Kiai-Kick!

Hell yeah.

That’s what I have to say about this. Next Movie.com writer Chase Whale (lucky bastard) got a chance to interview the Muscles from Brussels and gleaned some good stuff, and I thought the original Double Impact was one of JCVD’s best films (even though I had an issue with it). Here’s Chase’s story:

Double Impact” is arguably one of action legend Jean-Claude Van Damme’s best films, for two reasons: It’s got double the Van Dammage and another face-off against the great Bolo Yeung (who played his “Bloodsport” nemesis).

When we met JCVD last week, we took the opportunity to ask him about the “Double Impact” days — and Van Damme began to gush about the possibility of  a sequel.

“I wrote the script with a friend of mine Sheldon – He [co-wrote] “Bloodsport” and “Double Impact” with me,” he told us. “Hopefully, somebody smart enough, like an agent or a producer, can put that back together…I’m excited about it, you know?”

One of the things Van Damme stressed was the lack of franchises in his career: “I have no franchise. I lost ‘Bloodsport,’ ‘Lionheart.’”

“‘Double Impact’ [would be] a great franchise,” he told us, explaining how he thinks his twin characters Chad and Alex might have evolved. “Today, Chad would be like the guy in ‘JCVD’ and Alex would be the guy like ‘The Expendables.’”

“I came up with a great story set in Los Angeles. [Chad] is a producer, making pictures with a big house behind him. Alex is gonna go on vacation and has some problems with the Triads. Why?  Because Chad went to Hong Kong and to get some loan money using [Alex's] face, all of that bulls**t. And Alex comes [to Los Angeles] to see Chad and he’s full of s**t, has a girl pregnant, and she’s the sister of the big boss from South Central. It’s like ‘Double Impact’ in Los Angeles.”

Van Damme did and still does have a franchise — the “Universal Soldier” series — but he did try to bring the original’s magic back with “Universal Solider: Regeneration.” Even Dolph Lundgren came back,  but the film still went straight-to-DVD. He’s just completed “Universal Solider: Day of Reckoning” with Lundgren (apparently Sgt. Andrew Scott will not stay dead.) and is slated for a November 30th theatrical release. It looks like his involvement in “The Expendables 2″ is already starting to pay off.

Hopefully, we are going to Feel the Impact once more. Give us this, Hollywood.

Well said, Chase. Sheldon Lettich was the original director, so it would be interesting to see them together again. My main issue with the original film is that the fight choreography was severely lacking, though I thought the rest of the film was a lot of fun. How to solve this in a sequel? To wit:

To Sheldon and Jean-Claude:

You’ve both seen what’s out there. You need a fight choreographer who can bring the goods. Like a Larnell Stovall, who would be perfect. He’ll tailor the fights to be exciting using what JCVD knows and can physically do. That, and keep the story like the first film, which was a lot of fun, bouncing between adventure/action and light comedy (in regards to how both brothers relate to each other).

Let’s make this happen, Hollywood!

You can read Chase’s interview here, and another where JCVD gets into Bloodsport here. He’s a great writer and a great guy as well!

                                     As I said, Chase, you’re a lucky, but deserving, bastard!

This entry was posted on August 9, 2012 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Jean-Claude Van Damme with tags karate, martial arts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.