Excellent, a Must See

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Director Philippe Martinez brings a touch of French class to what is a very unusual and striking revenge thriller, boasting some fine moments of originality, great camera-work, and top-notch performances. Now, these aren't things you'd usually associate with the likes of Van Damme and Seagal, whose recent films have all been straight-to-video fare. The good news is that Van Damme seems to be coming out of his rut, and, with this and IN HELL, making some of the best films of his career. The focus on these films, and what makes them so successful, is that Van Damme actually acts and gives a decent performance. Recently, he seems to be drawn to darker, more mature fare and he's been great, proving to be a stable, fleshed-out lead with whom the audience can really engage.WAKE OF DEATH borrows from modern Asian cinema in providing thrills which have a real dark edge, a real bite to them. The level of violence is pretty extreme, with shotgunned heads and nasty knife slashings. The film's darkest moment is in a gratuitously nasty torture sequence, in which a guy gets his just desserts when a French mob start working on his arms and knees with an electric drill. The blood spatters and gore sprays everywhere, making this possibly Van Damme's most violent film.The performances are good, with Van Damme's grieving widower equally matched by Simon Yam's cold-hearted gangster, who likes nothing better than slashing a woman's throat with his flick-knife. Van Damme's buddy Donny is also great. The action is over-the-top in places – the motorbike/car chases, for instance – but the stunts are good, the effects fantastic, and the physical battles brilliant. I especially loved the ending on the boat, which offers vintage thrills and spills. All in all this is a very good film with plenty to offer for those who can stand the intensity.

I already noticed, that there are certain categories of bad movies. Like "It's so bad, that it's actually good". Well, this one is just plain bad. It'n not even "brainless fun" type.The plot is simple. In Hong Kong 14-year old girl witnesses her father, triad boss Sun Quan, killing her mother. She runs off in fear and ends up in refugee ship, headed for Los Angeles (where else!). This ship happens to belong to the same triad boss and is used to smuggle drugs with help of American official. In States a social worker, who also happens to be a wife of shady fellow Ben Archer(JCVD), takes her home. Sun Quan arrives to L.A. to find his daughter and all sorts of mayhem ensue.It's an action flick, so simple plot is not a bad thing. If it's well executed. But instead we get bad acting and random events that just happen without any attempt to connect them logically. The guy drives to a restaurant to meet his wife, carrying loaded and ready to fire gun? Everybody does that! He sees some Chinese in Chinatown and starts firing at them? Everybody does that too! People are running around the city with guns and nobody pays any attention? That's just happens all the time in L.A.! Scared kid runs away from restaurant, apparently not knowing that his mother is killed, and goes where? No, not home, which usually is the safest place in the mind of small child. He goes to his daddy's friends! A man tries to rescue his kidnapped son by randomly shooting and ramming kidnappers' car? Why, the hell, not, the kid's insured! At the end of the movie Ben Archer takes the girl with him to docks, where he intends to meet a bunch of armed and not very friendly thugs. You think he plans to exchange her for his kidnapped son? No, he plans to leave her alone in the middle of the docks - apparently it's the safest place for little girl. The docks are swarming with thugs, who openly carry AK-47's? So what, it's common sight in any port in the United States, especially in Los Angeles! And while Ben goes on his personal vendetta, breaking all the laws and glasses in process, police is nowhere to be seen. Because, he's the hero, give him a break! There you have it, some high points of this movie. The explanatory dialogues (like when Ben and his wife have romantic moment in the bathtub and she says "i am a social worker and i have seen some nasty s***t", yeah, right, like only now you tell him, what you do for living), jumpy MTVesque cuts with fast-forward inserts doesn't help either. And violence for the sake of violence (especially scene in the basement with Mac Hoggins) makes Ben and his mates to look on par with triads. And it sure as hell didn't make me feel for any of supposedly good guys.Now, some might argue, that action movie needs only gunshots, buttkicking, explosions and no logic whatsoever. I disagree. I myself do enjoy some early Seagal or Van Damme movies, with equally little plot. But they had some sense to what was happening. And besides, that was like decades ago and even back then "Wake of death" would have been a bad movie. I still watch "Last boy scout" or first "Die hard" from time to time and i think these are The Proper Action Movies. "Wake for death" is not. Or maybe i'm just getting too old for this crap...

In my opinion, this is by far the best Van Damme film. The acting is superb and first rate. The story is nothing new but it's done very well. The directing and the editing is first rate too. All about this film is first rate. There is maybe a few glitches but that's it. The fights are awesome as well. What I think makes this film superior, it's how well it was made. You actually feel "something" for the characters. I loved Max and Raymond. The actor who portrayed Max is awesome. Tony was very cool as well. My feeling is that if someone like Bruce Willis or another big time movie star played the main role of Ben Archer, the film would've been a theatrical box office success. Jean needs to stick to films like this.

First of all I've been reading the bad comments to. Peeps, don't even bother to read those the contain so many typos, that it does not take a genius to figure out its been written by complete children. That have no taste for cinema or what so ever.Jean Claude, not my favorite why? Very simple, because call me a old movie lover. His best still for me was Bloodsport. The rest of his "euvre" was just popcorn entertaining. You don't watch a jean Claude movie for the great plots, or amazing acting. But for the fun of it, This movie however, stunned me pretty much.It showed, that Jean was capable of real acting. When he morns over his wife's death. One of the best pieces of acting I've seen a actor do in a long longtime. I think Gladiator, Russel crow did it amazing, but in this movie. The music is from Kruder and Dorfmeister. Plus points to because i LOVE that music. And so i recognized it at the first tone.Anyways in this movie, Jean shows for once that he is HUMAN. And not a guy that kicks 30 mens asses in the movie. To get to the big cheese and kick his ass to..the end.I think most people who see this movie. Will be surprised in a good way. If Jean did this acting 10years ago he would be a very respected actor by now! 8 points.The story OK given, no need to be a genius. But the acting, who ever says "crappy acting". Did not see much of Jean Claude, older movies, and properly never seen a good actor on the white screen at all. OK given its still not like a Brad Pit, or Edward Norton, or Robert De Niro, or Al Pacino.But Jean...good work and certainly a worthy DVD in my *big* collection!