Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Harrison Page, Deborah Rennard, Brian Thompson, Lisa Pelikan, Ashley Johnson, Ash Adams, Michel Qissi, and Abdul Qissi.
Directed by: Sheldon Lettich.
Released: January 11th, 1991.
Jean-Claude Van Damme plays Lyon Gaultier, a paratrooper working in the French Foreign Legion that is stationed in North Africa. Meantime, his brother in America gets severely burned in a drug deal gone bad by a bunch of kick-boxing drug team members. Upon learning of his brother’s death, Lyon abandons his post when he discovers that they will not let him go and ends up battling his way through fellow soldiers and escaping via jeep, the desert, and then as a stowaway on a tramp steamer ship heading straight for the United States.
The Legion authorities are not too happy about this so they try to get the French Embassy of the United States to side with them but to no avail, the LAPD doesn’t care one bit about hunting down someone like Lyon. So the Legion sends two men to track him down. Meanwhile, Lyon arrives in New York City where he then makes his way to California to meet up with his brother’s family who are now in desperate need of finances, thanks to the death of Lyon’s brother.
Somewhere amidst this mess, Lyon meets a man named Joshua who specializes in ‘fights for money’ and also a very rich woman named Cynthia who is also in the same business. Lyon decides that this would be a great opportunity to help his family out and earn the money that he needs so he agrees to participate in these no limit bare-knuckle fights. However, his brother’s widow doesn’t want to accept any financial help from Lyon due to old grudges.
Lyon continues to fight nevertheless but soon learns that Cynthia has been taking advantage of the victories on his belt to stack up the odds for an extremely tough fighter named Attilla the Hun. Cynthia has also arranged a deal with the Legionnaires to hand Lyon over to them after he has been thoroughly beaten and bruised by Attilla.
This is the story of “Lionheart”, which could be labelled as Jean-Claude Van Damme’s response to Slyvester Stallone’s “Rocky” albeit in a martial arts version. The soundtrack even boasts a “Rocky”-like song called “No Mercy”, but “No Mercy” certainly is no “Eye of the Tiger” or “Hearts on Fire”, I can assure you of that. The plot of “Lionheart” is all too familiar but with newer surroundings. Cynthia arranges for Van Damme’s character to fight in all sorts of various locations for the pleasure of some very wealthy people, these locales range from an underground garage where fighters are surrounded by the bettors themselves who sit in their expensive cars, a half-filled swimming pool behind a big house, and even a racquetball court.
The fights, along with the arenas, are great and all but when you’ve seen one martial arts movie, you’ve pretty much seen all of them. This “Rocky” angle on the martial arts film genre isn’t as unique or as interesting as you would think it may be. One huge disappointment is Van Damme’s main opponent, Attilla, who resembles a big fat Venezuelan ape. This guy is no Bolo Yeung, that’s for sure, he looks more like that fat vampire with the little ponytail from “From Dusk Till Dawn”. Van Damme has made some fairly good movies, even though a lot of them are similar, but this one is not worth the trouble.
