Movieline Online

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s career arc is more interesting than all the other action-hero also-rans combined, particularly his ongoing flirtation with the Hong Kong film industry. First teaming up with John Woo for the gloriously overblown Hard Target , the muscles from Brussels proceed to work with Ringo Lam and Tsui Hark, giving both directors a chance to bring their signature style to North American screens. 1998’s Knock Off , his second film with Tsui, is a briskly paced cops and robbers story set in the world of counterfeit merchandising with just enough HK action ingenuity to qualify as legit. Marcus Ray (Van Damme) is a street-smart straight shooter whose business parter, Tommy (Rob Schneider) turns out to be an undercover CIA agent playing him for connections. But they both get duped by Russian counterfeiters using knock-offs to smuggle microbombs into the U.S. as part of an extortion scheme. That leaves Marcus on the hook to clear his name and avenge his adopted Hong Kong fami...

Modern horror – which critics typically mark with the release of Psycho – made most classic horror stars obsolete overnight. Actors like Christopher Lee and Vincent Price, with their capes, fangs and wizard wands, were suddenly passe. And it took a good ten years before they became trendy again as part of a “retro” resurgence by monster kids. 1981’s Frightmare (aka The Horror Star) tries to pound a square peg into a round hole by making the iconic – but invented – cult actor Conrad Radzoff into a vengeful spirit who can still bring his A-game. Staging his funeral as the final act in a storied career, Radzoff (Ferdinand Mayne) leaves a series of video messages for anyone that disturbs his resting place. That doesn’t stop the members of the local horror film society from stealing the corpse to stage one big farewell party at their creepy old house. Radzoff’s revenge involves plenty of severed body parts, spontaneous human combustion and every fog machine available in southern Cali...

While Schwarzenegger and Stallone took up two spots on the Mt. Rushmore of ‘80s action movies and Bruce Willis was paying off the third in installments, there were plenty of hopefuls competing for that fourth-place finish. While studs like Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme worked on their applications, every once in a while a studio would give them a shot at the big time. Such is the case with Steven Seagal and Under Siege (1992), an unapologetic Die Hard knock-off that built upon the actor’s growing popularity. Casey Ryback (Seagal) is a decorated veteran riding out his naval career as a cook aboard the USS Missouri when the ship is hijacked by a gang of weapons merchants led by Strannix (Tommy Lee Jones), a bitter ex-CIA contractor with a longstanding grudge. Escaping the crew headcount, Ryback teams up with Miss July 1988 (Erika Eleniak) to thwart the terrorists plans from the inside with government officials debate their options – including killing everyone aboard – to pr...

A double-whammy critique of Korea’s patriarchal society and political repression, 1978’s Splendid Outing also fits comfortably in the “psychotic women” genre that includes paranoid mysteries like Rebecca and Repulsion . Director Kim Soo-yong adeptly keeps his audience guessing which half of his film is real and which is imagined as he drags his lead character from the boardroom to the bedroom of an abusive captor intent on keep her as a replacement for his runaway wife. Gong Do-hee (or President Gong to her business partners) is a respected widow who rose to the rank of chairwoman in her husband’s absence. But on a day trip to escape her busy schedule, she finds herself kidnapped and sold off to a fishmonger on an isolated island. After being raped, beaten and forced to care for the man’s crippled daughter, Do-hee starts to accept her fate. But a sympathetic doctor inspires her to makes one last attempt to return to her former life. Eventually, Splendid Outing does come clean a...

Part of a wave of post-Watergate conspiracy thrillers, Illustrious Corpses (1976) takes on the Italian justice system at a time when the political landscape was already in chaos. As rival parties jockeyed for position, the powerful judicial branch wielded power that could be bought and sold by crime families and politicians alike. Adapted from a fictional novel but grounded in the anxieties of the moment, director Francesco Rosi changes the names and faces but makes it clear his film is anything but a work of fiction. Inspector Amerigo Rogas (Lino Ventura) is assigned to the case of a murdered judge, scoping out the suspects who arrive at the funeral and asking pointed questions. But the assassinations continue and Rogas theory of a lone gunman taking revenge for a miscarriage of justice is soon discarded for a more insidious plot within the government itself. A plot that has no use for nosy policemen. The comparisons between U.S. films like The Parallax View and The Conversatio...

Tackling the classic western theme of savagery versus civilization, Blood of Revenge (1965) transplants that frontier anxiety into a Japanese society straining under the weight of modernization. Where American Westerns pit lawmen against outlaws as railroads carve order into chaos, this early yakuza drama (or ninkyo) frames progress itself as the invading force, encroaching on a rigid underworld code that no longer fits the times. Civilization is coming and it’s arriving with bulldozers, business suits, and a thinly veiled contempt for tradition. Set in a port town caught between old loyalties and new money, the film follows a stoic second-in-command, Asajiro (Koji Tsuruta), trying to navigate a collapsing moral order where honor is still spoken aloud but rarely practiced. Embarrassed of his yakuza past, Asajiro finds himself torn between a romantic entanglement that promises a measure of happiness versus his responsibility to help legitimize the clan. And while his strong belief in t...