So that's why Columbia is spending a reported $18 million to make the upcoming "Double Impact," in which Van Damme plays twins who must do battle with the Chinese mafia. (A Sign of Our Times: In 1989, an enthusiastic fellow, walking out of a theater having just seen Seagal's "Hard to Kill," said, "I can't wait till that comes out on video.") They also know that the action genre is among the most lucrative in the home-video market. The studios know that a hit action picture can generate as much as half of its total box office revenues overseas.
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"If they were good with their fists but didn't have any aikido moves, it wouldn't make any difference."Īnd because these tough guys "don't say a lot," Gill says, "when you translate the movie into French, there isn't a lot of dubbing to be done." He sees them as more in the tradition of Clint Eastwood than Bruce Lee. The success of Seagal and Van Damme may actually have less to do with their exotic fighting styles than the fact that they're "tough guys who have a persona," says Mark Gill, a Columbia Pictures spokesman. The new "Iron & Silk," a sort of art-house kung fu film starring Yale man Mark Salzman, focuses on the pure beauty of physical motion.īut these things alone don't explain the box office revival. There is also, of course, a visually enticing balletic quality to the martial arts. It's a physical, personal thing." As for the old-fashioned roundhouse movie punch, "subconsciously, we know that's false." "There's no equipment between and the other guy. Audiences are tired of seeing "too many guns, too many cars, too many spaceships." In a well-made fighting flick, "we see the truth in it in terms of the physical action," he says. Judging by the ads, however, the verbal demands placed upon Speakman in "The Perfect Weapon" seem limited to the occasional "No problem." At which point he proceeds to whomp the bejeebers out of somebody with lightning-quick punches.Īnd that's good, says Ric Meyers, a contributing editor to Inside Kung-Fu magazine. you're starting to say something about your ability," says Speakman, "because it is no day at the beach."
"When you can get work as an actor - any union work as an actor in L.A.
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He has even gotten a few bit parts in TV shows and low-budget films, parts having nothing to do with his ability to bust up a body with his bare hands. Speakman makes a point of declaring himself "an actor who can do martial arts, not a martial artist trying to act." For six years, he says, he has taken acting lessons. (The heavily advertised "Perfect Weapon" opened nationwide on Friday.)
And Paramount Pictures has spent $10 million to create "The Perfect Weapon," the film debut of karate teacher Jeff Speakman, with hopes that he'll be the next one. Jean-Claude Van Damme, the bulging Belgian, is a big star even in the Far East. Stone-browed Steven Seagal is a GQ cover boy. Now, after a long cool-down, the martial arts movie hero is back with a vengeance. And who among us has managed to forget these gold-record lyrics: "Everybody was kung fu fighting - hyah! - those kicks were fast as lightning. To this day the late Bruce Lee ("Enter the Dragon," "Fists of Fury") remains a powerful pop icon. The year was 1973, and overblown Chinese martial arts films quickly became an American passion. In the beginning, there was "Five Fingers of Death," the kind of movie where a good guy could get his eyes plucked out and still come back to kick butt.
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