La Vengeance sous la peau

This Van Damme action picture displays lots of violence , action filled , thrills and fierce combats . It is entertaining , well paced and including interesting characters . It's thrilling and tense , at time suspenseful movie and the firepower , explosion , struggles , shootouts are pretty well done , including an exciting finale . It deals with a man's (Jean Claude Van Damme) heroic attempt to help a gorgeous woman (Charlotte Peters) in distress ends up with him waking up the next day without a kidney and plotting his vengeance . As Van Damme and his brother (John Ralston) attempt to retrieve his kidney and exacts a revenge , but the events go wrong .

This is one of Van Damme's better films . It packs violent action , suspense , shoot-outs, and martial arts fighting and results to be quite entertaining . Agreeable movie , thanks to tight pace , skillful edition and well mounted combats . It's tense and exciting , at time lackluster action movie , but the struggles and fighting are well done . Suffering Van Damme plays finely an expert fighter and ex-special forces contractor who undertakes a race against time to recover his missing kidney , acting similarly to 'Hard cops' or ''Assessination Games' . Enjoyable relationship among two separated brothers , finely played by Van Damme and John Ralston ; both of whom form an uneasy alliance to take down a deadly target . Van Damme is good as action hero in this middling budget filmed on various locations in Vancouver , British Columbia , Canada, Nanhai and Guangdong , Guangzhou, China . Here Jean Claude plays an ex- special forces operative , confronting nasties and using his martial-arts skills . Long time ago he played big budget movies (¨Time cop¨, ¨Universal soldier¨ ,¨Double team¨, ¨Hard target¨) , nowadays he makes low-medium budget and directly to video (¨Derailed¨ , ¨Wake of death¨ , ¨In hell¨) like in his first films (¨Black eagle¨, ¨Cyborg¨, ¨Bloodsport¨). Remaining cast give nice acting as veteran Aki Aleong , John Ralston, the early deceased Darren Shahlavi , whom is dedicated the movie and special mention for the unknown newcomer Charlotte Peters as a beautiful prostitute mistreated by her pimp . This film results to be a standard actioner , but packs interesting main roles , atmospheric action set pieces and fast movement . It's produced with middling budget by Van Damme , Aki Aleong , John Ralston and Michael Lurie ; being professionally directed by Ernie Barbarash (¨Ticking clock¨ , ¨Hardwired¨ and ¨Six bullets¨ , again with Van Damme) . Barnabash has made other Van Damme's notorious vehicles as ¨Assassination games¨and ¨6 bullets¨ . The picture is extremely energetic and to be liked for real devotees of main actor . It's a must see for Van Damme fans.

PLOT: 5/10 - The movie plot was fine. Nothing special at all. It's pretty straight forward, though that's not a bad thing at all if done right. And this movie doesn't do it that wrong.

SOUNDTRACK 5/10 - To be honest, nothing to see here, folks.

SPECIAL EFFECTS 4/10 - I debated with myself if I should give it a 5, but the green screen effects in this movie is used way too often on scenes that didn't need it. I know, it's a B movie, but there're plenty of them who does it right.

ACTING 5/10 Though some acting can seem shallow, most of it is fine and, sometimes, believable. Nothing new on Van Damme's acting (comparing it to most recent movies he's made); John Ralston does a nice job on acting here too. Some fight scenes aren't that good, as the moves are really badly done.

OVERALL 4/10 - Though the movie may look kinda cliché, it's a nice action flick, that's pretty straight forward in general. Some scenes might have some bad visual effect but, overall, it's a movie that's OK to watch, considering you know you're in for a B-action movie.

"Would you kill to save her, even if it meant your soul?" Deacon (Van Damme) is relaxing when he sees a woman being harassed. He helps her and ends up staying the night with her. When he wakes up in a bathtub he is tying to piece together the night. When he realizes his kidney has been taken out of him he isn't sure what to do. Now him and two of his friends must not only try and save Deacon, but get the kidney in time to save his friend's daughter's life. These are the hardest movies for me to review. One reason is because I have just not a big fan of Van Damme. Another reason is is that these movies are so generic it's hard to really enjoy them. All of these straight to video movies starring Van Damme and Segal have to do with a tough guy trying to save someone he cares about the only way he knows how…violence. There is always a different catalyst but for the most part the start and end the same way. This one is no different. If you like Van Damme you will like this, otherwise you have probably already seen a movie like this and it's nothing to rush and see. Overall, generic and not all that exciting, typical Van Damme. I give it a C.

I don't usually write reviews for bad films. But being a huge Van Damme fan and loving his older movies, i thought that this would be a good film as Van Damme really hyped it up. Unfortunately the film falls apart very quickly. The most funny and annoying part of the story and most ironic i guess, is that they still use the Kick boxer line "Our parents got divorced i stayed with dad and my brother went with mom" to establish his thick french accent compared to the American accent that his brother has. The Acting was cheesy, mediocre at best. Van Damme probably was the best actor in the film. The story was a Van Damme story with a stupid twist, which would not have swayed the character in the end, but its the story tellers felt that Van Damme's character needed more drama and so we have the ending we get. The CGI was extremely bad. I couldn't understand why they had to use Green screen for the night club when in the next scene they are clearly standing in a similar if not the same actual night club that they just CGIéd before. Anyways, i hope that Van Damme fans can enjoy the film solely based on being JCVD fans

Let me start by saying that this was a fun action movie, Van Damme is, I felt really cool in this film.

He plays Deacon Lyle, a sort of french special forces contractor, who is on vacation in (I think it was the Philippines), I've seen it a few times but forget where it's set. While there he wakes the next morning to find that his kidney is missing and preparing to get it back.

I have to admit that the story to this film is very simple but I still found it enjoyable.

Jean Claude Van Damme is very good in this as Deacon, but I always enjoy watching his films.

Charlotte Peters is pretty good in her role I think this is her first film role but I found her performance exceptional. And she is very sexy too, she is a gorgeous Irish woman very attractive.

As for the rest of the cast they were good too. The action scenes are pretty good as well, all of the fighting was done in a way I feel was fresh and inventive, I realize that some of you complain about noticing Van Damme's double in the fights, well to be clear, couple years ago he suffered a mild heart attack on the set of "Assassination Games", so that's self explanatory, I am in no way shape or form bothered by this, besides he is getting older.

Anyway overall I liked this film, it's one of those sit back, relax and enjoy the body count type of films.

I give it a 6/10. A fun little action film and if your a Van Damme fan I recommend this to you.