Skin Trade premiere in Hollywood at The Egyptian on Wednesday, 5.6 with Dolph Lundgren and Tony Jaa in attendance and hopefully co-stars Michael Jai White and Peter Weller as well. Awesome. Then the NEXT night, Jean-Claude Van Damme action-thriller Pound of Flesh holds it's premiere at The Grove a few minutes down the street! Mr. Van Damme has been in Los Angeles for a short spell, working out at Gold's Gym, hitting some clubs, supporting animal rights and looking yoked. It seems like all involved are very proud of Pound of Flesh as producer Kirk Shaw and Ernie Barbarash, along with their leading man, are putting in some solid promotional effort. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Shaw and Barbarash, both great guys and true professionals. Be on the look out for those write ups soon.
Pound of Flesh finds Deacon (Van Damme) partying it up in Manilla before he's due to donate a kidney to his niece. But after a night of booze and sex, Deacon wakes up in a bathtub full of ice missing one of his organs. We find out that Deacon is actually a badass mercenary who is ready to exact brutal and bloody justice on his attackers. The flick was shot in China and sports what looks like Van Damme's most elaborate fight scenes in quite some time. Hong Kong producer Mike Leeder brought in real life martial artist and instructor turned choreographer John Salvitti to bring his Flash Point and Special ID brand of realistic, rough and tumble, MMA style fights to the flick. The script by Joshua James is said to include plenty of drama as well and provides JCVD another chance to show off his underrated range that we've seen in J.C.V.D., Until Death, Wake of Death and The Expendables II.
Kirk Shaw has been a prolific producer for quite some time and has worked with the likes of Dolph Lundgren, Steven Seagal and Wesley Snipes in the action world. This marks his first outing with Jean-Claude so here's hoping we'll see another leading man vehicle for our man Van in the near future. Pound of Flesh reunites Van Damme with director Ernie Barbarash for a third time after 2011's Assassination Games with Scott Adkins and 2012's 6 Bullets. So far all signs point to Pound of Flesh being their biggest and best collaboration to date. See ya at the show!
Remember when Jean-Claude Van Damme was in Menlo Park visiting Facebook Headquarters? It may be a coincidence but now you're seeing Brainfail's JCVD Quiz pop up to see what character you are. After answering 10 quick questions, I ended up with Kickboxer's Kurt Sloane as I'm driven by Pride and Revenge! I'll also stop at nothing for loved ones! Sounds about right. "I want you to teach me Muy Thai"...cut to yoked and tan Van Damme kicking a tree and drunk dancing! What a coincidence as JCVD is shooting or about to start on his part in the Kickboxer reboot. He's been looking in great shape recently, feeling alive and hitting the gym in pajama pants, trying to lift buildings and says mentor/instructor Claude Goetz is joining him on set.
If you'll recall, Kickboxer: Vengeance started shooting last year in New Orleans with a cast that includes Georges St. Pierre, Dave Bautista, Gina Carano, Darren Shahlavi (Train in Peace) and martial artist Alain Moussi. The John Stockwell directed, Dimitri Logothetis and Jim McGrath scripted flick ran into financial issues that saw the crew not being paid for their last several weeks of work. That's not exactly unheard of in the independently financed world but it was interesting to see Van Damme's name used to bolster the headlines even though he's not a producer and hadn't even worked on the picture yet. One of the producers strangely took to social media to tell the crew not to talk about it as if he was threatening them for being upset over not being paid...The Thailand portion of shooting looks to be ramping up and IMDb is reporting a $17 million dollar budget.
The trailer for Pound of Flesh, Van Damme's latest headlining actioner hit recently promising a gory and shady mix of organ theft, revenge and salvation set to high kicks, car chases, shootouts and Bibles to the throat on the streets of Hong Kong. Aki Aleong, who played Muy Thai trainer Khao in Van Damme's 1996 directorial debut The Quest, plays an ally. Darren Shahlavi looks like he's playing the main henchman here so be prepared for some high kicking meets rough and tumble MMA style fight scenes. The action and mood of the flick looks solid with Van Damme playing a mercenary type scheduled to donate his kidney to his niece. But after a crazy night out he wakes up in a bath tub full of ice and missing his organ. Teaming up with his peaceful bro, the duo set out to get the kidney back and save the young girl. Even in the short trailer, Van Damme looks pissed, mean and truthful, talking about damning souls to rescue the girl. 6 Bullets and Assassination Games director Ernie Barbarash helms a script from Joshua James. Hong Kong based Dammaged Goods supporter Mike Leeder produced this bad boy and the release can't come soon enough. Big Mike is on a tear as the Mark Dacascos and Matthias Hues (I Come In Peace) lead Ultimate Justice recently finished shooting in Germany.
Speaking of Germany and Van Damme connections, frequent collaborator and Lionheart writer/director Sheldon Lettich along with co-star Harrison Page attended a special event in Kassel to commemorate the release of the Cult Platinum Edition Blu-Ray. A European print was found, cleaned up and screened theatrically with a Q&A with Lettich and Page after. The duo will also be hitting a local comic convention this week.
