Tom Jolliffe visits Van Damme in the joint with Death Warrant and In Hell… The muscles from Brussels, Mr Jean-Claude Van Damme has travelled through time, cheated death and been reanimated, fought in underground fighting tournaments, been a legionnaire (twice), and he’s even got caught up playing himself in a botched post office heist (JCVD) […]
Jean-Claude Van Damme at 60
As Jean-Claude Van Damme celebrates a milestone birthday, Tom Jolliffe looks back at a career that has seen box office success, and flirtation with a comeback as a critically acclaimed actor… If you even have a passing appreciation of late 20th century action cinema, you’ll know very well who Jean-Claude Van Damme is. You’ll probably […]
Enter The Muscles from Brussels: The Jean-Claude Van Damme Tournament Fight Film
Tom Jolliffe looks at Jean-Claude Van Damme’s history of tournament fight films… If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. For a while in the earlier career of Jean-Claude Van Damme, that seemed to be more or less the case. When Enter the Dragon ended up as a cultural and cinematic phenomenon, a host of imitators […]
Die Hard with Stallone, Seagal and Van Damme
Tom Jolliffe ventures back to the 90’s, when three action icons made Die Hard riffs… It’s often said that the buff action specialists of the 80’s, who were larger than life and almost comically unstoppable were slowly pushed out of the forefront of the market by more every man heroes. Die Hard is often pinpointed […]
A Look Back at The Expendables Franchise (And a Look Forward…)
Ten years on from the release of the first movie, Tom Jolliffe looks back at the Expendables franchise and then looks at where it can go now (and who needs to join the crew)… When The Expendables was first announced in late 2009, my excitement levels went through the roof. Initially it was Sylvester Stallone, […]
Netflix begins shooting Jean-Claude Van Damme action comedy The Last Mercenary
The Muscles from Brussels is heading to Netflix, with the streaming service announcing that filming is now underway on The Last Mercenary, an action-comedy headlined by Jean-Claude Van Damme. Directed by David Charhon (The Other Side Of The Tracks), the film will see Van Damme playing “a mysterious former secret service agent who must urgently […]
Three Films and Six Van Dammes: The JCVD Dual Role Routine
Tom Jolliffe looks back at Jean-Claude Van Damme’s dual role films… Who doesn’t love an action star? Oi, put your hands down now! Still, for us that do, we all have our favourites. Occasionally there were rivalries and camps. You could be an Arnold Schwarzenegger kid or a Sylvester Stallone kid. Maybe you were secretly […]
Revisiting the Universal Soldier Franchise
Tom Jolliffe revisits the Universal Soldier franchise… With today’s home entertainment release of director Roland Emmerich’s WWII epic Midway, now seems a good time to revisit the original Universal Soldier, and the eclectic sequels the director’s 1992 sci-fi action film spawned. Universal Soldier The early 90’s. In the wake of Terminator 2: Judgment Day came […]
Blu-ray Review – The Quest (1996)
The Quest, 1996. Directed by Jean-Claude Van Damme. Starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Roger Moore, James Remar, Janet Gunn, Abdel Qissi, Jack McGee, and Mike Lambert. SYNOPSIS: In the 1920s a street clown, aided by a con man and a journalist, enters an underground fighting competition to help the street kids in his neighbourhood. On paper, […]
Universal Soldier receiving fully restored 4K release in November
StudioCanal has announced the upcoming release of a fully-restored 4K Ultra HD version of director Roland Emmerich’s 1992 sci-fi action thriller Universal Soldier starring action icons Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren. SUPPORT FLICKERING MYTH: Order via Amazon UK During the Vietnam War, soldier Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) finds that his superior officer, Andrew […]
