Wake Of Death Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
Revenge is all he has left.
Ben Archer (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is a thug/enforcer for a criminal organization. Tiring of the work, he tells his coworkers that he's ready to retire. His wife Cynthia is a social worker for the INS. She brings a Chinese refugee girl to their home. Soon, Sun Quan (Simon Yam) wants his daughter back. Cynthia Archer is murdered, and Ben's son Nicholas disappears, along with the Chinese girl. Ben must save the children and avenge his wife's murder.
| Jean-Claude Van Damme | Ben Archer |
| Simon Yam | Sun Quan |
| Philip Tan | Han |
| Valerie Tian | Kim |
| Tony Schiena | Tony |
| Claude Hernandez | Raymond |
| Lisa King | Cynthia Archer |
| Anthony Fridjohn | Max |
| Danny Keogh | Mac Hoggins |
| Pierre Marais | Nicholas Archer |
| Warrick Grier | Da Costa |
| Tom Wu | Andy Wang |
| Jacqui Chan | Mamma Li |
| Burt Kwouk | Tommy Li |
| Joon Chong | Kim's Mother |
| Philippe Martinez |
5.40 out of 10 (1940 votes)
Visitor Reviews
The Comeback starts here!
posted on 04 Jul 2009I am a huge movie buff, and have enjoyed IMDb.com for years. This is the first time i have bothered to register to voice my opinions- and it is with good reason. I am a huge Van Damme fan, but i am also a realist. His last few films have not been great - particularly Derailed & Knock Off. However credit to Jean Claude for TRYING to do other things such as IN HELL and WAKE OF DEATH. Unlike his co-action hero's Steven Seagal who can't even be bothered hanging around to loop his on voice on his movies- VAN DAMME is making a comeback. This film marks a great, stylish, action movie- driven by revenge in a yakuza environment. It reminded me of early John Woo movies, Seagal's Hard to Kill and early dirty harry films. JCVD's acting is only getting better with age, the action is short,sharp & powerful. Bloodsoaked action scenes & being hardcore (women shot in the head/guy is shot in head by shotgun) shows this is ANYTHING but "standard/watered down/pg action" that is all to common today. Do yourself a favour and SEE IT THEN OWN IT! If you are a JCVD fan & have been disappointed by his recent films, give this one a go- you will enjoy. Cheers, Dan
Two in a row for Van Damme.
posted on 23 May 2009Fans and non-fans of Van Damme are gonna Like Wake of Death.It baffles one why Van Damme had not been making these types of movie earlier.He might still be the mid-level star he was.Gorgously shot,WoD finds Van Damme a retired enforcer named Ben Archer with revenge on his mind after a knife-wielding Triad Boss(Simon Yam)brutally KIlls his wife and in-laws.He goes back to the mob way for some Damme action.What seems like an average revenge flick is an action lovers flick:Bike chases,car chases,Gun fights,Fist fights,Drills,Shotguns to the face,and a scene that would make Tarantino proud.Van Damme surprises here by rising above his usual monosyllabic self.He emotes!Very well.Its a welcome change to see him with such acting chops.Yam is mostly on the sidelines,letting his goons do the hard work.He underplays San Qaun at times,but he always comes off cool,collected,and evil.Rest of the cast is mixed.The mob cronies are the best:Tony Scheina has a lot of presence as JC's mob buddy and could easily go on to be a good action star.Anthony Fridjohn delivers some pretty hard-boiled lines as the kingpin.Fellow enforcer Claude Hernandez is likable and quiet.But hes all action when need be.Valerie Tian is engaging as Kim; San Quans Daughter. Bad:Choppy style.Lack of character background.I wonder if there is another cut to WoD.A lot of questions needed answers.The ending is too open-ended.I wish Ringo Lam would have stayed on.But whatever little perks are missing, Philippe Martinez makes up for it with visuals,style,and a great soundtrack.But all in all a great revenge flick that rivals Man on Fire.And great acting from Van Damme.Your on your way back!
