If there was ever any doubt that Jean Claude Van Damme would
become one of America's biggest action films stars, it was dispelled
with his explosive performance in TriStar Pictures' Universal Soldier,
released earlier this summer. Gone were the amateurish acting and
the near-unintelligible speech that had characterized many of Van
Damme's previous roles. Gone were the cheesy slow-motion fight
scenes and annoying "let's-show-the-same-kick-eight-times"
cinematography of his early films. Universal Soldier is a showcase for
Van Damme's newfound acting ability as well as his exceptional
martial arts skills, offering high-energy excitement and suspense.
The film opens in South Vietnam, circa 1969. Sergeant Andrew Scott
(played by Dolph Lundgren), a mentally ill United States soldier, has
just killed off most of his platoon and laid waste to an entire South
Vietnamese village. The only surviving member of the platoon, Private
Luc Devreux (played by Van Damme), tries to subdue the sergeant,
and they kill one another in a horrific struggle.
Twenty-three years later, they are reintroduced to the world as
"Universal Soldiers" or "UniSols"-genetically engineered
reproductions of themselves created from their own dead flesh and
endowed with superhuman endurance and strength. The military calls
them the ultimate warriors, devoid of pain, emotion, and memory.
In Universal Soldier, Jean-Claude Van
Damme plays a soldier who is killed in Vietnam, but
is later reconstructed by genetic engineers.
The UniSols receive their first test when terrorists seize Hoover Dam
in Nevada and take hostages. Lundgren and Van Damme lead a team
of UniSols to the dam and make quick work of the terrorists. The
group's leader, Colonel Perry (Ed O'Ross)-a real human soldier-
does an equally deR job dodging an inquisitive press corps, which
hounds him for information about the top-secret Universal Soldiers.
When intrepid television reporter Veronica Roberts (Ally Walker) tries
to get the inside story and sneaks into UniSol headquarters, she and
her cameraman are spotted by surveillance cameras and are captured
by Van Damme and Lundgren. When Walker refuses to hand over her
film, Lundgren's violent pre-UniSol behavior resurfaces, and he kills
the cameraman. This triggers Van Damme's memory, and he recalls
watching Lundgren kill the South Vietnamese villagers. He grabs the
reporter and the two escape.
The remaining UniSols, under the leadership of O'Ross, track Van
Damme, who slowly begins to remember his life as Devreux.
Lundgren's memory of Scott also returns, and he becomes
increasingly brutal as he searches for Van Damme, who narrowly
manages to elude the team of Universal Soldiers on several
occasions. Lundgren eventually goes completely insane, killing
O'Ross and several UniSol genetic engineers.
Van Damme escapes to his parent's Louisiana farm, where he and
Lundgren clash in the film's climactic scene. Van Damme finally kills
Lundgren by running him through a grain combine.
Universal Soldier appears to be a "breakthrough" film for Van Damme,
catapulting him to legitimate action films stardom. His acting, often
criticized in the past, is greatly improved in Soldier. His thick Belgian
accent is not as obtrusive, although it is still evident. And his
on-screen presence and martial arts prowess, long his strengths, are
as sharp as ever.
Van Damme is now being compared to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who
took his muscles from California's Venice Beach to Hollywood and
established himself as a mega-star. Van Damme, with his rugged
good looks, electrifying martial arts persona and sculpted physique, is
in a position to rise higher than any previous martial arts movie star-
including Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal, and the late Bruce Lee. That's
saying quite a lot, especially when you consider Van Damme couldn't
even speak English when he arrived in the United States in 1981, a
brash 20-year-old prepared to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.
He left behind a successful chain of fitness gyms in Belgium and came
to America with a reputation as a bodybuilder and a European karate
champion.
Van Damme stars opposite Dolph Lundgren in Universal
Soldiers, and the two stage several terrific fight scenes.
After several months of living hand-to-mouth and studying acting and
English, Van Damme (whose real name is Jean-Claude Van
Varenberg) landed the lead role in the low-budget No Retreat, No Surrender. He later met producer Menaham Golan at a restaurant in Los
Angeles, and impressed the Hollywood honcho - so much that Golan
offered him the starring role in Bloodsport the very next day. The rest,
as they say in Belgium, is history.
After nine starring roles and 10 years in the film industry, Van Damme
has matured on screen literally in front of moviegoers' eyes. From his
humble beginnings as "Ivan the Russian" in No
Retreat, No Surrender, to his exceptional performance as Luc
Devreux in Universal Soldier, Van Damme has risen to his current
status as king of the martial arts movie mountain. Following is a
synopsis of his nine films, each rated using the unique "Van Dam-
meter." (zero-to-one Van Dammes means a poor movie; two-to-three
Van Dammes is an average-to-above average film; and four-to-five
Van Dammes is a must-see movie)
No Retreat, No Surrender (1985)
When Jason Stillwell's (Kurt McKinney) karate instructor father (Tim
Baker) refuses to join an organized crime ring, the father is crippled by
the evil Ivan the Russian (Van Damme). The family moves to Seattle,
where Jason, a devoted fan of Bruce Lee, encounters trouble with stu-
dents of a local karate school. Jason is beaten up and humiliated by
the troublemakers, and goes to Lee's grave to pray for help. The ghost
of Lee comes to Jason and teaches him jeet kune do. Jason later
saves his dad from a group of belligerent drunks, and then saves
Seattle from organized crime by defeating Ivan the Russian.
