L'empreinte de la mort

The movie begins when a Chinese little girl witnesses the killing her mother by her gangster father named Sun Quan(Simon Yam) and she flees to Los Angels aboard a ship with other abducted immigrants. An ex-gangster named Ben(Jean Claude Van Damme) is ready to retire himself; his wife(Lisa King)is a social worker, taking the refugee little girl to their house. Then, she 's cruelly killed and his son along with the Chinese girl are kidnapped. Our revenger hero wages war against the criminals .The sad Van Damme must rescue the kids and revenge his spouse, meanwhile he's attacked and pursued from all sides by Chinese triads, being only helped by a French gangster's trio.

This film direct to video-rentals, displays action-packed, extreme violence, pursuit cars, thrills and is quite entertaining. It's thrilling and tense , at time suspenseful movie and the firepower, explosion, struggles, motorbikes races are very well done. Suffering Van Damme plays finely an affected gangster, acting similarly to 'Hard cops'. Van Damme confronting nasties, using his martial-arts skills, furthermore some chase cars are pretty exciting. Remaining cast though unknown make nice acting, besides appears uncredited Burt Kwouk ,the famous Chinese fighter against Inspector Clouseau-Peter Sellers. This interesting film results to be a standard actioner, but packs atmospheric action set pieces and is fast movement . The motion picture is well produced, though with middling budget, and directed by Philippe Martinez. He's a prestigious producer, such as 'Harsh times, Modigliani, The piano player, Van Wilder 2'. This is the second and best film as director , along with 'Citizen verdict'. The picture is extremely energetic and be liked for true devotees of main actor. It's a must see for Van Damme fans.

"Wake Of Death" is no master piece. But it's easily the best Van Damme movie since "Hard Target" and probably his best performance ever. I was pleasantly surprised to see that he does know how to act. Especially in the scenes right after his wife's death. Granted, he's not going to win an Oscar anytime soon. But his performance was definitely worth more than a direct-to-video release. Also the directing was a lot better than I thought it would be. Phillipe Martinez has actually put together a pretty nice package of a movie. We get pretty much everything: Gun play, car chases, nudity and a solid performance by Van Damme. But I would like to have seen a bit more story. It seems that the movie is mostly driven by the action scenes. If only we'd learned a little more about the characters, the movie would have had that last touch that would make it great.

In China, the girl Kim (Valerie Tian) witnesses the murder of her mother by her mobster father Sun Quan (Simon Wan) and escapes to Los Angeles in a vessel with other illegal immigrants. The ship is intercepted by the US Immigration Department, and the social worker Cynthia Archer (Lisa King) decides to host Kim at her home with her husband, the bouncer Ben Archer (Jean-Claude Van Damme), and their son Nicholas. Sun Quan comes to USA, and with the support of the dirty chief of Lisa, he gets the information where his daughter is and uses the Chinese triad to kill Cynthia and her Chinese stepparents in their restaurant in Chinatown. However, Nicholas and Kim escape from the killers, and Ben calls his friend to revenge the death of his beloved wife.

"Wake of Death" is not a totally bad Van Damme's movie. The predictable and violent screenplay uses a silly and absurd argument, the free execution of Cynthia and the stepparents in a restaurant, to trigger the character of Van Damme, who is worse than the bad guys, to revenge the death of his wife. But although using the traditional clichés of the action movies, the production of "Wake of Death" is very reasonable; the cinematography has a good quality; and if the viewer shuts-down the brain, this movie entertains. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Vingança" ("Revenge")

I have always wanted Van Damme in a french style action-noir movie, like the old Alain Delon movies, I was very pleased when I saw Philippe Martinez mix Jean-Pierre Melville classic anti-hero lead with "MTV" camera work. It works perfectly. Van Damme makes his best performance to date, he really acts. The guy have taken some great amount of heat in his past due to his accent. This time around you can't blame or bash Jean-Claude for being stiff. The action scenes are suitable to the story, the fights are short and bloody. No need for fancy 360 kicks, a punch to the jaw and empty the clip in the chest. Classy. The cinematography is one of the best I have seen in a action movie, within this budget, and that is all thanks to the work by Emmanuel Kadosh. The music works really good for the emotional scenes and the sound is clear and top notch.

"Jean-Claude Van Damme is back", we all have probably heard this statement about hundred times ever since his career took a turn for the worst. Ever since then Jean has been trying to resurrect a career that saw him at the top of Hollywood's revenge, action films of the 80's and early 90's. Trying to win back fans Jean has been going the straight to video route hoping that one of the films will strike gold. And I believe Jean has just found that with Wake of Death. Van Damme IS back and this time he has the acting chops to go along with the cool action. Why this film is rated so low in this site I will never know. This has to be one of the best straight to video releases of last year. The action is great, Van Damme is in it, and the story is pretty good. It's not just your run of the mill revenge movie, it has a great story to it and the film is a success when it comes to the revenge plot. It did it better then some of the big budget Hollywood movies that came out this year, one that totally comes to mind is The Punisher. If your looking for a great action film with Van Damme and this movie is not at your local Blockbuster I suggest you spend a few extra bucks a purchase the film, you will not be let down.

I have read that some people were let down by the films climax stating that it's far too quick for some. What I like to tell those people is that they need more of an imagination. This film is great because of factors like that, the film doesn't sit back and explain every little thing like most movies do now a days. This movie leaves you do use some imagination and that's what made the movie so good. It made the viewer feel more apart of the film and not like a complete idiot that needs everything explained and told to them.