The girl comes to New Orleans to find her missing father, a Vietnam veteran. Asking for the help of a retired Marine Corps scout and now an unemployed sailor Chance Boudreau, the girl learns that her father was an urban beggar, and soon the police find his corpse in a burnt warehouse. But Chance is sure that this is not an accident, and together with the girl he will organize his own investigation.

Soon he learns about a certain gang organizing a safari for the rich, where live people are released as game – useless vagrants. The bandits do not need anyone to know about their activities. A merciless hunt begins on Chance and his girlfriend.

4k movies reviews
Having moved to Hollywood, the Chinese magician John Wu made only two good films, this, in my truly correct opinion, is one of them. The movie tells about the everyday life of the menhunters. The profession, frankly, is not very respected, but in the cinema it is completely welcomed, and in the mid-90s there was no end to such kind of films. “Difficult Target” is probably the best in this militant offshoot.

The plot in the film is just like two kopecks, therefore, it is perfect: there are no idiocies and there are no cheap moments. Bad guys are known from the beginning, and they are unimaginably bad; good guys are not known from the beginning, but they are perfect good guys too.

The film begins as a typical action movie of the golden era: the villains chase after the victim, the victim, as usual, looks pitiful, which is why you immediately begin to feel a burning dislike for the villains. Well, let’s imagine that the pursuit would not be for a wicked bum, but for a broker from Wall Street or, even worse, for a millionaire, many would support the hunters with giggling, and immediately make it clear that the villains are real bastards.

So the movie would have ended, but the homeless man had a daughter who would also have meant nothing to the film if it had not occurred to her to hire Jean Claude Van Damme to help her find her father. The Belgian here looks just phenomenal – the hairstyle is incredibly stylish, a raincoat like Neo, tight jeans, a bold look. When looking at such a hero, it is not clear how the villains did not immediately scatter.

But they did not run away, apparently because of the incredible viciousness. The evil in the film comes from Lance Hanrickson, who, in my opinion, embodied everything that he could afford to embody. The villain came out of him like a hurricane. In special stages, they say that because of such total villainy, he spontaneously ignited twice on the set, once it was even filmed and left in the film, the frame is good, it burns by five points. They did not manage to remove the second fire, because Van Damme, who was nearby, began to wave the turntables so seriously that the rising wind knocked the flame off Lance.

In “Hard Target” almost all the standard plot moves with Van Damme are used, such as: Van Damme hits from below, hits from above, hits from the air, hits from a roundabout, hits from a sweep. Ignored only the plot twists with Van Damme’s bare bottom and the move with the vision, after which Jean-Claude all beaten gets new strength and, rising, in a minute scrolls the lion’s share of the plot moves, multiplied by ten, flavored with shouts like “Aaaaa!”

It is impossible not to say about the filming. Pigeons are naturally present, but I’m not talking about them. In this film, there is no busting with slo-mo, which often happens to Wu, perhaps due to the fact that plot twists such as an air strike with a Belgian look great. In one moment, which, in my recollection, enters the most spectacular moments from the films, Van Damme takes off into the air and kicks a motorcyclist as he rushes past with his foot. Seeing this for the first time, I could not resist a pig squeal, it looks incredibly cool. Considering that the episode was filmed only from the fifth take – four stuntmen before that Jean Claude, not calculating the blow, beat off their heads, – one can only applaud the talent of John Woo, who, having tied Van Damme’s leg, softened the blow and the last stuntman survived.

The action here is hurricane, if someone wants believability – do not watch this movie for any money. The moments when a Belgian, standing on a rushing moped, blows up a villainous jeep or stuns a rattlesnake with his fist, go straight to the universities to directing departments with the note “how to shoot to make it cool”.

Together with Lance in the film, Arnold Vosloo, who is familiar to many from the role of a vile mummy in the film of the same name, is very effectively malicious in the film, but is much more vicious and fanatical here, cuts the ears of proletarians, shoots in the head with a pump-action shotgun and rejoices like a child like the results. In the course of the film, he received ideas about moving the business to Eastern Europe, to the Balkans, he says, well, or in the suburbs, there, in Khimki, they say, you can put headshots right in broad daylight, the main thing is to give someone a paw, and they will blame the unfortunate happening.

Watching how Jean Claude hits the muzzles of the adversaries in the film, I am very pleased with the press stories that the Belgian is beaten in foreign clubs all the time. Van Damme will come in to sit with a glass of whiskey, and he immediately gets three blows on the head with a crowbar, there is no other way, only a steel crowbar is possible. Usually bikers appear in the press, who apparently have a grudge against Belgium, so they beat Van Damme, that only Mickey Rourke saves him from the hands of rabid Harley fans. The hero himself declares that he is always found drunk, and then, having recovered, he walks to the port bars and pummels all suspicious bikers.

Honestly, here’s how I imagine that such a kick, and even in a boot really hits someone’s head, for some reason I don’t want to believe that Van Damme does not have kung fu, but ballet. After all, they do not always speed up, they do not always slow down, and the leg flies faster than a fast train. It’s a shame I didn’t have such a sensei.

Everything else that happens in the film fades in the background, in the first is the Belgian’s leg, which destroys everything in its path, of course, with the help of John Wu, who gave me an excellent film as a child, and Van Damme is one of the best films of his career. He can be proud of this film, all sorts of Oscar-winning Tom Hanks would look like a scarecrow here, but the actors, of course, they, Van Damme are mediocre. Nobody thinks that some people go to show karate and others play gay. And who is better?

Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (80.3 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Audio
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)

Subtitles
English SDH.