ben-Victor puts in a strong performance as one of the bent FBI agents working for the Russian mob, trying to befriend Van Damme. Everyone is trying to get Van Damme to open his dead twin brother’s safety deposit box, which contains incriminating evidence against everyone.
This simple plotted war movie is an unexpected recipe for success, thanks to Van Damme plus a strong supporting cast, solid screenplay, and no nasty “proper gander”! Legionnaire is a genuinely balanced war movie that accurately portrays the injustice of the invasion & occupation of Arabia by the French foreign legion in the 1920s.
Van Damme is his usually self – impressive as always. Strong supporting cast members include Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Nicholas Farrell and Daniel Caltagirone who play Van Damme’s closest friends, as well as Steven Berkoff who plays the unfriendly Sergeant, and Jim Carter who plays the mafia boss trying to kill Van Damme.
The plot is a bit thin and dragged out to cover the movie, when really this movie could have easily been doubled in length then cut to be more concise. It could have had interesting plot developments following where it ended, and then could have been rounded off nicely – instead it feels a bit cut shot. It’s still an entertaining watch for someone who hasn’t seen it in several years – the screenplay is remarkably captivating for such a simple story – but given its drawbacks I wouldn’t recommend rewatching it until you’ve mostly forgotten it. For this reason I rate this movie as below average for a Van Damme movie, but not far off the average.
Again, credit to the directors & producers, and to Van Damme if he had a say, for presenting an honest & balanced perspective on war – a pleasant surprise that I totally did not expect but really ought to be the norm. Legionnaire was a mild box office success around the world, but USA cinemas didn’t to show it – maybe they feared it was too truthful & impactful, to the point it would deter American military recruitment and general public support for modern invasion & occupation campaigns.
Inferno (also released as Desert Heat) is a simple story exhibiting classic Van Damme, as plays Eddie Lomax, a man ready to die, who rolls into a town called Inferno, somewhere in the Old West, to visit an old friend, an Native American Indian man called Johnny Six Toes, played by Danny Trejo, to deliver him a gift – an Indian motorcycle – and to ask for his blessing in ending his life. Unfortunately, before the gift could be delivered, the bike got stolen and Eddie nearly killed in the process. So Eddie stays in town for a bit longer, to deal with the thieves, and in the process, deals with two large gangs of thugs, while making some good friends and finding a woman he loves.
Van Damme is his usual self, convincing and entertaining in his role as Eddie Lomax, and he’s blessed with a decent script here – it’s no stunner but it’s sufficient for his essence to come out quite well on screen. Van Damme looks consistently cool, and there’s a nice injection of humour from time to time.
Danny Trejo does a decent job as Johnny Six Toes, the Indian man who is Eddie’s old friend. Since Eddie saved Johnny’s life a long time ago, the two have become spiritually joined at the hip.
The lead female role, Rhonda Reynolds, the local diner’s chef who becomes Eddie’s girlfriend by the end, is played by Gabrielle Fitzpatrick – she does a decent job – quite convincing.
We’re also blessed with a strong supporting role played by Pat Morita (better known as Mr Miyagi from The Karate Kid). In this movie he’s getting on a bit, but still does well in the character of a patient, positive & helpful old man.
I would say this movie is slightly above average in Van Damme’s overall filmography. It’s not on the level of Bloodsport or The Quest but is not far behind. He’s in his prime here, and is backed by a decent cast. It’s better than a lot of the cheaper straight-to-video movies he’s made throughout his busy career – most of which are still classics nevertheless.
This movie has a very creative story, which makes it intriguing to follow until the plot unravels; then it becomes predictable. Not a bad effort in acting by the lead characters. Generally a classic direct-to-DVD JCVD performance – recommended viewing for Van Damme fans who watch all his movies and haven’t seen this one yet. This movie probably inspired Jet Li’s movie ‘Unleashed’ (2005) which has a lot in common with Replicant – not in how the child-minded killer is created, but in the basic story of a deadly killer kept encaged and trained to kill without being taught basic skills like how to communicate and perform common daily tasks, or how the world works, etc.
