Submitted by Lurple on 07/09/09
When shady club owner Ben Archer's wife is murdered, he'll stop at nothing to get back at the Triad members who did it. It's JCVD versus Simon Yam in this surprisingly violent—and even more surprisingly, decent—revenge flick.
Ben's wife Cynthia, a social worker for the INS, brings home her work home—in the form of an Chinese girl who has illegally entered the country. Unfortunately the girls father, Sun Quan, is a Triad gangster and he's hellbent on getting her back, and he slaughters Cynthia and her parents wholesale.. This complicates his ongoing drug trafficking by attracting both police attention and Ben's personal quest for vengeance.
Jean Claude Van Damme has had a long career at this point. For years the man wanted to be taken more seriously as an actor, something even most of his fans weren't really that interested in seeing. Oddly enough, he has gotten better at acting; I dare say he's quite good as burned out club owner Ben Archer. He actually emotes. It's a trend he continued with the underrated Until Death (2007) and the somewhat overrated JCVD (2008), showing that unlike some of his action-movie peers he's never completely given up. He's managed to stay in shape too.
Yam (who was in last year's excellent Johnnie To film Sparrow) has spent much of his career playing villains, and he doesn't break that pattern in Wake of Death. As the Triad gangster amusingly named Sun Quan, he seems rather sullen and displays an unfortunate penchant for slashing women's throats with a switchblade. That particular habit puts him on a collision course with Ben.
Philippe Martinez directs in a slick, stylish fashion; this is also one of the best-looking films Van Damme had been in for years, especially back in 2004 when it was released. Martinez hasn't directed a lot of films since, which seems like a shame. The film is as nasty as it is slick, with some brutal gun and martial art battles and a torture scene that is genuinely uncomfortable to watch.
Another surprise—Van Damme shares the climactic fight scenes with Tony Schiena, a former real-life karate champion and all-around martial arts expert. Tony (as Ben's good friend Tony) actually puts on the film's best fights, including an excellent knife-fighting sequence. I rarely find onscreen knife-fights well done or realistic, so it's nice to see a good one.
Wake of Death doesn't do anything particularly new or interesting, but it's a solid revenge film with some good action sequences. It's considerably better than most of JCVD's films, and I have no problem recommending it to anyone who is in the mood for some revenge and a little asskicking.
This film probably watched
This film probably watched it! This is a classic that our descendants will look and admire it!
This film probably watched
This film probably watched it! This is a classic that our descendants will look and admire it!
This film is awesome. Not to
This film is awesome.
Not to turn this comment into a review, but I'm a huge Van Damme fan. It's weird. Despite its awesome shittiness, I have not been disappointed with any of his filmography (so far) in terms of pure entertainment value. I think I've seen most of his films. None of the ones I've seen are, in any way, boring. They're not all "good", and a lot of them are corny and downright stupid, but they are/were all entertaining.
I disagree with a few aspects of this review (for instance, I thought JCVD (2008) was UNDERRATED, rather than overrated), but for the most part it's spot on. There are a few moments of (unintentional) hilarity; like during the torture scene, which for the most part is supposed to be a gruesome affair, but the guy was yelling so many expletives/threats that I thought he was going to shit seven shades; also the knife fight between Van Damme's buddy and the triad, the end of that fight inspires laughter.
But, yes, for the most part this movie is pretty fucking gritty. It's downbeat. The violence is raw, not very flashy. Lately I've been wanting to watch more films that are similar in style to Wake of Death. Dog Bite Dog sounds like another one of these brutal films, with violence that is brutal and raw, rather than highly choreographed and flashy. Edge of Darkness seems the same way.
Also, we need more Van Damme movie reviews.
I've found a few of JCVD's
I've found a few of JCVD's films boring, but mostly they're entertaining if only in a silly way. I'll have a review of the new Universal Soldier film in a while, but I'll say now that I thought it was pretty entertaining.
Dog Bite Dog is highly recommended for sheer savagery; the director also made Shamo, which gets pretty nasty even though I didn't like it as much. I recently watched his latest flick, but it really wasn't in the same veign.
Which ones did you find
Which ones did you find boring?
I haven't seen all of his, but I heard shitty things about a few. I heard Universal Soldier 2 was fucking horrible.
One of my favorites of his is Sudden Death. I'm pretty sure I began a review for that one a while back.
Universal Soldier: The Return
Universal Soldier: The Return was rotten... Streetfighter was horrible... Second in Command was bad... The Hard Corps kinda sucked... Desert Heat is on my list of rotten Yojimbo remakes. I could go on. He's churned out a few good ones amongst the crap over the last few years; he's gotten better at acting and seems to alternate between total crap and slightly-better-than-expected these days. That's more than I can say for Seagal, whose best efforts have been possibly average.
For over-the-hill martial art guys I guess I might rate them something like JCVD>Lundgren>Seagal>Jeff Speakman>Olivier Gruner>Billy Blanks... I could keep going but it just gets sad. The lot of them have been owned by folks like of Tony Jaa, Cyril Raffaelli, and Donnie Yen in my humble opinion. I'll still watch most of their stuff anyway.
Well... I don't agree with
Well... I don't agree with all of that. I think you seriously underrate him; especially placing him on a lower tier with the likes of Blanks and Seagal, etc. :\ The guy was a big action star for a while (and still is, in terms of name only), and I think he's trying hard to shed both the "martial arts" and "action hero" image. Unfortunately, it seems the industry (and audience?) can't let go of that. And the guy has proven he can ACT, unlike most action stars. There was some real emotion going on in JCVD. I almost fucking cried at the monologue. Also, I was watching that movie again, and I realized that the guy can still put on some awesome action. Remember that action sequence at the beginning? That was a four minute or so long take. It's a shame his career wasn't better.
I think I'm going to download his entire filmography and watch it all the way through.
He's been trying to act for a
He's been trying to act for a looong time, though, and he hasn't gotten better at it until the last couple of years. I'm pretty sure "Nowhere to Run" was his first attempt at a non-martial-arts film.
The load of crap he's put out that outweighs the number of decent films he's done, and I've watched pretty much all of it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a lot of his work. That doesn't necessarily make it good.
I never said they were (all)
I never said they were (all) "good". In fact, I'm sure I pointed out most were all kinds of stupid. But they were entertaining.
Also, "trying to act" and actually doing it are two different things, although I can see your point; you do admit he has gotten better though. Take this particular film (Wake of Death) and JCVD for example. There is a definite difference there. Even as a Van Damme fan, it was surprising to watch him in JCVD. Even the god damn critics were praising it, and most of them have probably maligned Jean-Claude his entire career. He definitely needs better scripts and solid directors. It's going to be interesting to see where he goes from here... Sort of disappointing to hear he turned down the Expendables though. Universal Soldier 3 seems a step backwards (except I read that it was some sort of contractual obligation), but I think he's actually directing a film now... We'll see how that turns out.
I'll get back to you after I've (re)watched his entire filmography. Heh..
Post new comment