L'empreinte de la mort

Original title: Wake of Death

2004
12
1h 31m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Tragedy Urban Adventure Action Adventure Drama

After his wife is brutally murdered, club enforcer Ben Archer wages war against the Chinese triads.After his wife is brutally murdered, club enforcer Ben Archer wages war against the Chinese triads.After his wife is brutally murdered, club enforcer Ben Archer wages war against the Chinese triads.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.5/10

10K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Videos1

Trailer 0:55

Wake of Death

Photos18

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Ringo Lam was the original director but he left the project after a few weeks of filming in Canada.

Goofs
In the final confrontation Ben's son is being held directly to the chest of the villian. In one shot though he is gone to show the damgage, in the next shot he is back where he was before and it becomes appearent that Ben would have had to shoot his son in the head to hit the villian where he did.

Quotes
Sun Quan: The only thing you postpone in life... is death.

Alternate versions
In Germany, the uncut version didn't get a rating/approval at all (both FSK and SPIO/JK boards thought the film might violate §131, glorification of violence). Therefore the rental version is cut by 81 sec. with SPIO/JK approval, while the retail version is cut even more (ca. 4 minutes) with a "Not under 18" rating from the FSK. The Dutch DVD also features this same cut version. In 2017 however, the uncut version was granted a "Not under 16" rating from the FSK, making previous cut versions completely obsolete.

Connections
Referenced in Making of 'Wake of Death' (2004)

Soundtracks
Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen
(uncredited)
from DIE ZAUBERFLÖTE
Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Lyrics by Emanuel Schikaneder
Heard during the massacre in a Chinese restaurant

User reviews108

Featured review

8/10

Not as good as I'd hoped, but better than I expected.

"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.