The Jean-Claude Van Damme Experience – Part 1
As I write this, Jean-Claude Van Damme has just celebrated his 64th Birthday and I’m looking back on knowing the man for more than 35 years and being a fan of his work from day one. And with Bulletproof Action celebrating all things Jean-Claude and Van Damme, they asked me if I had anything to say about the man, the myth and the legend that is Jean-Claude Van Damme. Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been a fan of Jean-Claude since the early days, and been lucky enough to interview him numerous times over the years, work with him on and off camera both officially and unofficially on a number of projects, yes I’m the Producer who to save costs said I’ll play the character Jean-Claude beats the crap out of in the Pound of Flesh car fight I’ve gotten to know the man behind the legend and while at times we’ve literally banged heads and not always seen eye to eye, I have seen the very best of him and consider myself very lucky to call him a friend and I’ll always have time for him. So make yourself a coffee, get yourself comfortable while I take you on a rambling journey through my Van Damme experience!
Jean Jean Jean-Claude, Van Van Van Damme! The Jean-Claude Van Damme Experience
by Mike Leeder
The first time I really saw Jean-Claude Van Damme was in a promo ad for Seasonal Films No Retreat, No Surrender in the Hong Kong movie magazine Cinemart, the films Producer Ng See-yuen had made Jackie Chan into a superstar with the double bill of Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow and Drunken Master, launched the Directing career of the late Corey Yuen with Ninja in the Dragon’s Den that introduced the world to Conan Lee alongside Hiroyuki/Henry Sanada as he was called back then, and just signed Cynthia Rothrock to a multi film deal which would see her make her debut alongside Michelle Yeoh in Yes, Madam! A couple of days later I rented a movie and there was a trailer for No Retreat, No Surrender on the tape, presenting a movie from “the Creator of Jackie Chan” and introducing this the Syndicate’s Super Kicking villain in the shape of Jean-Claude Van Damme. I think I must have watched that trailer 20 times that night, I was like who the hell is this guy?
And a few weeks later Entertainment in Video released No Retreat, No Surrender in the UK, and while Kurt McKinney may have been the lead, who gets too learn from the spirit of Bruce Lee no less, it was the Syndicate’s Soviet Mean Machine played by Jean-Claude Van Damme who stole the show, the man could kick, had the flexibility (back then we weren’t used to seeing a western martial arts guy drop into the splits like that in films!) and could pull off fast paced high impact Hong Kong fight choreography. I was an instant fan, and a couple of days later watching Breakin’ or Breakdance as it was called in the UK, I spotted a familiar face dancing on muscle beach, it’s a young Van Damme and the man standing next to him is non-other than Michel Qissi. (Jean-Claude later told me that he and Michel were nearly removed from the crowd scene, when during early takes JC was dropping into the splits, doing aerial splits and kicks and distracting everyone from our hero breakdancers, until the AD team warned them if they did it again they’d be gone!)
Now No Retreat was a big hit around the world, limited theatrically but did great business on video, and it gave Jean-Claude a great showreel of what he could deliver on screen, and I think it was that footage as well as the impromptu high kick at Menahem Golan and demonstration at his office, that helped secure him the lead as Frank Dux in Bloodsport, based on a true story of course! Now originally JC and Kurt McKinney were supposed to reprise their roles in a direct sequel to No Retreat, No Surrender that was going to see them reprise their characters, shooting in Thailand. But with Bloodsport in the works, Jean-Claude dropped out of the film and according to various people including Jean-Claude, he may have possibly dissuaded McKinney from reprising his role by claiming where they were shooting put them at risk of Pirates!
Bloodsport saw Jean-Claude returning to Hong Kong, the place where a young Belgium man named Jean-Claude Van Varenberg had acquired the Van Damme name, from a friend of his family, Pol Van Damme who is heavily involved in the fashion manufacturing industry and lives and operates his business from there, and tried unsuccessfully at the time to get contracts with Golden Harvest, Shaw Brothers and even independent Producers and Directors like Joseph Lai and Godfrey Ho at IFD Films, who years later would show me his reel and resume in their office and explain how if he[d stayed in Hong Kong they’d have used him, but he wanted them to stop the movies they were making and concentrate on making him a star. I remember Joseph Lai saying how impressed he’d been by Van Damme’s drive and self belief at the time, “he knew he wanted to be a star, and I think he knew he was going to make it!”
And on the Bloodsport shoot, JC started to make a name for himself as a performer, impressing both the international and local cast and crew with his dedication to the project, he worked with Hong Kong stunt coordinator assistant fight choreographer John Cheung (veteran of Jackie Chan Stunt Team, and choreographer for Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story) on the actual fight choreography for the movie (Cheung would later reprise his work behind the camera with van Damme on both Kickboxer and Double Impact), and No Retreat, No Surrender had started doing the rounds, and Producer/Director Frankie Chan remembers arranging a meeting with Jean-Claude during the shooting of Bloodsport, after a Malaysian Producer and himself had watched No Retreat and found out he was in Hong Kong, and pitched the idea of Jean-Claude playing the main villain in Frankie’s next movie. But he turned them down, telling them he had a multi picture lead deal with Cannon Films and didn’t want to play the villain. (For an idea of what we could have got, watch Frankie battling American Wushu champion Jeff Falcon in Burning Ambition, or both Jeff Falcon and British martial arts legend Mark Houghton in Outlaw Brothers. Frankie always gave the foreign villains, the chance to show their skills.)
