Featured Blu-ray Review: Double Impact: Collector’s Edition
July 23, 2019
Double Impact: Collector’s Edition - Buy from Amazon: Blu-ray
Double Impact stars Jean-Claude Van Damme playing twins with opposite personalities, which was the actor’s idea. The film’s 28% positive reviews is, sadly, about average for his career at this point, but it got a Blu-ray special edition at the end of May. Does it deserve to find a new audience? Or is this for hardcore JCVD fans only?
The film starts in Hong Kong where two business partners, Paul Wagner and Nigel Griffith, at are the opening ceremony for a new tunnel connecting Hong Kong to China. Paul is there with his wife and his infant twin boys, Alex and Chad, and the nanny. On the way home, he tells his bodyguard, Frank Avery, that he won’t be needing him for the rest of the night, so Frank, who was trailing them in another car, pulls away. We immediately see this was a mistake, because as soon as Frank is no longer following Paul and his family, another car begins tailing them, this one filled with Triads. Paul calls Frank on their car radio to confirm that’s not Frank following them and soon Frank is speeding towards the Wagner home to protect his boss. He doesn’t get there in time to save Paul or his wife, but is able to provide cover for the nanny to escape with Alex, while Frank escapes with Chad, but not before seeing Griffith there with the Triad’s, Raymond Zhang. The Nanny drops Alex off at a French missionary to be raised by nuns, while Frank raises Chad himself in France. How else could you explain that accent?
The film skips ahead 25 years to Los Angeles, where Chad is a martial arts instructor for the business Frank runs. Frank hired a private eye in Hong Kong to find Alex and they finally know where he is. He doesn’t tell Chad that and instead says he has another business to run in Hong Kong. Frank doesn’t tell Chad about his twin, but does tell him that he’s not his uncle, nor was he born in France like he thought. Once in Hong Kong, they go to a majong parlor where Chad is repeatedly mistaken for Alex, but doesn’t realize something strange is going on, even after Alex’s girlfriend, Danielle Wilde, comes on to him and invites him into a back room. It isn’t until after Alex catches Chad with Danielle, and hits him, that they figure out they are twins. This is something Frank should have told Chad before they landed in Hong Kong, but if you are expecting this movie to make sense, you are going to be disappointed. Then again, if you are expecting this movie to make sense, then you are not part of the target audience.
Despite the fact that Chad and Alex hate each other, they agree to work together to stop Griffith and Raymond Zhang, while fighting through their henchmen, Moon and Kara.
Double Impact is not a good movie. Let’s just get that out of the way right away. It is, on the other hand, a prime example of late 1980s / early 1990s action cheese. Jean-Claude Van Damme is a master of these films and, while pretending to be two different characters is stretching his acting abilities of the time a little thin, it is a fun twist on the genre. Importantly, Jean-Claude Van Damme is paired up against one of the best villains of the era in Bolo Yeung and the final fight between the two is the highlight of the film. Meanwhile, body-builder turned actress Corinna Everson is domineering as Kara. She’s not as good a fighter as Bolo Yeung, but she adds a bit of style to the film, which the film needed, as it doesn’t do a lot to stand out.
There are a ton of extras on the Blu-ray and most of them are new to this release. This includes a two-part, feature-length making of documentary. I’m not kidding calling it feature-length, as its combined running time is close to 112 minutes, while the movie itself is just under 100. Up next are 53:57 in deleted and extended scenes. Anatomy of a Scene is an eight-minute in-depth look at one of the scenes in the movie. There are also a seven-minute archival behind-the-scenes featurette and eight more minutes of behind-the-scenes footage. Finally, we have five minutes of clips from the movie and six-minutes of interview clips. These were probably given to media outlets to promote the film when it first came out.
Double Impact isn’t a good movie by any traditional definition of the word, but if you are a fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme films, then it is worth checking out. The Blu-ray has more than enough extras to make it a solid purchase, again, if you are a fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme. If you’ve never seen a film with the Muscles from Brussels, then it is worth checking out. I don’t know if it will sell you on the action star, but you might understand why he does have as many fans as he has.
The Movie
The Extras
The Verdict
Filed under: Video Review, Double Impact, Geoffrey Lewis, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bolo Yeung, Andy Armstrong, Alan Scarfe, Alonna Shaw, Philip Chan, Corinna Everson