Jean-Claude Van Damme walks into the press conference… and slams face-first straight into the door.
It was all for laughs, and it perfectly sets the tone for the rest of the day.
We were invited over to Paris to talk to Van Damme and some of the key cast and crew of his new Amazon Prime show Jean-Claude Van Johnson.
However, in the lead-up to the junket, we were told that all one-on-one interviews had been pulled. Upcoming press events in London had been cancelled altogether. Whispers among journalists hinted at some kind of bizarre dust up with one of the Power Rangers in Mexico a few weeks prior. Even more bizarrely, a short Google search uncovered this rumour to be 100% accurate:
Clip via FloCombat
You might be forgiven for thinking that this was a lot of background noise for a has-been action-star. Van Damme hasn’t headlined a cinematic release in almost two decades. However, spending the day in Paris in his surroundings, two things become very apparent:
(1) Van Damme stars are as devoted and passionate about the star today as they were during his heyday, and
(2) Nobody is aware that Van Damme is no longer an A-list star more than Van Damme.
Jean-Claude Van Johnson is a balls-to-the-wall last ditch attempt at a major career comeback, and in the way that Van Damme throws himself into it entirely, it is clear that he is truly giving this everything he’s got.
In the six-episode series, of which we were shown the first three, Van Damme plays himself as a fading action star who is retired (“Retired retired. Not Nicolas Cage retired.”), who crosses paths with the one love of his life (played by Kat Foster), and he decides to come out of retirement. He visits his agent (portrayed by small screen icon Phylicia Rashad of The Cosbys and Empire) to say he is coming out of retirement, both as an actor, and as his alter-ego, international spy Jean-Claude Van Johnson, all so he can hopefully cross paths again with the one who got away.
It is a magnificently meta set-up, like a hyper-reality version of True Lies, and across the first three episodes, Van Damme goes to some lengths to make fun of himself.
His introduction to us in the show, much like his introduction to us in real life, was an unexpected piece of physical humour, as he attempts to perform his trademark splits to avoid getting knocked out by a henchman. Age, however, has other ideas; he’s no longer as flexible as he was in Timecop or Bloodsport, and he promptly gets knocked out.
The show was executive produced by Ridley Scott, and created by Dave Callaghan, the creator of The Expendables, who is now lined up to write the Wonder Woman sequel.
Amazon have put a lot of money behind the project, from the sexy, expensive interiors, the brilliant choreographed fight sequences that toe the line between thrilling and funny, to the hilarious running joke that the show is set in Bulgaria and Romania but actually shot in LA.
In terms of action stars, Van Damme has less in common with Arnie and Sly than he does with Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. He wasn’t just a musclebound shit-brick-house, he was an actual martial arts expert; he can fluently speak French, English, Spanish and German; he studied ballet to improve his flexibility in a 90’s world when biceps were king.
He is also, as anyone who has seen that Coors Light advert, brilliantly funny. He delivers one-liners throughout with a unique deadpan patter, and he isn’t afraid to make fun of his own career, getting into an argument as to whether the time-travel rules of Timecop or Looper make more sense.
Also, one of his undercover characters seems to be actively channeling Pee Wee Herman, and hearing Van Damme attempt that nasal, back-of-the-throat dweeby voice is never not funny.
There is a lot to enjoy in Jean Claude Van Johnson, but the biggest draw is Van Damme himself, even more so once you hear him talking about the project, and his own recent career.
“My life was like a roller-coaster, yeah? It started off low, then get really really high, and then got really really low again. I was a big star, but then I went straight to VOD, and I know that.”
This kind of blatant honesty isn’t something you’d imagine you’d hear from the likes of Steven Seagal, or Jackie Chan, or indeed Nicolas Cage. It is bracing, it is refreshing, it is … quite frankly, a little weird. But in a good way.
When a journalist asks what attracted him to the project, he is funny and succinct: “I liked the idea of a spy playing an actor, because usually it is the other way around.”
When a journalist asks Van Damme a question in the press conference, he wanders off on a five minute monologue about how important it is to surround yourself with good actors, good crew, to not take this life and this world for granted, and how happy he is to be involved in such a bizarrely brilliant piss-take.
The journalist’s question? “Will you be bringing your mother to the premiere tonight?”
Which, later that night, he does.
Van Damme walks down the red carpet with his mother, having promised her decades earlier that he would once again have one of his projects get a big red carpet premiere in Paris.
France, he says, is what made him a star, when they warmed to Bloodsport in a way that his native Belgium did not. He owes them his career, and he has nothing but love for the capital.
As he walks down the red carpet, his mother linking his arm, he stops every few steps to sign every poster, pose for every picture, kiss every cheek. The fans love him, and they have never stopped loving him.
They’re armed with VHS copies of Hard Target, black and white stills of Universal Soldier, and (best of all) unopened action figures from Street Fighter. Every time he does he patented high-kick, they lose their minds.
Which only adds another layer to the meta-ness, as the fading action star, playing a fading action star getting a second shot, looks set to be getting a second shot. The premiere is in Paris’s famous Rex Theatre, there’s a giant golden statue of Van Damme doing the splits, the screen is filled to the rafters with press and friends and family and fans and “influencers”, and everyone here is willing him on to return to great things.
And you know what? He might just get that comeback. He definitely deserves it.
All six episodes of Jean-Claude Van Johnson debuted on Amazon Prime Video on Friday 15 December, and customers who aren’t already Amazon Prime Members can sign up for a free 7-day trial at PrimeVideo.com
Clip via Prime Video
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