By the numbers action/revenge flick
posted on 21 May 2009Jean Claude Van Damme plays Ben Archer whose wife is killed early in the movie by some Chinese drug dealers and now Ben wants to get even. Not much of interest here though JCVD does look a lot different. He has short hair and sunken cheeks and all in all, he looks much older. Some very good fight scenes and one really rough torture scene. I watched this on TV and yet i still had to turn away from the stuff being done to this crooked cop. Used an electric drill on the poor guy.Along with the action though, there is too much talking and emoting on JC's part like after his wife is killed. Apparently JC wants to show he can REALLY ACT but hell, this type of movie doesn't need that. Couple of stupid kids in the movie too.In his long career JC has only made one good movie and that is "In Hell" and that is very good.
Even "Dances with Wolves" was more thrilling
posted on 21 Apr 2009Van Damme should stick to martial arts. This is a slow-paced, boring action movie with bad action and a boring story. It's a vengeance movie, but that kind of movies were far better in the 80's and early 90's. Even "The Punisher" (the new version) were much better than this one. Van Damme should now stop trying to become a more serious actor. I don't want to see him in more of these drama-like crap movies with way too few action scenes. Just one of those movies were good. "Wake of Death" is not the one ("In Hell" is). The plot contains nothing of interest. Everything has been done 1,000,000,000 times before (at least), and when there's hardly any action at all, action fans should just stay away.
Wake me up before you turn the lights off
posted on 13 Apr 2009I am a fan of JCVD but let's be honest this was a poor film from start to finish. Normally slow motion is applied to action sequences but every time there was an emotional moment it was dragged out uncomfortably. I was unaware that there were three directors on this film but it explains a lot about how disjointed and 2 dimensional it felt. The characters lacked substance and just when the drilling scene looked like it had potential it struggled to be scary. Camera angles were not helpful to create the atmosphere that might have helped to raise the quality of this film. JCVD's emotional repertoire came across as a little Roger Moore - limited to looking sulkily into the distance.Thoroughly unimpressed! (Oh, and why was the guy in a wheelchair?)
Damme CAN act after all?
posted on 05 Apr 2009I've watched a few Damme movies in the past, and never expected much out of any of them. It's all been high flying kicks and slow motion. There have been a few that I've loved, even though they've been "Damme-movies"; The Universal Soldier was fun to watch when I was younger, and Hard Target since it's a Woo movie.I wasn't expecting to see much martial arts, since Damme is...let's face it...kind of old already. Some of his moves still look good enough for the screen.As a movie, I liked it. Not one of the best I've seen, but deserves a 7 for all the effort. It never really stopped for too long, and the story seemed to go along fluently. There were a few moments when I had to scratch my head, since the characters weren't introduced as well as I would've liked. As a "second grade" action movie, or a "Damme-movie" it was very nice, and I was pleasantly surprised.What amazed me though, was Damme's performance. Not as a martial artist, but as an actual actor! I mean... Why hasn't this guy acted this well before? He was very convincing in almost all his scenes, and his range of emotion was much wider than what I've used to seeing from him. I would've loved to have seen some of his earlier work with this much "skill" in acting.Maybe it's because he can't really kick as high as he used to anymore. :) Anyways, I liked the movie, and I hope he keeps doing these kinds of "real" movies, where he's not just showing off his body and doing high kicks. Oh, and that brings me to a point... There was a sex scene in this movie, much like in the old 80's movies. Perhaps a bit shorter and less graphic, but a what I would call an 80's sex scene anyways. You don't really see those anymore, for a good reason, since they usually break the pace of the movie entirely. This one seemed to fit in the movie though, so it too was a pleasant surprise.So, if you're going to watch the movie, don't expect much, and you may yet be pleasantly surprised with some of it's elements, such as Damme's acting. :) My 2 euro cents.
IMDb rating does not do this film justice!
posted on 12 Feb 2009This is the first time that I'm going to write a review for a movie just because it was one of the best recent action films that I have seen and the rating is far below what it deserved. It's a movie set in a dark environment with some true jeanne claude action and some of the best acting I have ever seen him do. The action and violence is intended for mature audiences as it can get somewhat gruesome at times but that is what I liked about this film, it wasn't hollywoodized and comes at you raw. After the movie I felt like it was 2 hours well spent and for being a major movie critic that rarely happens to me! For some reason it just all came together nicely and I definitely recommend this film especially if you enjoy action movies and are a van damme fan!