Classic moody old Van Damme and classic moody prime Scott Adkins join forces in a beautiful depiction of two expert assassins colliding on a job then joining forces to finish personal vendettas against the odds. The only reason I don’t rate Assassination Games higher is because it has a fairly simplistic script and probably a lower budget than it deserves. The basic concepts in the plot are good, but they fail to flesh out into a more comprehensive plot to entertain us on another level which we should be considering the stars involved. The script is thin but the two action hero superstars carry this movie into a moderate success. The opening scene seems almost B Movie quality, but it quickly improves. Granted, there are some cool sets, like Van Damme’s apartment with secret rooms, and his agent’s lair was convincing too. All in all, it’s makes for decent viewing when you haven’t seen it in a while.
Supporting cast includes Kristopher Van Varenberg, also known as Kris Van Damme, and Bianca Van Varenberg, also known as Bianca Bree and Bianca Van Damme – these are Jean-Claude Van Damme’s two children from his current wife who he divorced then re-married (Jean-Claude has a son to ex-wife Darcy LaPier also – that one being called Nicholas Van Varenberg). Indeed, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s name is actually Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg. In this movie, his daughter Bree plays the comatose wife of Scott Adkins’ character, and Van Damme’s son Kris plays one of the enemies of Adkins’ character.
Van Damme stars in this movie, as a soldier brought back to life as a kind of Terminator 1 style cyborg, who then gets taken and kind of “woken up” by a journalist. Dolph Lundgren plays his main adversary – another member of the same cyborg squad, tasked with bringing Van Damme’s character back in, or killing him.
This movie has a very creative base storyline, with credible lead acting, and the odd awesome scene; but it gets a bit boring towards the end as the writers run out of creativity, which makes for less interesting re-watching.
Fortunately there’s at least one decent sequel to keep you entertained if you enjoyed this movie.
The whole saga, in summary
Safe to say, every movie in the Universal Soldier saga (excluding those that did not feature Van Damme) is about a couple of levels worse than the one before it.
The original was fresh & inspired – it had the potential to be one of the best movies ever made – but it dragged its heels towards the end, with an over extended fight scene that gets boring for rewatchers.
The second movie was also quite creative with the computer taking over, and had some great new cast members (especially Goldberg). Its script was quite one dimensional but it was still a decent movie, with decent cinematography and decent entertainment value throughout.
The third movie had a slightly interesting concept and featured some interesting new cast members, but was quite poorly made. Cold and soul-less, almost like a B movie. At times it seemed like it was about to catch fire but it never really did.
Then the fourth and final movie in the series took coldness & soullessness to a whole new level. It never really seemed like it was ever going to catch fire. It was really a chore to sit through the first hour – I think I must have tried to watch it a few times but switched off early every time – I only tolerated it once for the benefit of this review, so you don’t have to!
Outstanding music and sound effects. Cutting edge camera work for its time. Strong cast. Mostly busy script. This is clearly one of the better Van Damme movies.
It’s not as swashbuckling as The Quest, and is not as comforting as Bloodsport, and is not as motivational as Kickboxer, but is one of the next best movies in Van Damme’s filmography. Some would rate it even higher – it really depends on your taste. Personally I rate this one about equal to Universal Soldier which Van Damme made the year before. Because Universal Soldier also has some really cool scenes and catchy concepts, but drags on in places when you come to rewatch it – especially the long fight scene at the end – just like Hard Target. The action is still fairly constant, but the last 15 mins get boring for rewatching. The action is very well shot at the end, it’s just simplistic in plot – it’s just one big gun fight in one building, that lasts quarter an hour.
Some of the violence gets a bit sadistic – this may be partly due to John Woo chasing an R rating as a publicity stunt. Hard Target is rated 18 in the UK. The violence is not a massive problem, and it’s not all over the place, it’s just a bit explicit and unpleasant in places, with things like arrows shooting through bodies, and the bad guys making noises like they’re getting off on it.
