The portrayal of martial arts in Jean-Claude Van Damme movie has very little to do with actual martial arts. They have a symbolic value. They were about empowered men, accepting to shoulder the responsibility of getting their loved ones through a hard time. If you have the power to do it, it's your responsibility to do it. It was the same thing over and over again, but it's what we always wanted. To see someone with power and courage getting through the day, so we could aspire to do the same if the opportunity ever shown. They were very powerful in their own right and inspired several young men (such as myself) to get into martial arts. LIONHEART was one of Van Damme mid-sprint, less inspired productions, but we all remember it fondly, because it gave us the message we wanted to hear. Its sole claim to immortality was to give the people what they wanted *.
LIONHEART, the excuse for Jean-Claude Van Damme's accent is that he's actually a French soldier. A deserted from the foreign legion who hustles to America after his brother is burned alive during a drug deal gone wrong. There is this awesome scene where the animatronic mess of melted skin is crying out for his brother, who's in North Africa. Lyon (Van Damme) lands in America without the money to pay his brother's hospital bill, so he seizes an opportunity to participate in underground, no hold barred fights to raise it. This life comes with certain quirks though, including the seducing, but cold hearted
(Deborah Rennard) who really REALLY wants to bone Lyon.
If you believe legendary promotional tape/documentary GRACIES IN ACTION, underground fighting in the eighties involved involved dojos, styles wars and lots of ego. In that regard, the movies of Bruce Lee were kind of accurate. LIONHEART doesn't care about realism, though. It creates a bizarre dreamscape where underground fighting is a whim of rich people with gambling issues who are bored with Vegas. There is very little interesting material in LIONHEART, apart from the over-the-top, over-designed, theatrical fight scenes in the strangest possible venues, such as an underground parking lot, a racquetball court and unexplainably, a quarter-full swimming pool. The ''what the fuck'' factor is strong with LIONHEART and sells JCVD's flying martial arts antics better than a movie attempting the serious approach.
YouTube people have the strangest ideas.
Let me highlight a few bizarre recurring themes of Jean-Claude Van Damme movies that LIONHEART puts under a magnifying glass. There is always a final boss in his movies (like in video games) nd they never really are fighting machines. They are huge, well-conditionned fighters who can take punishment for hours and seemingly crush you if you stay in front of them long enough. To their credit, they all have a definite style of fighting. Attila **, the antagonist of LIONHEART, is a counterfighting boxer. He cuts into your fighting space and preys on your mistakes. That brings up the second bizarre quirk of JCVD movies. His final opponent always gets the best of him until Van Damme's character get mad, suspend reality and nails the bad guy with the most impossible moves. It's as if the antagonist was given a poison that makes him slow and dumb off-screen while Van Damme's character had a life-affirming moment in his inmost cave ***.
LIONHEART is the definition of an average Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. It's not bad, but it's a movie that doesn't even try to be interesting outside of its outlandish fighting scene and its hilarious underlying sexual tension between Lyon and Cynthia. I never rooted for two characters to bone one another as much as in LIONHEART. The Van Damme completists will love this one, but it's not a very good starting point to get into the guy. LIONHEART is a movie you watch on late night television while doing something else at the same time. It's droning from one fighting scene to another, yet it becomes wild and unpredictable when fists are flying. A strange, yet fascinating viewing experience.
* dixit Jalen Rose.
** Played by Michel ''Tong Po'' Qissi's real-life brother Abdel. Michel also plays in the movie, by the way.