Poor imitation of French film noir
posted on 29 Jan 2009I rather like Van Damme and some of his movies were quite entertaining but this one is definitely not. The script is poor, and the story is simply ridiculous - c'mon people, how can you spoil a revenge story? Van Damme is not a very bad actor, he can act (within reasonable limits) if he has to but he surely needs a different director for that. There are rather obvious references to classic Marseilles based film noir ("do ya know what we do with a piece of @#%&# like you in Marseilles?") but is sort of frustrating to watch how such a good tradition can inspire something so poor. Someone mentioned Jean-Pierre Melville in this context but is rather sort of secondary tribute to "Borsalino & Co" by Jacques Deray.Well... obviously Van Damme is not Delon - and he shouldn't try to be... The movie contains one of the cruelest torture scenes I have seen (and yes, I have seen Sin City) if you are into this stuff you may enjoy it otherwise you may agree that is just unnecessary and doesn't make much sense. Ringo Lam was supposed to direct this movie and too bad he didn't - the story may fit pure HK action and it would probably be more fun. On the positive side - pictures are actually pretty good, thanks to combined efforts of Emmanuel Kadosh, Michael Swan and Ernie Seegers and that was the main reason i gave it 3 stars.
Van Damme's career is no longer Derailed
posted on 17 Jan 2009Being a Van Damme is a very thankless, sometimes truly maddening, task indeed. Imagine, as a fan, standing by an actor for over a decade until he starred in something decent again. Hard to imagine, isn't it? But that's the honest truth. Timecop from 1994 was the last truly enjoyable film from 'the Muscles from Brussles', enough to cause all the most die-hard fans of his to give up hope. But a decade later, Jean-Claude, like a fabled Phoenix, rises from the ashes of truly dreadful bouts with his double, being a dire street-fighter, and worse of all Dennis Rodman, to finally star in this admittedly heavily clichéd unoriginal film as a cop who has his wife brutally killed after they take in the runaway kid of a Chinese drug-lord. The plot is decidedly not the true selling point of the film. The highlights are the highly stylized (in one scene just plain brutal) violence and Jean-Claude's acting skills coming to a new maturation (yes he CAN act). In addition Simon Yam is ALWAYS good and here is no different as his bad guy is great.My Grade: B Eye Candy: Joon Chong & Lisa King both get topless, but i'd be lying if i didn't say Chong didn't have the better rack.
Slow beginning with brutal ending.
posted on 03 Jan 2009This movie would be a lot better if the beginning was not so slow. The middle and the end of this movie contain the most action. The beginning drags on and is a little boring. The other thing that I did not like was the ending. It left you not really knowing a lot. There could have been a lot more to the ending. I thought that there would be a huge fight scene but there wasn't. With more action this movie could have been really good. I would rate this movie a 5-6 out of ten. If you want to see a better recent van Damme movie then I suggest trying out In Hell which I thought was awesome and Replicant was pretty good as well. Hopefully Kumite will be great!! Lets keep our fingers crossed! A new version of Bloodsport with good action should be a hit.
Did someone say Punisher???
posted on 26 Dec 2008Okay, I got to admit I'm a real punisher freak and I presumed that Van Damme just wanted to ride the Big Pun hype...but this one was good. I really found myself wondering what happened to Jean-Claude because he did a really good emotional act. His mourning scene was just great and in my opinion very authentic. A second winner was the character of Raymon...I mean I loved that guy. He's so Garth Ennis...hey Garth if you read this please give him a cameo...the way he just cares for his guys, making coffee, cooking food and drilling kneecaps.BTW this movie has indeed some serious bloodshed in it. Last thing was Van Damme delivering some real nice punishment. There is no "Come on get up and fight like a man"...it's more like "oh look you are chained to a bed and can't defend yourself, tough luck...boom shotgun to the head" nice nice. So, give this movie a chance. If you're into action you're gonna like it.
