Darren Shahlavi to co-star in new Jean Claude Van Damme film 'Pound Of Flesh'

Source: Impact Online
One time guest of the show Darren Shahlavi will be squaring off against none other than Jean-Claude Van Damme in upcoming revenge action flick 'Pound Of Flesh'
Directed by previous Van Damme collaborator Ernie Barbarash (Assassination Games and Six Bullets), the action sees JCVD heading back to China playing
"a former military man forced to walk the road of vengeance when a chance encounter with a beautiful woman ends with him waking up in a bathtub full of ice... and the kidney he had planned to donate to the dying daughter of his estranged brother, on its way to the hands of the highest bidder."

The exciting news is that the high-impact fight choreography will be done by longtime Donnie Yen mainstay John Salvitt and that the main villain in the film will be played by our very own Britkicker, Darren Shahlavi!

Darren had this to say about the film:
"I've wanted to work with Jean-Claude Van Damme for so many years and I'm very excited to be finally getting to work with him on such a great project as Pound of Flesh. I love the script and the team that Director Ernie Barbarash and the Producers have put together for this film, including fight choreographer John Salvitti who I am also a huge fan of.
I look forward to working hard with everyone to make an awesome action thriller that will make the fans very happy and deliver on all levels.
I'd like to thank Mike Leeder for bringing me to the attention of Jean-Claude, Ernie and the rest of the Producers and pushing for me as always.'

The film will also feature John Ralston (Degrassi The Next Generation) as Van Damme's onscreen brother, William B Davis (cigarette smoking villain from the X-Files) as the mysterious Rants, Charlotte Peters as Anna and Kris Van Varenberg/Kris Van Damme as Marcello.
It starts shooting at the end of March.

You can hear our interview with Darren Shahlavi HERE

More on this as it comes in!
-The Kick Ass Kid

Those Van Damme Remakes!

Action remakes, on the whole, are few and far between. Yes Statham did The Mechanic, The Rock did Walking Tall, Samuel Jackson had a crack at Shaft, Stallone tried to do Get Carter and there are a handful of driving ones like The Italian Job, Death Race and Gone in 60 Seconds but when compared to the horror genre, for example, action doesn't get the rape and plunder treatment very often.
There's a good reason for this.
The reason is that the action genre has always been happy to have its box full of bona fide original classics and then it's a thousand imitators.
You've got a million mercenary/man on a mission movies, a million one man against a thousand nameless terrorist movies and, of course, you've got your competition/martial arts movies.
You know what you're getting and you get what you want but the best thing about all this was that the action genre was always happy to rename, recast and re-situate their films. They'd set it in a different place or, even, in a different time, they'd add a new character beat or a back story that wasn't there before and, bingo! a brand new film.

So it is with much grinding of the teeth, pulling out of hair and sheer brain-numbing, slack jawed amazement at the pointlessness of it all that I shudder to announce remakes of not just Bloodsport but also Kickboxer.
James McTiegue, the man behind V For Vendetta will helm Bloodsport with a script by Taken's Mark Kamen. It doesn't matter that there are already 4 Bloodsports, 8 Bloodfists and 4 Best of the Bests (not to mention a gazillion other similar titles), they have decided, in their infinite wisdom to still call this film Bloodsport even though it's not about Frank Dux, it's set in Australia and Rio De Janeiro and it's all about Brazil's Vale Tudo martial art.
Van Damme has apparently shown interest in appearing in the film but Kamen made this rather ridiculous, slightly pompous and rather harsh statement against that happening:
“This is a character driven, politically motivated film. It has nothing to do with splits or muscles or grudge matches and as I said, if the title were not attached to the rights, you would not associate one film with the other.” - Source: Slashfilm
SO it's NOT Bloodsport then is it??!! So DON'T call it Bloodsport!!

Which brings us to Kickboxer, of which there are already 5 in the series! It appears to be an even more pointless remake considering they are remaking Bloodsport and, let's be fair, the concepts are not so miles apart. All we know about the Kickboxer reboot right now is its director, Stephen Fung who made Tai Chi Zero.

I don't know what to think. I mean I love having more action movies and I would love to see the revitalisation of the fight-competition genre but would it be so hard to give these movies different names at the very least?

I am going to leave you with some words from Chris (with a C) who is one half of the fantastic team who bring you the simply radiant and sublime WAFU FM podcast. WHICH YOU SHOULD ALL BE LISTENING TO EVERY WEEK!
He writes:
There are certain films that you don't need the remake rights, and the name, to remake...Kickboxer is one of them. There are about 20 films that, plot wise at least, are almost identical to Kickboxer that aren't remakes. So why bother? It's not like Kickboxer is a well known instantly recognizable name unless you're a Van Damme fan...in which case you're probably not very interested in a fucking remake of Kickboxer.

And as for the guy in the comments who seems to be seriously suggesting Taylor Lautner for the lead role...shame on you, sir. Fucking shame on you. Shame....I can't believe any grown man would suggest that guy for any movie, never mind a remake of Kickboxer. God, I hate people.

~Chris

I really couldn't put it better myself (and I tried!)
- The Kick Ass Kid

Dolph Lundgren wanted for He-Man reboot and JCVD wants to bring Van Dammage to Avengers 2!

