Double Impact (1991)

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Double Impact (1991)

Egos run wild as Van Damme is given a double dosage in this enjoyable thriller. Its one of his better outings, broadening his thespian range at the same time as stylishly kicking people in the head. He plays twin brothers separated at birth and reunited after 25 years. One’s a camp American aerobics instructor who wears silk underwear; the other is a tough, cigar-chomping gangster raised in Hong Kong. Their parents were killed when they were babies and now they reunite to take revenge. It’s laughable enough – just as it should be – not to mention violent as hell, with …

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Death Warrant (1990)

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Death Warrant (1990)

Van Damme plays a maverick cop sent undercover to suss out a deadly mystery occurring at the Harrison Penitentiary, where two-bit stereotypes are dropping like flies with ice picks shoved in their skulls. It’s not a particularly pleasant place, but if there is anyone who can sort the men from the boys then it’s Jean-Claude Van Damme, who quickly sets to work beating up the inmates in his own jumping, spinning, kicking way. This action film is watchable enough but still can’t escape that made-for-TV feel despite the gross-out violence. Van Damme is good, left slightly wanting during the more …

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Avenging Force (1986)

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Avenging Force (1986)

The familiar American Ninja pairing of Dudikoff and James seems somewhat less formidable in this uneasy action caper, which is exciting in parts but gets a little too absorbed in its own morality. Firstenberg hammers home a prophetic message of racial disharmony despite a relentless catalogue of ever-increasing violence. James plays a black US senator targeted by an extreme group of right wing nationalists, until baby-faced cowboy Dudikoff enters the fray and protects his best friend by fighting off the baddies. There aren’t a lot of laughs here considering the film’s strong subject matter, but no one said it isn’t …

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Hanna (2011)

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Hanna (2011)

British director Joe Wright takes a brief departure from literary adaptations (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement) to enter the realms of the action movie. The film is a graceful if familiar attempt to add depth to an established formula. There are shades of Lady Snowblood in the basic premise of a reclusive female assassin, trained by a banished fatherly figure (Eric Bana). Cate Blanchett is a double-crossing secret agent spinster with an awkward southern drawl (think Texas by way of Sydney) who is dementedly dedicated to the young girl’s destruction. At the age of 16, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan, brilliant) leaves her …

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A.W.O.L. (1990)

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A.W.O.L. (1990)

This fight movie is more measured than some of Van Damme‘s previous stuff (Kickboxer, Bloodsport) and scrapes through the dramatics better than you’d think. With Van Damme’s drug-dealing brother being torched to death and our French legionnaire abandoning his camp to go to Los Angeles, the film’s immediate focus centres around a revenge plot. However, Bloodsport writer Sheldon Lettich focuses more on the A.W.O.L. hero supporting his struggling sister-in-law and her baby daughter, raising the cash the only way he knows how: by becoming an illegal bareknuckle fighter. This is B grade stuff – basic locations, overacting, overblown sentimentality, and predictable …

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Bloodsport (1988)

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Bloodsport (1988)

Popular B movie which not only established Jean-Claude Van Damme as the hottest action property around, but also brought about the rebirth of the tournament movie (particularly in Hong Kong), an almost killed-off kung fu movie cliché. This is essentially Enter the Dragon only bloodier and sweatier. Van Damme plays real-life fighter Frank Dux, who escapes the army to represent his dying teacher in the brutal Kumite, a violent Chinese martial arts tournament held in secret and featuring some of the world’s most vicious fighters. Van Damme has never looked better with his flashy footwork more than compensating for some …

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Kickboxer (1989)

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Kickboxer (1989)

One of Van Damme’s best fight movies, albeit besieged by a two-bit story and dreadful acting. The action scenes more than compensate – choreographed by the man himself as a collection of macho encounters designed to fully display his distinguished repertoire of jumping split kicks, often repeated in slow motion. Unfortunately, his over stretched thespian skills do come a little unhinged during the film’s more dramatic aspects (check his excruciatingly awful crying scene), but for delivering muscle bound foot-in-face action, Kickboxer proves that Van Damme is most certainly the man.

It’s a heroic tale of revenge, with Kurt Sloane (Van Damme) …

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Profile: Jean-Claude Van Damme

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Profile: Jean-Claude Van Damme

Date of birth: October 18, 1960 (Brussels, Belgium)

Occupation: Actor, martial artist, director, producer, writer

Real name: Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg

Style: Karate, kickboxing, taekwondo, Muay Thai

Biography: At the age of 12, Jean-Claude Van Damme studied at the Centre National De Karate (National Centre of Karate) in Ixelles, Belgium, under the tutelage of Master Claude Goetz. After four years, he earned a place on the Belgium karate team under his birth name, Van Varenberg. Between 1976-82, Van Damme fought competitively in semi and light contact bouts before retiring to pursue a career in the film industry. After a brief stint in Hong …

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The Avenging Fist (2001)

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The Avenging Fist (2001)

Hong Kong’s first fully-fledged CGI movie, containing human performances (although they are not particularly necessary) in what is perhaps the closest thing that cinema has come to recreating the style of computer games like Tekken and Virtual Fighter. If you like those games, and you like the movies Blade Runner, Street Fighter and The Matrix, this glossy futuristic fantasy is your sort of thing. If you’re cynical of CGI overload and enhanced performances, or the fact that young singers Stephen Fung and Alex Wang take precedence over legends like Yuen Biao and Sammo Hung, then maybe leave this one well …

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The Art of War (2000)

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The Art of War (2000)

Snipes plays a superhuman UN operative (he can leap off buildings and dodge bullets) who is framed for the assassination of a Chinese ambassador and hotfoots around New York with a sexy interpreter evading capture by the FBI and avoiding a beating at the hands of the local triads. The plot runs deeper, though. Further investigations reveal corruption at the heart of the UN, where crafty state leaders plan to banish all hope of trade agreements between China and the US. As a conspiracy thriller, it’s convoluted and over-egged. As excessive action fare, it works much better. Snipes beats up …

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