Double Impact – Two Jean-Claudes for the price of one!


Yeah, the ‘Muscles From Brussels’ was desperately trying to stand out from other eighties action heroes, such as Schwarzenegger and Stallone.  At least he had his whole ‘martial arts’ thing going for him, which did make his films just a little different to every other muscleman pounding countless henchmen into submission.  That’s not to say that he doesn’t pound plenty of goons in 1991’s ‘Double Impact.’

25 years before a time where everyone wore pink and green (also known as ‘the nineties’) a pair of twin boys parents were murdered in Hong Kong.  Now they’ve both grown up into revenge-seeking fully-grown men, hell-bent on bringing those who killed their parents to justice – i.e. two Jean Claude Van Dammes and a green-screen to put them on screen at the same time.


‘Double Impact’ is pretty bad.  And I loved it.  It’s one of those ‘so-bad-they’re-good’ films where you really can’t take it that seriously.  If you’re in the mood for some sort of ‘high art’ with heaps of character development and/or growth then you’re not going to enjoy this.  However, if you’re looking for a simple action/martial arts film where you suspend your disbelief in order to watch our identical heroes triumph then you’re going to get it here.


I’ve mentioned the simple green-screen technology is used to create the two versions of Van Damme and, despite it probably being pretty obvious which one isn’t there, it’s actually better done than you might think – especially for the time period/budget.  Also, believe it or not, Van Damme actually does a decent job of trying to portray two different versions of himself and, by the end of the film, you may just believe the two of him are two different characters.  Also, special mention to Geoffrey Lewis for a surprisingly good performance as the older ‘mentor-like’ figure to our heroes.


There’s plenty of martial arts action for you to enjoy and – yes – he does the splits at least once in the film.  But you will need to be in a particularly forgiving mood to full appreciate this.  Ever since ‘Star Wars’ audiences have joked about bad-guys having ‘Stormtrooper aim’ – i.e. the baddies can’t shoot straight.  Here it is most noticeable.  Seriously, the enemy forces are possibly the worst aim I’ve ever seen in a film.  Just switch off brain, put sunglasses on to prevent the glare from the ‘colour-clash’ of JCVD’s wardrobe and enjoy.


7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that