As is seemingly inevitable in this day and age, not content with remaking every horror film we hold dear they are now going to start working their way through our action childhood too and a remake or reboot (or whatever word is trendy that week) of Masters of The Universe is in the works.

This week the director, John Chu (director of the delayed G.I. Joe: Retaliation) indicated that he'd like to work with Lundgren in some capacity when he made this statement:
"I don't know if Dolph Lundgren is around or what he's doing but, yeah, I think that could be some fun if we could find a way. I hope he still has the loincloth and the long hair and everything."

As there's nothing official yet you can take this with a pinch of salt.
Do you want to see a new MOTU movie?
Do you want to see Lundgren in there in some capacity?
Let us know!

The other bit of random casting news this week was that loveable, puppy hugging, splits doing Belgian, Jean-Claude Van Damme posted that picture (to the left) to his Facebook page and said:
"It was my pleasure to meet Mr. Stan Lee (creator of "X-Men", "The Incredible Hulk" and "Spider-Man") back in 1994, along with Mr. Samuel & Mr. Victor Hadida! I read that Chris Hemsworth (star of "Thor" and brother of Liam Hemsworth, "The Expendables 2") would like me to costar in "The Avengers 2" movie! Well, it would be fun to play one of these types of amazing comic book characters again. By the way, I am a big fan of Marvel's superhero Silver Surfer and also another heroic fictional character known as Doc Savage - the Man of Bronze!"
No indication where he heard that Thor wanted him in the film (possibly from his brother, Liam, on the set of EX2) but it's pretty much assured that, sadly, this will never happen.
I have read a lot of blogs deriding Van Damme or saying he was a has been, well I know people want any and all information on Avengers 2 possible but when was the last time people wrote this many blogs and news articles on a has-beens Facebook post?? hmmmmmmm?
Haters gotts hate I guess.
I personally would LOVE to see an 80s or 90s action star like Van Damme (or whoever) in some of one of these big comic book movies. They'd bring it, they'd own it and their scene or scenes would be legendary. FACT.

Do you want Van Damme in Avengers 2?
What other Expendable cast member would you want in a comic book movie?
Who would they play?

- The Kick Ass Kid

Sly and Seagal once got physical

Various places online are reporting that Stallone once slammed Mr Squinty Whisperer himself, Steven Seagal, up against a wall based on some quotes that Stallone made recently to Shortlist magazine.

Apparently the altercation happened after Seagal said he didn't want to be associated with him and his set of macho action film actors.
No, of course not Steven, because you are a serious martial artist, you have integrity and super powers, you don't want wealth, fame, popularity or the chance to stay in the limelight longer than 5 minutes. Why would you? hahaha

Stallone said: ''Steven Seagal said that he, 'Didn't associate with that kind of element' - meaning me. So I slammed him up against a wall. ''At that time, our testosterone was running full bore. He was full of his height [Steven is 6ft 3in, Sylvester is 5ft 10in] and I was full of ... Myself. But we made up. He can be very abstract.''
That may be the best description of Seagal ever "He can be very abstract" ahhh yes, that he can be Sly!

Hey, how come your coat don't have lovely tassels like mine homes?

Hey, my jacket maybe ridiculous, like I'm a spangly fat Beatle, but that shirt's unforgivable ese 

Of course it was at Stallone's house one year that the famous rift between Seagal and Van Damme became apparent as Sly let on a few years back talking to Ain't It Cool News and saying
"But I remember once, at my home in Miami, I believe it was in ’96 or’97, Van Damme was there with Seagal, Willis, Schwarzenegger, Shaquille O’Neal, Don Johnson and Madonna… it was a heck of a party. Van Damme was tired of Seagal saying he could kick his ass and went right up to him and offered him the chance to step outside so he could wipe the floor with him, or should I say wipe the backyard with him. Seagal made some excuse and left. His destination was some Ocean Drive nightclub in Miami. Van Damme, who was completely berserk, tracked him down and again offered him a fight, and again Seagal pulled a Houdini. Who would win? I have to say I believe Van Damme was just too strong and Seagal wanted no part of it. That’s just my opinion."

Taken back when all three of these people looked normal

Stallone still gets on well with Jean-Claude Van Damme, his co-star and sparring partner in Expendables 2 and he even lets the Belgian star do an impression of him.
He added to Shortlist magazine: ''I swear to God. But even he does this, 'Ahhhm doin' daah mooovie with Slaaaah Stallone. How ya doin', baby?' Now you have him, with a French accent, doing my accent. Gimme a break!''

Could Van Damme and Tony Jaa be making a movie together soon?

Can you see my balls Tony? 

As these enjoyably ludicrous but also excessively cool photos show the Muscles from Brussels recently hung out with Martial Arts legend Tony Jaa in Thailand.
The current specualtion is that they are gearing up to work together and that the choreography might be done by done by none other than Sammo Hung.
Consider us already thoroughly errect at the prospect of this.
While it is all merely rumour at this stage, our dream is that it becomes a reality quick and Van Damme starts cashing in on his new found attention after his brilliant turn in Expendables 2!