Wake of Death (2004)

In China, the girl Kim (Valerie Tian) witnesses the murder of her mother by her mobster father Sun Quan (Simon Wan) and escapes to Los Angeles in a vessel with other illegal immigrants. The ship is intercepted by the US Immigration Department, and the social worker Cynthia Archer (Lisa King) decides to host Kim at her home with her husband, the bouncer Ben Archer (Jean-Claude Van Damme), and their son Nicholas. Sun Quan comes to USA, and with the support of the dirty chief of Lisa, he gets the information where his daughter is and uses the Chinese triad to kill Cynthia and her Chinese stepparents in their restaurant in Chinatown. However, Nicholas and Kim escape from the killers, and Ben calls his friend to revenge the death of his beloved wife.

"Wake of Death" is not a totally bad Van Damme's movie. The predictable and violent screenplay uses a silly and absurd argument, the free execution of Cynthia and the stepparents in a restaurant, to trigger the character of Van Damme, who is worse than the bad guys, to revenge the death of his wife. But although using the traditional clichés of the action movies, the production of "Wake of Death" is very reasonable; the cinematography has a good quality; and if the viewer shuts-down the brain, this movie entertains. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Vingança" ("Revenge")

Fmovies: Van Damme has shocked me, my jaw literally DROPPED! I never thought Van Damme ever had real talent as an actor till I saw this movie. Van Damme has finally delivered a powerfully talented and stunning performance that i think HE never knew he even had! He's finally proved with this movie that his acting skills are as powerful as his kicks and thats putting it lightly. Doesn't matter what the hell you think of his past films or what u saw, Wake Of Death exposes a raw, gritty and capturing Van Damme like you will never see. This is truly his dark side and we NEED to see more of this. Forget must see, this is a MUST HAVE, especially any true Van Damme fans...enough said.

This is the first time that I'm going to write a review for a movie just because it was one of the best recent action films that I have seen and the rating is far below what it deserved. It's a movie set in a dark environment with some true jeanne claude action and some of the best acting I have ever seen him do. The action and violence is intended for mature audiences as it can get somewhat gruesome at times but that is what I liked about this film, it wasn't hollywoodized and comes at you raw. After the movie I felt like it was 2 hours well spent and for being a major movie critic that rarely happens to me! For some reason it just all came together nicely and I definitely recommend this film especially if you enjoy action movies and are a van damme fan!

Wake of Death fmovies. Well, what can I say? Straight to video releases are always looked at strangely. I myself are guilty of thinking "The movie cant be that good if it didn't get shown at the Cinema!". I was totally Wrong with Wake Of Death...

This is a great Movie! Van Damme is basically "EXCELLENT". Lisa King who plays Cynthia Archer, Van Damme's wife is quite poor and the Cheapo acting kind of shines in her scenes. She is very basic and really, isn't very good.

Your Probably thinking "This don't sound too good from what I've said but wait, let me continue!".

The Action is excellently balanced in the Movie. The Story is constantly moving in the right direction and you never really lose feel of where things are going! Also, the camera work reminds me of some great flicks like "Face Off" and the Driving scenes could be mistaken for clips from "Fast and the Furious". I ain't kidding, they are really good! This Movie is on par with some films that have been on at the Cinemas! However, if you cant stand rubbish acting, bare with it until his Wife gets killed as the quality shown in her scenes does sound cheap (like TV Soap acting). After that, its all revenge and thats entertaining! Lastly, with Films like "The Punisher" not living up to my Expectations, I rated Wake Of Death better than Punisher! Thats how good I thought it was...

I have always wanted Van Damme in a french style action-noir movie, like the old Alain Delon movies, I was very pleased when I saw Philippe Martinez mix Jean-Pierre Melville classic anti-hero lead with "MTV" camera work. It works perfectly. Van Damme makes his best performance to date, he really acts. The guy have taken some great amount of heat in his past due to his accent. This time around you can't blame or bash Jean-Claude for being stiff. The action scenes are suitable to the story, the fights are short and bloody. No need for fancy 360 kicks, a punch to the jaw and empty the clip in the chest. Classy. The cinematography is one of the best I have seen in a action movie, within this budget, and that is all thanks to the work by Emmanuel Kadosh. The music works really good for the emotional scenes and the sound is clear and top notch.

This movie is better than any modern action movie out right now. This movie is very stylish something like Leon: The Professional mixed with Training Day intro scenes. I've never seen Van Dam so Damn!! ; ) serious and emotional. I don't recall ever seeing him cry before in a movie. This is one of his good movies and I think the public needs to stop black listing van dam because he's made some bad flicks in the past. Every actor somewhere along the line stumble but the good ones always find a way out and come out on top.

IMDb voting is wrong.

I give this a 8/10 Go Van Damn!! Keep Kicking!!