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LIONHEART is Van Damme around 1991, and the best up to that time if you ask me, which by reading this you shall. The thing is, personal competitive fighting preferences differ, and in my opinion, pre-packaged street brawls are the most dull action subgenres. There is little space for chase scenes and explosions; there are too many laws and patterns of the fights. I have nothing against a good spooky ancient temple with snake torches and mystical statues, but I prefer pre-fight jitters locker room montages.
This smart distraction continues the flowing competitive fighting of BLOOD SPORT and KICKBOXER, but takes the competition to a cartoonish underground version of New York and Los Angeles. This particular subgenre also becomes stale very fast, typically because of repetitive viewing of the same poorly lit arena with a fence or barbwire, strobelight perhaps. This one avoids that problem with each new fight having a new location and an audience: a circle of cars (with people rollerskating around), a swimming pool where a lot of the water has been drained (crowd in bikinis like it’s a pool party), inside a mansion (a black tie affair) and (my favorite) a racquetball court. Brian Thompson is there but does not participate in the fighting. The true villain is Cynthia (I could swear the credits referred to her as simply “The Lady”, but perhaps I dreamed that) the clichéd L.A. rich spoiled woman of the 80s: short hair, expensive get-up, aggressively sexually and commercially.
LionheartThe story starts off with a brother named Francois who gets set ablaze during a bizarre drug deal that closely resembles a scene from Westside Story. He does survive this ordeal, however he is burnt to a crisp and calls of for his brother Lyon (played by Jean-Claude Van Damme). Lyon does not get word for weeks as he was Djibouti doing forced labor for the French Foreign Legion. His journey starts with an escape as he stows away on a boat, earns money fighting in a parking structure, and travels to LA with his self proclaimed manager in hopes of finding his brother. Unfortunately, he arrives at the exact time Francois passes away. The widow then goes on to blame Lyon for her husband’s drug problem, and to prevent this, he continues to fight, pretending the winnings are coming from some lifeless life insurance policy.
This time, Van Damme looks tougher, lacking the boyish charm, and has an intense gritty look. He’s got that forehead bump now, though maybe I missed it in the last one. He’s literally blue collar, wearing jeans and a blue work shirt throughout the movie. Then The Lady burns his clothes while he’s passed out drunk, and now he has to go suit shopping with her. (He probably walked into the store only wearing a hotel bathrobe.)
There are a lot of intimidating enemies. The last one is Attilla, a bushy sideburned guy in a black suit and white cat who steps out of a limo (not the best combo). During the fight, he pulls out his cat from the audience to pet her. He also borrowed some dude’s pocket square to wipe the blood off his mouth (you know what, just keep that). So he is a great character.
And remember Tong Po, that terribly frightening Muay Thai fighter from KICKBOXER? He actually is Moroccan and put on Asian makeup for that role. Here, he has a less frightening role as one of two French Foreign Legion soldiers trying to capture Van Damme.
This character is an improvement on the previous Van Dammes because he is a more wanted criminal, but to his brother’s detriment, he is homeless and only wants to get enough money to pay off his sister-in-law’s hospital debt. (If we had universal health coverage LIONHEART would never exist.) The best part is he is not even trying to get revenge; he is simply trying to make up for his failing to escape custody and get around the world quickly enough to see his Darkman-esque brother one last time. He feels like he blew it so he wants to help the widow and daughter.
And in case you were asking where the heck you have seen that niece before, I’ll spare you the search through IMDb. She was the little sister they added in the later seasons of Growing Pains.
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