Van Damme appears only at the beginning and end of this film, which
may be just as well in a movie that obviously seeks to capitalize on
Bruce Lee, the original Karate Kid, and about a dozen other films. As
Van Damme's debut in American cinema, however, it puts his other
movies in perspective and demonstrates how far he has come in 10
years.
Bloodsport (1987)
Until the release of Universal Soldier, Van Damme's effort in the
1987 film Bloodsport
was widely considered his best work on the big screen.
Van Damme portrays a U.S. Air Force officer who flies to Hong Kong
to compete in the "Kumite," a secret full-contact karate tournament.
Throughout the film, he has recurring flashbacks to the brutal training
he received under his karate instructor and surrogate father, Mr.
Tanaka. In the climactic tournament fight scene, Van Damme defeats
Chong Li (Bolo Yeung), the reigning Kumite champion.
Widely considered Van Damme's best martial arts film, Bloodsport put
the former "Muscles From Brussels" on the fast track to
mega-stardom.
Cyborg (1988)
In the post-apocalyptic future, a cyborg named Pearl Prophet
(Dayle
Haddon) enlists the help of a mercenary to take her from New York
City to Atlanta, where the information in her computer brain can be
used to help end the plague that is killing off civilization. Mercenary
Gibson Rickenbacker (Van Damme), however, fails to stop evil cyborg
Fender Tremolo (Vincent Klyn) from abducting Prophet. Through
flashbacks, it is revealed that Tremolo and his gang are responsible
for the death of Rickenbacker's wife and family. Gibson sets off after
the evil cyborg and his gang, and single-handedly defeats the horde to
rescue Prophet.
Black Eagle (1988)
When a United States fighter plane carrying a secret tracking
device
crashes into the Mediterranean Sea, the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) sets out to find it before the Soviet Komitet Gosudarsvenoye
Bexopastnosti (KGB) does. The KGB assigns its top operative (Van
Damme) to find the plane and kill any U.S. agents who get in his way.
The CIA counters with Ken Tanai (Sho Kosugi)- code-named "Black
Eagle." Kosugi employs his martial arts skills and several CIA gadgets
to kill Van Damme and recover the missing device.
Black Eagle is the second film in which Van Damme appears as the
antagonist, and the first in which his character dies. As in No Retreat,
No Surrender, Van Damme is absent throughout much of the movie.
Kickboxer (1989)
In the 1989 film Kickboxer, Van Damme learns Thai boxing methods
in an effort to avenge
his crippled brother.
When American kickboxing champion Eric Sloane (Dennis Alexio) is
paralyzed from the waist down in a brutal Thai boxing match in
Bangkok, his brother Kurt (Van Damme) vows revenge. Kurt gets a
crash course in muay Thaifrom wizened master Xian Chow (Dennis
Chan), then challenges his brother's antagonist, Tong Po (played by
himself). In the final bloody showdown.
Kurt administers a brutal beating to Po.
Death Warrant(1990)
Canadian Mountie Louis Burke (Van Damme) is scheduled for a little
rest and relaxation in Los Angeles after capturing Christian
Nailer
(Patrick Kilpatrick), alias the "Sandman," a notoriously evil cop killer.
Unfortunately, Burke's plans are postponed when he is assigned to
investigate a series of murders at a California prison.
Working undercover, Burke is pushed into a violent web of murder,
racism, drugs and corruption that leads directly to the prison warden's
office. Burke's cover is blown, however, when Nailer is transferred to
the prison. In the explosive conclusion, Burke escapes a riotous prison
mob and eliminates the evil Nailer for good by using a flying side kick
to drive the latter's head through a metal spike.
Although Van Damme uses fewer martial arts techniques in this film,
his acting appears more natural.
Lionheart (1990)
French Foreign Legionnaire Lyon Gaultier (Van Damme) travels from
Djibouti, North Africa, to the United States to see his brother,
who is
suffering from serious injuries he received in a drug deal gone awry.
Once in America, Gaultier joins an illegal no-holds-barred fighting
circuit to raise money for his brother's hospital bills.
Gaultier's toughest
opponent, who nearly kills him, is a 300-pound Andre the Giant
look-alike named Atilla (Abdel Qissi).
Lionheart has a weak plot, and the subpar fight choreography does
nothing for Van Damme's considerable martial arts talents.
In the 1991 film Double Impact (above), Van Damme received critical
acclaim for portraying twin brothers who avenge their parents'
untimely deaths in Hong Kong.
Double Impact (1991)
Chad and Alex Wagner (both played by Van Damme) are separated
as toddlers in Hong Kong when their parents are murdered by
members of a Chinese triad (organized crime family). Twenty-five
years later, Chad, now a karate instructor at a posh club in Los
Angeles, returns to Hong Kong to team up with his smuggler/vaga-
bond brother Alex and solve their parents' murder. They are hindered
in their efforts by the triad, headed by Raymond Zhang (Philip Chan
Yan Kin) and Zhang's muscle man Moon (Bolo Yeung). In the end,
however, the brothers hunt down and kill both Zhang and Moon, and
claim their parents' inheritance.
Universal Soldier (1992)
With its high-intensity action, strong plot and
well-choreographed fight
scenes, Universal Soldiers probably Van Damme's best all-around
work. In the mold of other techno-military movies like Terminator 2,
Van Damme's Soldier has all the ingredients to make it one of the
biggest films of the year. With this film, Van Damme has shown he
has
the potential to become one of the greatest action films stars of all
time.