Jean-Claude Van Damme does very well in his role as Chance Boudreaux, the main action hero in this movie. He’s his usual self but is clearly working with a stronger than usual behind-the-scenes crew here.
Yancy Butler is stunning as the lead female, Natasha Binder. Her acting is fine and her chemistry with Van Damme is very believable.
Arnold Vosloo puts in a strong performance as Pik Van Cleef, the main muscle of the bad boss.
Lance Henriksen does a decent job as Emil Fouchon, the boss of the bad guys.
Older people may appreciate Van Damme’s dad in this movie is played by Wilford Brimley.
This movie is a real classic, producing some of the most memorable scenes in Van Damme’s career. Director John Woo probably had a lot to do with that – he originally made his name in Hong Kong, and this was his US debut movie. The script was written by Chuck Pfarrer, a genuine former Navy Seal. The films distributor, Universal Pictures, originally wanted Van Damme to star in this movie, but John Woo originally wanted Kurt Russell for the lead role, to match Pfarrer’s script. Van Damme was eventually agreed on, because Kurt Russell was too busy with other projects. John Woo then raised the level of action in this movie, knowing Van Damme would be up for that.
Chuck Pfarrer, this movie’s writer, also played Douglas Binder, the father of Natasha Binder; the man who was killed at the start of the movie; the man who Natasha hired Chance to help search for.
This movie generally gets positive reviews online. The odd bad review tends to get promptly shot down by devoted fans in comments below. Rave comments include:
“In my mind John Woo’s best American movie. Just 100 minutes of pure, beautifully shot action.”
“This is peak 90s cheese and I love it.”
“Hard Target is the best New Orleans movie of all time.”
“JCVD punched a snake and then turned it into a booby trap. This movie was awesome.”
“Wilford Brimley riding on horseback with a massive explosion happening behind him is one of cinema’s greatest moments.”
Also known as Karate Tiger, this is one of the very few movies that Jean-Claude Van Damme has done where he doesn’t play the benevolent hero role. Kurt McKinney is the hero in this movie and puts on a decent performance, so much that he doesn’t seem at all out of place – Van Damme doesn’t overshadow him at all here. Meanwhile, Van Damme plays the role of the main enemy and does an good job of it.
This movie is packed with uplifting training scenes backed by good soundtracks (although the music varies between versions and some are far better than others). It’s got a low quality of acting by all but the lead characters but is a story you can really enjoy and get motivated by, like many mild-quality martial arts movies are when they have a classic action hero tale, a good lead performance, and good soundtracks. The plot works, although it’s a bit thin.
It was first released in Italy on 20 October 1985, but wasn’t released in the UK & USA until over 6 months later, on 2 May 1986 – hence why IMDB & Wikipedia say it’s a 1985 movie but some sources think it’s a 1986 movie.
Watch it online
You can currently watch the full movie online for free here if you don’t mind about 25 inconvenient advertisement interruptions (or use a download site).
This is one of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s best movies after Bloodsport. Kickboxer was released just one year after Bloodsport and you’ll spot a few resemblances in the training methods and fighting techniques used in this movie.
Dennis Chan Kwok-San treats us to a strong performance as Van Damme’s trainer in this movie.
Kickboxer has a good storyline and good training scenes – it really captures the imagination and draws you in with the help of great soundtracks too. It has a good amount of action, with bits of drama in between. It has a very basic plot that could do with a bit of extra help, and it would benefit from an additional very strong cast member.
Sequels
Kickboxer also has sequels (as it’s a franchise) but they’re not starring Van Damme, with the exception of the sixth instalment and thereafter where he has a supporting role. Generally the sequels are neither similar nor as good as the original – but 6, 7 & 8 are quite star-studded with combat sport celebrities.
The Quest is an action packed, borderline slapstick adventure – or Quest – all about empty handed martial arts. It’s based on a very similar concept to Bloodsport, where a tournament decides who is the best fighter from all corners of the world, and has endless similarities with Bloodsport in terms of techniques and fighting styles, but with an added injection of great story and strong acting thanks to Roger Moore’s ever-excellent presence. The strong lead cast of The Quest makes it a convincing, enjoyable movie – just a little bit boring in the over-dragged-out final fight scene at the end, which can get monotonous for people who have seen this movie a few times before, even though the vast majority of the movie remains fun to watch every time.
