Stone Group. Director Sheldon Lettich; Producer Ashok Amritraj, Jean-Claude Van Damme; Screenplay Sheldon Lettich, Jean-Claude Van Damme; Camera Richard Kline; Editor Mark Conte; Music Arthur Kempel; Art Director John Jay Moore
Jean-Claude Van Damme
Geoffrey Lewis
Alan Scarfe
Alonna Shaw
Philip Chan
Cory Everson
This double-dose of Jean-Claude Van Damme turns on a typically lame revenge plot while dragging out unimaginatively shot action sequences until no one will give a good Van Damme. The one-time karate champ nicknamed 'muscles from Brussels' apparently wanted to stretch his acting hamstring in this dual role as twins separated at six months.
Pic [from a story by Van Damme, Sheldon Lettich, Steve Meerson and Peter Krikes] starts off with the twins' parents being killed by an evil developer (Alan Scarfe). One grows up on the mean streets of Hong Kong, while the other was raised by a family friend (Geoffrey Lewis) and turns up 25 years later as a Los Angeles karate instructor. Lewis' character discovers the other twin is alive and takes his charge back to Hong Kong, reuniting the mismatched pair to reclaim their inheritance.
Van Damme uses two looks - glowering/nasty and friendly/bewildered - to differentiate the characters. It's disturbing that not a single Asian character exhibits any redeeming features. Equal opportunities are provided in the evil henchmen ranks, however, where female bodybuilder Cory Everson joins so-called 'Chinese Hercules' Bolo Yeung, a perennial martial arts bad guy who hasn't won a fight in one of these opuses dating back to Enter the Dragon.
(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1991. Running time: 108 MIN.
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