Typical B-Movie
posted on 16 Dec 2008Van Damme is back... doing more of the same.It seems that whenever Van Damme, Seagal or any of the straight-to-video culprits release a new movie, some fan-boys always have to claim it's some kind of "return" to some glorious era. This fails to take into account, first and foremost, that there never was such a period. And in the case of "Wake Of Death", this is not a return to form to the mediocre Bloodsport or the mildly entertaining Universal Soldier. What we have here is a very typical, B-grade action movie, reminiscent of what we've seen a thousand times in the 80s and from the sub par Hong-Kong trend.THE (relatively) GOODVan Damme (who plays Ben Archer) has improved as an actor. Although the performance is very uneven, there are glimpses of real, actual acting here. The supporting cast is mostly adequate considering the b-nature of the flick. Simon Yam's screen presence is good, although he fails to impress. The young actor portraying Archer's son is weak but Valerie Tian as a young refugee does an OK job. Archer's misfits friends were probably the weakest link. Finally, there's a lot of action going on. Doesn't look like a movie where they cut costs. Car chases, gun fights, explosions, stunts, martial art fights... you get the whole nine yards.THE BADThe plot is ultra-typical. The movie also has a somewhat schizophrenic vibe to it, possibly due to having had three different directors attached to it, or just being plain bad. The five writers credited for this "story" didn't help either. Some of the scenes are far too serious and contemplative one minute, only for dramatic considerations to be thrown out the window the next. The movie starts decently but loses steam and so does Van Damme. Although the action flows nicely, there's also nothing memorable here for action fanatics. No particular stunt you'll talk about for months or years. Heck, you'll be lucky if you remember this stuff minutes after being done. The movie's conclusion felt particularly flat to me. All in all, this movie is forgettable, unoriginal and not very exciting.This is recommended only if you really feel like watching a bad old school movie. Something John McTiernan, George P. Cosmatos, John Woo or John Irvin might have done on a very bad day in the 80s.For a movie with a somewhat similar premise but sublime execution and a main character that is ten times more menacing, check out "Man On Fire" starring a very convincing Denzel Washington.
Disappointment
posted on 12 Dec 2008Many people exaggerated the way this movie is. For them, it's like the Godfather of Van Damme films, but it's not even close. The plot of the whole movie lack of everything. Specially a sense, Van Damme wife get killed, he will seek the killers and killed them one by one. It's not bad but it's not good work either. Van Damme is directed in a bad way in this movie. Maybe in another movie it will have work, but it's Van Damme in a serious movie but with you're own typical villains and action sequence. There's a few good action sequences such as the scene with Van Damme in moto but the ending is bad in every ways. The camera angles aren't too good so you don't catch the action carefully like other flicks. But kudos to the director, it's not a bad movie either but it's not in a top 10 of my favorite Van Damme movie! Watch In Hell instead, a much more interesting storyline with a Van Damme like you never seen before!
Another Damme Action Movie
posted on 12 Dec 2008WARNING: the following review may shock and confuse you, as it infers that Van Damme has made a good movie.Yup, I said it; a good Van Damme movie. This was a dark, edgy film, with a slight John Woo feel, and a cold murderous antagonist in the vein of Chow Yun Fat's character in "Hard Boiled". It's what any Steven Segal movie wished it could be, and it's what "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" (with Clive Owen) should have been.It looks like Van Damme has finally found out what is needed for him to make a good movie; less Van Damme. That's right, there are barely any signature Van Damme moves in this film. Not really any high kicks, no splits in briefs, and although you do see his butt visa vi every other one of his movies (you can't expect him to change his style THAT much), he doesn't really spend any of the movie topless. Van Damme junkies, if all of this sounds too varied from such classics as "Legionnaire", "Knock Off", and "Street Fighter" don't rent this movie. Instead, rent "Time Cop", go home, and kill yourself.You may be wondering why one so faithless in Van Damme as I would rent this movie. Allow me to explain. My friend and I rented this movie as a joke. We had just watched "Gymkata", and were hard pressed to find a film to follow that debacle. But lo and behold, what was on the shelf, but a brand new Van Damme movie! Titled "Wake of Death", no less. Imagine my surprise when the movie was an engaging action flick.Of course, it has its let downs; a couple nonsensical plot twists, lack of information on the viewers part, and strange silent staring scenes. However, these are heavily outweighed by its strong points; decent car chases, explosions, senseless violence, and gratuitous sex. Not to mention the maniacal "blademaster", and the random inclusion of Russians. All which make this Van Damme movie a keeper.
