20 YEARS After BLOODSPORT: The Result JEAN-CLAUDE VANDAMME

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20 YEARS after
{BLOODSPORT} (1988)
here is
{The Shepherd: Border Patrol} (2008)

In the 2008 release of "The Shepherd", Van Damme plays Jack Robideaux, a former New Orleans homicide detective whose teenage daughter died when given illegal drugs. Van Damme thus has a private motive to take revenge on the Mexican drug trade. He joins the Border Patrol working underground as a brooding loner.

The movie places a unique spotlight on the compounding problems of both the drug trade as well as the immigration crisis plaguing the Mexican and US borders.

The Shepherd is directed by Isaac Florentine (Special Forces and US Seals 2), but in a surprise twist, the US Special Force team rather then engaged to take down terrorist - are themselves "the terrorists" running drugs across the Mexican and US borders!
The movie shows Stephen Lord, who plays "Benjamin Myers" commanding a Special Force operation first in Afghanistan where he apparently make business contact with Afghanistan warlords engaged in drug trafficking. Lord has a minor role, but his right hand man is Scott Adkins playing the role of "Karp". Adkins is the glue that pulls both the movie's action and Van Damme's ire to the climatic fight scene.

The Shepherd features Van Damme returning after a long absence to his role as an "action hero"; there are certain reasonable limitations placed on the fight scenes, which appear to be more realistic, shorter, and more rugged. But Van Damme is back in shape, doing all that he does well: kicking, striking, punching and fighting with nearly the talent and intensity he once had decades ago when he won the 1979 European Open Professional Kickboxing Championship in Brussels.

Meanwhile, the former elite U.S. team has returned from Afghanistan and now ruthlessly has turned their past military expertise into a diabolical scheme to sneak 3-tons of heroin worth $35 million across the Mexican border into the US using a bus carrying priests and nuns as a decoy vehicle.

There is no shortage of action. Some of the fights are fantastic and were well choreographed by J.J. Perry pulling on Van Damme's abilities and style but mixing that with the talented abilities of his far younger rival, Scott Adkins, who like Van Damme has some incredible athletic abilities with his kicks as well.

Van Damme takes on suicide bombers, sadistic tortures and treacherous officials from both sides of the border. But, the real treat is when Van Damme faces Scott Adkins, who nearly turns these staged choreographed fights into an honest out-and-out sludge-fight jammed with new and innovative techniques that are a visual delight for fight fans the world over.

We see a reinvigorated, Van Damme who is surprisingly up to the challenge by delivering nearly everything one wants of Van Damme. The plot is easy to follow, dialogue is straightforward, and the action is intense. It is -precisely the proper mixture of merciless "VanDammage!"

The 1988 "Bloodsport" became a cult classic successfully starting Van Damme's career as a action hero, The Shepherd likely top off and complete Van Damme's career as being a pure action actor and thus become a classic as well. Van Damme in recent interviews has plans of moving on to other movie themes in the future. As of mid April 2008, he is in Bangkok working on a film he has written called: "Full Love".
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*** Special Note to Youtbubers: I would be pleased if (1) you would be interested to read Van Damme's Biography that I co-wrote as it appears on www.fandamme.net and/or (2) watched me starring in my own video demonstrating a high energy martial art fight: Interrogation Room.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=rFl1YJzUZWg
Thank you!
Louis-Philippe Simard of Studio LPS
Montreal, Canada
http://youtube.com/studiolps


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