In this Video I’m going to discuss the Story, Production, Directing, Editing, Acting and Action that makes Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Hard Target film so amazing! This also happens to be part 1 in a 4 part video series where I’m going to discuss the Hong Kong film Directors that Jean-Claude Van Damme worked with in the 1990s. Everyone on this list by the way had their first US Produced film with Van Damme. This first video will be covering John Woo, known for directing Hong Kong action classics such as The Killer and Hardboiled.
Check out a great article from The Dissolve that broaches this topic here: thedissolve.com/features/movi...
Hong Kong New Wave started in 1979. During the 1980s, the film industry really started to flourish in China, many Chinese household did not have a TV at the time and Film served as the primary source of entertainment. Many of the New Wave directors had a Western-style education and thus, were influenced by western filmmaking and culture.
Hard Target was the first big Hollywood studio movie helmed by an Asian Director. John Woo was first offered the job to direct by Universal Pictures chairman Tom Pollock after he had seen John Woo’s The Killer. 1989’s The Killer, made a run through Toronto, Park City and Cannes film festivals, racking up critical accolades for its hyperkinetic action sequences and splendid excessive gunplay.
Writer Chuck Pfarrer originally based the script of 1965’s The Naked Prey. That film’s plot takes place in South Africa and centers around a safari guide trying to survive in the harsh environment all the while trying to avoid death at the hands of vengeful African natives. This initial idea and script for Hard Target really didn’t gain much traction; however, Chuck Pfarrer would make one final attempt on the script, this time basing it off of 1932s The Most Dangerous Game. The story in that one would feature a big-game hunter from New York City who falls off a yacht and swims to what seems to be an abandoned and isolated island in the Caribbean, where he is hunted by a Russian aristocrat.
Lance Henriksen plays Emil Fouchon, a weathy sportsman who hunts homeless ex-soldiers for sport. Lance Henriksen accepted the role of Emil Fouchon stating that he was a great fan of John Woo, noting that his earlier films “were so creative, so balletic, and had this incredible philosophy in them. The violence was only a container for the philosophy.” Arnold Vosloo plays Pik van Cleef, a collaborator and the right-hand man to Lance Henriken’s character. Lance Henrisken and Arnold Vosloo had such great on-screen chemistry that one of the Universal Pictures executives stated that he wished he could have gotten the pair their own film together.
The overall production for Hard Target was put on a tight schedule and one of the difficulties for John Woo was dealing with the star power of Jean-Claude Van Damme, who exerted a great deal of control over the entire project, from script approval, to filming, all the way down to the final cut. For example, Van Damme would insist on having one of the cameras focus on his muscles at all times. This is probably why John Woo stated that Van Damme had “a pretty big ego, but he’s still professional and always tries to do a good job.” Van Damme would also delay filming because he was often found on his phone trying to negotiate new projects. Despite these difficulties, Woo did not regret working with Van Damme and referred to him as a quote “quite interesting guy”.
It was tough for Woo to communicate the type of shot he wanted with cinematographer Russell Carpenter. To further complicate matters, Carpenter found further difficulty in filming just from a technical perspective, particularly when it came to the large gunfight scenes. He specifically mentioned the Mardi Gras parade warehouse scene in an interview, recollecting “just the lighting for a space like that, with all those strange shapes and shadows was difficult enough, but John then added the further complication of wanting the scene shot from several angles at once-often with more than one of the cameras moving”.
This video would not be complete if I didn’t at least mention the 2016 sequel, Hard Target 2, starring acclaimed martial artist, Scott Adkins. It continues the human hunt theme, this time in the jungles of Myanmar and Thailand. Of course, that setting would be a lot cheaper to shoot in and portray in film than the originals New Orleans. But of course, it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting or visually exciting either. As far as the film’s villain goes, he’s played by Robert Knepper.
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