Very Good Action Movie... **Rent It**
posted on 31 Oct 2008Well, what can I say? Straight to video releases are always looked at strangely. I myself are guilty of thinking "The movie cant be that good if it didn't get shown at the Cinema!". I was totally Wrong with Wake Of Death...This is a great Movie! Van Damme is basically "EXCELLENT". Lisa King who plays Cynthia Archer, Van Damme's wife is quite poor and the Cheapo acting kind of shines in her scenes. She is very basic and really, isn't very good.Your Probably thinking "This don't sound too good from what I've said but wait, let me continue!".The Action is excellently balanced in the Movie. The Story is constantly moving in the right direction and you never really lose feel of where things are going! Also, the camera work reminds me of some great flicks like "Face Off" and the Driving scenes could be mistaken for clips from "Fast and the Furious". I ain't kidding, they are really good! This Movie is on par with some films that have been on at the Cinemas! However, if you cant stand rubbish acting, bare with it until his Wife gets killed as the quality shown in her scenes does sound cheap (like TV Soap acting). After that, its all revenge and thats entertaining! Lastly, with Films like "The Punisher" not living up to my Expectations, I rated Wake Of Death better than Punisher! Thats how good I thought it was...
Down, down, down...
posted on 17 Oct 2008I have always been a huge JCVD-fan, and have always made sure to be the first to see his movies.. But since the glory days, with such movies as "Hard Target", "Timecop" and so on, they just haven't been entertaining at all, sorry to say... And now I've come to the point where I have realized that this is not just a bad period for JCVD... I had really high expectations for this movie, but all of them were shattered instantly... This movie was a cliché, boring, simply a waste of money... Maybe it was a victory for JCVD acting-wise, but lets face it, he passed his prime a long long time ago... Still I'm sure I will keep renting his movies, but I strongly recommend others not to do so!!! And for all you other die-hard Van Damme fans out there; giving a movie like this 10 out of 10 is self-deception...
Excellent Action Fick
posted on 11 Oct 2008This movie is better than any modern action movie out right now. This movie is very stylish something like Leon: The Professional mixed with Training Day intro scenes. I've never seen Van Dam so Damn!! ; ) serious and emotional. I don't recall ever seeing him cry before in a movie. This is one of his good movies and I think the public needs to stop black listing van dam because he's made some bad flicks in the past. Every actor somewhere along the line stumble but the good ones always find a way out and come out on top.IMDb voting is wrong.I give this a 8/10 Go Van Damn!! Keep Kicking!!
slightly above average
posted on 29 Sep 2008Slightly 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
The art of war...
posted on 03 Sep 2008Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as Ben Archer, a mob enforcer who declares war on the Hong Kong triad(Simon Yam) who murdered his wife. Of course we all know that revenge is a dish best served cold and suffice to say this is clearly what's on the menu here. Jean-Claude Van Damme's last two clunkers Derailed and In Hell were deadly serious and I for one was afraid that this one would fall into the same category as those two movies. However I was impressed with Wake Of Death. This is a well written, well acted and well made film which finds Van Damme in good form. One of the intriguing elements here is that Jean-Claude Van Damme is a not so good guy. For instance Van Damme's Uncle in the film seems like a nice guy until you see what he can do with a drill. Likewise Jean-Claude Van Damme abandons his split kicks(Made famous in Kickboxer and Bloodsport) for guns and unstylish punches which somehow add to the realism here. While some claim this to be Jean-Claude's best work, I can't quite agree. Yes this was good but it wasn't as fun as say Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Universal Soldier, Hard Target and Timecop. Still for a post-Sudden Death Van Damme effort, Wake Of Death emerges as the best.* *1/2 out of 4-(Pretty good)
Van Damme differently
posted on 25 Aug 2009Wake of Death was the first "Van Damme" movie I'd seen in a couple of years. Shortly put it's a real surprise. Where Arnie acts in big budget movies only, Chuck Norris has become a TV star and Stephen Seagal is heading on the emotional tour, none of them has evolved the way Jean Claude has. It's a metamorphosis! The movie is still centered around action, but "Van Damme" makes you care. His character feels real enough, he's not the 'staring off in the distance' kind of muscle actor anymore. With age, he's gained bearing as well. The lines in his face, the way he acts without forcing his role. He is more patient, takes his time and it makes the roles he chooses more realistic.It's time to look at the now... and Van Damme is in it!(PS: He's come a long way even since this movie; Watch "Until Death" to see where it's taken him today.)