L'empreinte de la mort

"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.

It was great to finally see the new Van Damme movie. I enjoyed this better than his previosu 1 - IN HELL.

Acting by VD was very good, along with everyone else. Though, the editing was choppy in some places, everything else abiut the movie was fine with me. Despite the fact that 'The End' shows up, when I thought it was pointless to put that up. It could have gone straight to the credits.

This is still 1 of Van Damme's best movies in a while.

This is the best action movie of 2004. This really should have gone to theatres here, considering how much crap that Hollywood releases now.

This is a must see, for Van Damme fans & action fans.

JCVD has never really thought of his movies as anything more than entertainment, he was once asked which of his movies was good, he replied "have I ever made any good movies?" He really makes an effort in this one, and to be honest he generally makes better movies than Steven Seagal, who always has to make a point of letting everyone know he speaks Japanese etc. Bit lame now Steven! The movie is a excellent effort, but lacks good supporting actors. JCVD isn't Sean Penn, but then again we all know that Sean isn't that good a fighter (although he does try, well used to anyway). So, JCVD really needs excellent support actors to raise his game, and sadly there aren't any here. Everyone is over serious. But hey, it's only entertainment you say. But I can't help thinking that with a few seriously good support male actors like Biehn or Madsen, the whole thing would have gone down much better. On the whole though if you like action, this is defo for you.

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")

Well, what can I say? Straight to video releases are always looked at strangely. I myself are guilty of thinking "The movie cant be that good if it didn't get shown at the Cinema!". I was totally Wrong with Wake Of Death...

This is a great Movie! Van Damme is basically "EXCELLENT". Lisa King who plays Cynthia Archer, Van Damme's wife is quite poor and the Cheapo acting kind of shines in her scenes. She is very basic and really, isn't very good.

Your Probably thinking "This don't sound too good from what I've said but wait, let me continue!".

The Action is excellently balanced in the Movie. The Story is constantly moving in the right direction and you never really lose feel of where things are going! Also, the camera work reminds me of some great flicks like "Face Off" and the Driving scenes could be mistaken for clips from "Fast and the Furious". I ain't kidding, they are really good! This Movie is on par with some films that have been on at the Cinemas! However, if you cant stand rubbish acting, bare with it until his Wife gets killed as the quality shown in her scenes does sound cheap (like TV Soap acting). After that, its all revenge and thats entertaining! Lastly, with Films like "The Punisher" not living up to my Expectations, I rated Wake Of Death better than Punisher! Thats how good I thought it was...