BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Cortechba Overrated

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Staci Frederick Blistering performances.

Paul Andrews Wake of Death starts in China as a young girl named Kim (Valerie Tian) witnesses the brutal murder of her mother (Joon Chong) by her father, a vicious Chinese triad leader named Sun Quan (Simon Yam). Cut to Los Angeles where Kim has snuck aboard a liner & smuggled herself into the US with a shipload of other Chinese immigrants, Los Angeles social worker Cynthia Archer (Lisa King) takes pity on the young Kim & decides to let her stay at her home with her & her family. Unfortunately triad boss Sun wants his daughter back & once he discovers that Cynthis has her he sends the boys round & they kill Cynthia although Kim manages to escape, as it happens Cynthia's husband is a tough ex undercover cop named Ben (Jean-Claude Van Damme) who decides to take the law into his own hands & seeks revenge against those who murdered his wife & anyone who stands in his way...This English, German, French & South African co-production ended up being co-written, co-produced & directed by Philippe Martinez after Cess Silvera was fired after a couple of weeks filming & that itself was after Hong Kong action director Ringo Lam had pulled out from directing it after various differences including a switch of filming locations from Canada to South Africa, it's perhaps surprising then that Wake of Death isn't that bad a film & it certainly passes 90 odd minutes harmlessly enough. The script & plot is pretty much by the numbers for these DTV action flicks, some sort of ex cop/soldier loses a loved one/someone close & ends up going on a one man rampage to kill all the bad guys & have some sweet revenge, we've seen it all before although Wake of Death is by far not the worst example your likely to see. As you might expect (& demand even) there's plenty of people getting shot, shoot-outs, fights & things blowing up before the obligatory final showdown between the hero & the villain. It's nothing new but it has a decent pace, a decent enough set of character's & just about enough action to make this better than expected & better than average. There's a lack of urgency to the plot, it's rather predictable & it lacks a certain something, a certain memorable something that would truly distinguish it from the crowd but overall this isn't a bad effort & show's JCVD can still turn in a decent action flick.I must admit that Wake of Death looks really good with some classy cinematography, having said that although it's often stylish it means little as we get nicely shot scenes of people getting off planes for instance but that's it, the style serves no real purpose & can sometimes be distracting & feel empty. The violence is there, there's some shoot-outs, some blood splatter, plenty of people are shot, there's a couple of slit throats & there's even a torture scene in which a power drill is stuck into someone's kneecaps, arms & eyeball. Action set-piece wise there's a neat little car chase with an exploding tanker truck at the end & a motorbike chase through a shopping mall. Although I am not sure why JCVD has a flash-forward to the car chase at the beginning (at which point it hasn't happened yet & he hasn't even met Kim), maybe as well as being as hard as nails he is psychic too.With a supposed budget of about $16,000,000 this was filmed in Cape Town in South Africa despite being set in Los Angeles & China. The acting is OK, JCVD is alright & the extreme close-ups on him show how many lines & wrinkles his face has now, Simon Yam as the bad guy is a little forgettable.Wake of Death is a pretty decent DTV action flick, it's not up there with JCVD's best but isn't as bad as his worst either, as a typical hard as nails one man army on a rampage against the bad guys flicks go you could do a lot worse.

rockdalecop In my opinion, this is by far the best Van Damme film. The acting is superb and first rate. The story is nothing new but it's done very well. The directing and the editing is first rate too. All about this film is first rate. There is maybe a few glitches but that's it. The fights are awesome as well. What I think makes this film superior, it's how well it was made. You actually feel "something" for the characters. I loved Max and Raymond. The actor who portrayed Max is awesome. Tony was very cool as well. My feeling is that if someone like Bruce Willis or another big time movie star played the main role of Ben Archer, the film would've been a theatrical box office success. Jean needs to stick to films like this.

wlan I always thought Jean Claude Van Damme was starting to look better as he aged. In this film, we see the dark side of Van Damme, a merciless, determined killer. What i liked most about this film is, the Italian family tradition, the bond between family members and looking after each other. This flick has some great car chasing scenes, good choreography. The bad guy casting is brilliant, but the plot and lines are disappointing. The general acting is fine, but the scenario could have more depth. Maybe more reasonable and logical ideas about the vengeance, and the bad guy's rage. Maybe it would be better if we learned more about the villain. Anyway, i liked this film, it has effort in it. You wouldn't be disappointed if you're a Van Damme fan.

TermlnatriX Slightly above average from the recent of Van Damme's films. Well shot and at times even well acted by the man himself, who seemed to draw some inspiration from Denzel in Man on Fire during a tragic scene. Yeah, Van Damme's still got it folks. On a grittiness level there's a Running Scared inspired scene with shotguns and ski masks, and a Hostel/Scorsese crossover of a scene with French mobsters. Seriously this film is unintentionally funny during many of the serious moments. It suffers from a few stupid directorial choices that involve action which could have easily been avoided or perfected. A bit darker than the usual Van Damme release as well."Do you know what we do with pieces of sh*t like you in Marseille?" Hard to take the French mob seriously especially when you think of a city like Marseille