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Wake Of Death [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC)


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Great performance from Van Damme.
Review date: 2005-01-22 Rating: 8 out of 10

With the double hit of In Hell and now Wake Of Death, Van Damme is showing that he is developing into a very fine actor. Van Damme's performance rises far above the short comings of this averagely scripted revenge movie. His character develops into a cold and calculating assassin, not afraid to take a life in cold blood in the name of revenge. There is little of Van Damme's trade mark flashy martial sequences some fans of his may expect from a Van Damme movie. Instead, the movie lends itself more towards sporadic claustrophobic fight sequences and gun play. For the finale of the movie much of the martial arts duties fall to actor Tony Schiena who is top lining Bauer Martinez Studios next action movie release, Action Star. The violence is graphic in places and feels a little strange while watching it unfold when your normal diet of so called action movie's these day's have PG-13 ratings and Seagal has gone soft. The only major problem I had with Wake Of Death was in the performances from the actress playing Van Damme's wife and the actor playing her boss which were both very poor and not very convincing at times. Phileppe Martinez direction is spot on and draws a great performance from Van Damme matching anything he has done with Ringo Lam in the past. Van Damme has now buried the dreaded Derailed and I look forward to good things to come with Kumite and hopefully a further Phileppe Martinez movie, Cover Play. This is Van Damme's best acting performance in any movie of his career, however I could not bring myself to give it the full 5 stars because for me, I still enjoy Timecop as his over all best movie to date.

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Reviews


At last... A Van Damme Hit!!
Review date: 2005-01-07 Rating: 8 out of 10

Congratulations to all involved. $20 million well spent. Phillipe Martinez has produced a very stylish revenge thriller on a minimal budget (considering most Hollywood action movies cost upwards of $80 mil). The film is very well-shot and edited in a fast and efficent pace. The action is directed superbly and the sound-track is excellent (bordiering obnoxious).

The screenplay, unfortunately is the weak link. There's no room for any character back story, which can be frustrating. You find yourself asking 'Why?', 'How?' and 'Who?' about many of the characters and their actions. However, you hardly expect Schindler's List quality do you.

Jean-Claude gives the best performance of his carreer to date. Proving with his previous effort (In Hell) that he can act. And given the right material he can act well (See the very moving scene where JCVD's wife is murdered in the first act).

All in all this is a big step back into main-stream film for Van Damme. He can finally close the door for good on 'The Order', 'Derailed' et al. Bring on 'Kumite'!

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Tony Schiena
Philip Tan
Simon Yam
Jean-Claude Van Damme
Valerie Tian

Creators:
Jean-Claude Van Damme (Primary Contributor)
Simon Yam (Primary Contributor)
Philippe Martinez (Writer)
Frank Rehwaldt (Writer)
Kristina Hamilton-Grobler (Writer)
Laurent Fellous (Writer)
Mick Davis (Writer)

Director(s):

Recording label: Columbia TriStar
Manufacturer: Columbia TriStar
EAN: 9781404961036
Binding: DVD
ISBN: 1404961038
Number of items: 1
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Colour, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC,
Release date: 2004-12-28
Universal product code (UPC): 043396063754
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Region code: 1
Running time: 90 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2004
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: French (Original Language)
Language: French (Subtitled)
Language: French (Dubbed)
Language: Spanish (Dubbed)

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