But after Bloodsport finished filming, the first cut of the movie shown to Menahem Golan and Golan Globus was such a mess, both men declared the film to be “unreleasable”, and I’d love to see that cut of the movie, considering how bad some of the movies Cannon was happily putting out at that time! And Cannon were unwilling to move forward with their multi picture deal, so Jean-Claude went in search of work, and found himself playing a Russian villain once more in Imperial Entertainment’s action thriller Black Eagle starring Sho Kosugi who was trying to put away the Ninja hood and become a mainstream action hero himself. Van Damme looking like a young Godfather, once more steals the show, demonstrating his flexibility and kicking ability and stealing the spotlight from Kosugi in his own movie.
Now by the time Black Eagle had been completed, Van Damme had been allowed to assist with the edit and put Bloodsport back together, and the film had been released to a moderate box office success in North America, but once again really hit the spot internationally with Van Damme and Michel Qissi being sent around the world to promote the film, often giving live martial arts demonstrations (something that worked so well some years later for Tony Jaa during the promotion and release of Ong Bak). So by the time Black Eagle was being marketed, Bloodsport had come out and Van Damme was now being used as the big selling point for the movie. (Somewhere in the UK, I still have a cool acid washed denim Black Eagle jacket thanks to Imperial!)
It was with the then upcoming release of Bloodsport in the UK, that I first got to meet Van Damme in person by chance at Cannon’s London office, I had gone there trying to get some materials so I could write an article on the movie for one of the UK martial arts magazines, and when I went in to visit, a certain Jean-Claude Van Damme was sitting in the lobby and was somewhat surprised when I recognized him as Bloodsport hadn’t opened in Europe yet and especially that I knew his work from No Retreat No Surrender, and his appearance in Breakin, and we ended up doing a very impromptu interview in a coffee shop nearby with me literally writing down everything Jean-Claude said, this was back in the olden days where we didn’t have mobile phones that could record everything! Simpler but sometimes madder times!
The next time I saw Jean-Claude was for a preview screening of Kickboxer, where Jean-Claude arrived with wife Gladys Portuguese and Michel Qissi, and as he recounted to my frequent partner in crime Arne Venema, spent most of the evening trying to do his best to convince me that the villainous Tong Po was really a Thai mountain man they’d found, despite him looking incredibly like Michel Qissi who was sitting there trying not to laugh!
Arne, he believed it! We told Mikey that Tong Po was really a crazy Thai Wildman we’d found in the mountains, but it was really Michel! Young Mikey was so innocent, he believed me! – JCVD
Note: I would just like to say young Mike while confused that the credit originally read Tong Po: Himself, was pretty sure that it was Michel Qissi playing the role! Especially as Michel was burying his head in his arms trying not to laugh while Jean-Claude regaled me with how he had found the legendary Tong Po!
Now one thing I always found refreshing with Jean-Claude especially back then, was how incredibly enthusiastic Jean-Claude was, and how sometimes much to the frustration of the distributors he would be very willing to talk about the problems he’d had on the movie he was promoting but would talk to you passionately about projects he was planning to do! I remember him talking to me at great length about the original idea for Double Impact, when it was going to be a straight forward remake of The Corsican Brothers and him showing me a pitch deck featuring the mountain man Jean-Claude in sheepskin vest with a shotgun and the city slicker version with a nice suit and a big smile, and how AWOL/Wrong Bet/Lionheart was very much based on the Charles Brosnan Hard Times movie. And while his star was rapidly rising, he always remembered me at press events etc. and gave me some extra time for interviews.
By the time we met again on the set of Double Impact, I’d made the move to Hong Kong myself and got to spend some time with him and Glady’s and the kids in Hong Kong during shooting. Now Jean-Claude was wearing a lot of hats on this movie, he was playing both leading men, he was heavily involved in the script , driving the project as a Producer, and the fight choreography etc. and we kind of fell out of contact following Double Impact for a couple of years.
Before we met again and renewed our friendship when I was supposed to be one of his Security team for the opening of Planet Hollywood in Hong Kong, when he Stallone, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, Don Johnson, Danny Glover, Charlie Sheen and so many other people came to town for the Grand Opening. When he saw me as part of his security detail, it ended up with me in a headlock and JC telling the Security that I would be his personal security and it was quite the evening to say the least. That was a special time, and I have great memories of the opening of Planet Hollywood Hong Kong, with Action Actress Kim-Maree Penn (Knock Off, Fun & Fury)’s security company Signal 8 taking care of things, with the late Darren Shahlavi who would later work with Jean-Claude and myself on Pound of Flesh, Winston Ellis from The Quest, Paul Rapovski from Hitman, Mike Miller from Knock Off and more being part of the fun in front and behind the scenes.
