Action-movie legend Jean-Claude Van Damme, star of genre classics as Bloodsport, Universal Soldier and Timecop, is back on the big screen this weekend with the Philippine-set Pound of Flesh.
The movie tells the slightly preposterous tale of a former black-ops agent who wakes up in a Manila hotel room to find he has been relieved of a kidney by organ thieves.
The organ in question had already been promised to someone – his niece, who will die without it.
Thus a sickly Van Damme and his brother (Darren Shahlavi) punch and kick their way through Manila’s grim criminal underworld, in an attempt to retrieve the missing organ.
We’ve all heard these tales of stolen body parts, but are they real or urban legends?
“It really happens,” says Van Damme. “I know from a friend that there was a famous French photographer who lived in Russia – they put him to sleep and he woke up OK, but his assistant woke up in a bath of ice and they’d taken one of his kidneys. There’s a lot of trafficking.”
Whether a story from a friend counts as a credible source when researching a role is up for debate – what is not in doubt is that Van Damme had to lose some of his trademark muscles (from Brussels) for the movie and he seems to have taken the role pretty seriously. "When you don't like yourself much, the best place to hide is in playing movies like a ham," he says. "Then I found what was really acting. Even in a low-budget movie such as Pound of Flesh, you forget who you are.
“The movie didn’t belong to Jean-Claude Van Damme, but to a guy who’d lost a kidney. Even with the sweat, I had to go into continuity with my sweat. I had to sweat differently in scene 71 to 25.
“The actors around me were great too. [Shahlavi] was fantastic, very believable. Ana [played by Charlotte Peters] too. Everybody was great ... and it all looked great on camera.”
It's strange to hear Van Damme talking at such length about the art of acting. He is not, after all, known for his thespian ability in films such as Street Fighter and Bloodsport.
In fact, in 1997, while defending Van Damme against charges that he had faked his martial arts abilities, his own lawyer, Martin Singer, told the court: “Look at his movies – he didn’t get those roles on his acting ability.”
This renaissance in Van Damme's approach to his career took place around the time of his 2008 film JCVD. In a prescient foreshadowing of Michael Keaton's role in last year's acclaimed film Birdman, Van Damme plays a washed-up action-hero actor, a semi-fictionalised version of himself who becomes caught up in a heist. JCVD might even have pre-empted Birdman's Oscar success, if only Van Damme had turned up to take part in the film's US publicity.
In a further indication that there is more to Van Damme than fighting, however, he cancelled all his interviews to stay at home in Thailand and care for his sick dog. Despite favourable reviews, the movie sank without a trace.
“They gave me a chance without martial arts, where you see a guy waving his arms and saying ‘please, please don’t shoot me’,” he says of the film. “You can do your Jackie Chan or your Bloodsport, but you have to be realistic. When a guy receives an award for playing Mr X, it’s because he really became that character. He became two personalities in one universe.”
Fans will be relieved to hear that Van Damme hasn’t ruled out a return to all-out action in future. Albeit with a bit of an unexpected twist.
“What do you think about me and Bruce Lee in a movie?” he says, somewhat bizarrely. “If I could find someone that looks like him and fights like him? How amazing would that be?
"I loved Bruce Lee. Enter the Dragon was an amazing movie. It has that cinematic look, well cut, great stories, the soundtrack. Amazing."
cnewbould@thenational.ae