If you enjoyed seeing a top martial arts action hero like Van Damme teaming up with a legend from James Bond like Roger Moore, you may also be interested in The Foreigner (2017) which sees Jackie Chan teaming up with Pierce Brosnan in what’s arguably the best performance of both their careers.
This is one of Van Damme’s better movies in terms of plot. There’s a good amount of action, although it can get gritty in places. It has a surprisingly well endowed script for a Van Damme movie – quite adventurous and a bit mysterious, yet still with that cool kickass vibe you expect from all his movies. With a strong hero, helped by a small but strong supporting cast including Charlton Heston, this movie warrants a solid 8.5/10. It could easily benefit from an additional star.
This is easily one of Van Damme’s best movies, and in my opinion, it’s his very best. Bloodsport is a masterpiece of a martial arts movie. It seems to have had a great budget for its day, or was at least managed very well to cater for all departments efficiently. It has great acting by the Van Damme and pretty much all the extended supporting cast members too. It has a great story, albeit a simple one. It provides great entertainment throughout – it keeps busy and doesn’t have boring or over-predictable patches like Van Damme’s later direct-to-video style movies did. This movie was clearly made with love. Great soundtracks. Ample distinct highly entertaining scenes. The lead antagonist is played by Bolo Yeung from Bruce Lee’s ‘Enter The Dragon’ as he’s a highly credible martial artist with high talent in real life and has sufficient acting ability for the job (this is why he was chosen for a strong role in Bruce Lee’s highest-budget, last-completed movie).
Bloodsport could probably get a perfect 10/10 if it had one or two further outstanding actors in major supporting roles, and if its martial value was far more detailed & accurate (helping viewers learn a lot more about martial arts techniques & principles while watching). Van Damme in real life was a decent kickboxer – before he made his way into the movies, he earnt a living doing odd jobs including being a sparring partner for Chuck Norris. But he lacks the finer skills of Bruce Lee or even Steven Seagal. But he’s a good actor nevertheless – he put his heart into his roles.
If you’re a fan of martial arts movies, particularly Van Damme’s movies, and haven’t yet seen this one, you really need to catch up with this classic. It’s easily re-watchable every year or two.
Action wise, it’s not James Bond, but there’s a lot of fist fighting and a bit of running around. Plot wise, it’s quite zeroed in on a simple concept, but stays quite busy and works fantastically.
This movie was inspired by the alleged real life story of Frank Dux – a martial artist still living & teaching today, although his life story now appears to be almost certainly utterly bogus. I guess we can still thank him for his dodgy story having inspired one of the greatest martial arts movies ever made.
When Bloodsport first came out, it received generally negative reviews by mainstream professional critics. Leonard Klady for the LA Times called it a “jungle of cliché” and a “reservoir of bad acting”. Rotten Tomatoes said “Bloodsport is a clichéd, virtually plotless exercise in action movie recycling”. Van Damme was even nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst New Star. But if you ask any modern action movie superstar who inspired them, and what are their favourite movies, there’s a high chance you’ll hear Van Damme and Bloodsport mentioned. In the past few months alone, I’ve heard some of Van Damme’s best classics including Bloodsport & Kickboxer namedropped as all-time favourites by Chris Hemsworth (on Hot Ones), Scott Adkins (on The Art Of Action), and even Carl Froch (on Froch On Fighting). Even my local taxi driver was quick to recommend the same movies. Surely this is proof enough, that it’s not just me who’s the anomaly. It’s actually the professional critics who are terribly out-of-touch. They’re commenting on a genre that they don’t understand. They should stick to criticising other genres, like slow drama, soppy romance and unpleasant horror, and leave the action hero movies to people better qualified to judge them – people who understand their purpose, and appreciate them enough to watch them regularly. People who really know what they’re talking about. People like you & me.