Jean-Claude was back and forth for a while, shooting Street Fighter in Thailand and Australia, promoting Timecop, meeting with Ringo Lam for Maximum Risk and then he started prepping for his directorial debut with The Quest, and asked me to be around for the Hong Kong casting sessions, which were held at Planet Hollywood and saw JC finding a number of fighters for the movie including Brit kicker Mike Lambert (Black Mask, Danny the Dog), Peter Wong (Blade of Fury) ,Yip Choi-nam (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) and Habby Heske (Don’t Give a Damn, Mr. Nice Guy) from those casting sessions.
And the next time Jean-Claude would really be back to Hong Kong for a lengthy stay would be for the shooting of Knock Off, his second collaboration with Director Tsui Hark, which was to originally have seen Jet Li playing opposite Van Damme, and a storyline that ended with Russian gangsters falling to their death in a fiery underground cavern when their ahem “Knock Off” jeans broke. The film shot for several months in 1997 through the handover, and was somewhat chaotic to say the least. I very briefly worked on the production before there was a ‘falling out’ and my work was curtailed but my access to the set wasn’t! A lot of friends were working on the movie in front and behind the camera including Van Damme’s photo/stunt double Todd Senofonte, stunt double Alex Kuzlecki, Jeff Wolfe from Once Upon a Time in China and America, Kim-Maree Penn, Jude Poyer (Gangs of London) and one of my closes friends and flatmate at the time, Australian martial arts actor and stuntman Mike Miller who was a huge Van Damme fan to begin with!
Originally I hadn’t even wanted to go to the casting for Knock Off! I had always been a huge Jean-Claude Van Damme fan, and had even cast for The Quest, but at the time they always seemed to want the huge muscular guys, and that’s not me! I’m small and wiry and I figured at first that it would be a waste of time to go to the casting, but Mike Leeder and Kim-Maree Penn convinced me to go with them, and what was interesting was that Tsui Hark wanted the villains to be a diverse group, he wanted them all to be characters, so you got Jeff Wolfe who’s 6’3 as Skar, and there’s Steve Brettingham as the Sniper, and they cast me as a character known as both Tickler (Laughing) and The Coughing Man, he gives off this very weird weak persona and then he just lets loose! I was quite excited to say the least when I got cast but had heard both good and bad things about JC so I did wonder what to expect.
My first day on set was when I got to meet Jean-Claude, and it was much better than I ever have expected it to go. He had to film a few short scenes while I just watched from the sideline and then when he was done with that, in true scheduling craziness, we would start shooting the big end fight no sooner then we’d arrived. Now Sammo Hung was the choreographer and they wanted the action to be quite powerful, so I have to hit JC’s character with some power kicks and then send him flying. Originally JC was willing to do it, but I think because of safety and because it was early in the shooting schedule, they felt it would be better if I delivered the hits to Jean-Claude’s double (Alex K) first. Now a lot of actors would be, oh its going to be my double I’ll either go back to my trailer for a while or I’ll leave the set, JC was completely the opposite. He sat down with a big mug of coffee and watched us film, literally cheering us on from the sidelines!
He kept telling me to give ti my all, because this was my time to show the world my stuff and because its on film, it will be there for eternity which he said was even more of a reason to give it everything I had! (Laughing) it was unbelievable, the star of the movie, someone who had been my idol for nearly 10 years, you ask Big Mike I would watch his movies to be inspired to stretch and work on my kicks, and he was cheering for me and motivating me to be the best I could be! That was a really wild first time meeting him, the perfect introduction to one of my biggest heroes and from that day on I had a really great positive working experience with him.
When we were shooting the fight, Sammo wanted there to be a feeling of power when we connected, and we’re fighting in and around containers, on a wet slippery ship deck, so we were all getting banged up, Jean-Claude, Alex and then he got quite badly hurt and Todd had to step in to double JC for some of the fight too, and I’m getting slammed and banged by Jean-Claude and trying my best not to crack him when we’re really fighting. And Jean-Claude would always ask if I was ok, he really watched out for me when we were fighting. He was a consummate professional and one of the coolest nicest movie stars I ever got to work with.
I have a lot of great memories of living and working in Hong Kong, and making Knock Off and getting to fight Jean-Claude Van Damme was one of the best experiences I ever had on a film. (Laughing) Even when I got badly rocked one day and came home with a pretty nasty concussion, and thankfully Mike realized what was happening and took me to the hospital, and then when Van Damme heard about it, he lectured Production about taking care of people and told me to make sure I was ok! – Mike Miller
Yeah, the shooting of Knock Off was quite an experience and I really feel that the film got short changed, when you watch the movie you can see the first half is very Tsui Hark with the crazy camerawork and angles, and the very almost Stephen Chow feel to it at times, it’s very much an action comedy, and then at about the hour mark, it feels like Tsui was no longer at the helm, and whoever edited it, didn’t follow the same tempo and made it more of a generic action movie. There was a lot more fight action shot for the movie, which sadly never made it into the finished film, but for so many reasons, Knock Off holds a special place in my heart. So close and yet, the paint’s still wet!
To Be Continued…
