How the film "Double Impact" was filmed: footage from filming and 22 interesting facts about the film (22 photos)

Double Impact is one of the most famous and iconic films in the career of Jean Claude Van Damme. The film captivates the viewer with events, worthy action scenes and the acting work of ZhKVD, in the role of two brothers.





1. The idea to make a film about twins was based on the film “The Corsican Brothers” (1941), which in turn was written based on the novel of the same name by Alexandre Dumas.

The idea to make a film based on Dumas’ novel came from Van Damme himself, who invited Sheldon Lettich, with whom they had already worked together on the films “AWOL” and “Bloodsport,” to participate in writing the script. And of course, Van Damme was also supposed to play the roles of the twins Chad and Alex.



Van Damme read his and Lettich's script to director Albert Pyun, with whom he worked on the film Cyborg. He wanted Pyun to direct this film. But he called the script simply disgusting and advised Van Damme not to meddle in this film at all.





2. The company "Canon films", for which the script was written, refused to pay Sheldon, since the bosses considered the script bad. Also, the producer felt that Van Damme would not be able to handle two diverse roles. Then Sheldon decided to sue the company.



Sheldon Lettich - writer and director

Having learned that the screenwriter is going to sue the company, Canon films decide to make a deal with Sheldon, since it was “a no brainer” that they would lose this case. As a result, in order to hush up the scandal, Sheldon asked for full rights to the film adaptation of "The Corsican Brothers"



At the same time, Jean Claude Van Damme signed a contract with the Stone Group Picture studio, one of the bosses of which was Michael Douglas himself. The studio was supposed to make the film "Knight of the Leopards", but in the end the script for this film did not work out.



This is where the script he and Lettich wrote about their vision of “The Corsican Brothers” came in handy, because the studio had to fulfill its contract to shoot a film with Van Damme. As a result, that same evening a contract was signed for the film “Double Impact”.

3. The bosses did not want to hire Sheldon Lettich as director, but Jean-Claude Van Damme managed to persuade them.



4. According to the original plan, the film should have had many more fight scenes, but Van Damme asked to reduce the number of fights with his participation so that he could reveal himself more as an actor. For the same reason, romantic scenes appeared in the film, which were not present in previous films with Van Damme.



5. Most of the scenes were filmed in Hong Kong, although it was originally planned that filming would take place in Corsica. The studio took this step largely due to the fact that there was no need to obtain permission to film here, and this, in turn, saved the studio’s budget. And the most interesting thing is that in the scenes when the heroes rush past crowds of people, we see real residents, and not planned extras. They didn’t understand what was happening here at all, much less knew that they would end up in a movie.



5. When it came to who to take on for the role of the villain, Jean Claude immediately remembered his friend Bolo Ieng, with whom he had already starred together in the film “Bloodsport.”



True, there was one problem. Bolo Ieng knew very little English, so he simply learned all the phrases required by the script, without even knowing what they meant.



And as Van Damme himself said, when they were sitting in a restaurant, Bolo Ieng, ordering duck, simply said “Quack-quack.”

By the way, they are friends and communicate to this day. And you know? I’m just, purely as a human being, happy for them.



7. In the role of Alex’s girlfriend (Daniel), Sheldon Lettich wanted to see actress Tia Carerre, whom many of us remember from the films “Showdown in Little Tokyo,” “Harley Davidson and the Marlboros” and “True Lies.” He justified his choice by the fact that Alex’s woman should be Asian, since he lived all his life in Hong Kong.



Tia Carerre in the movie "Showdown in Little Tokyo"

But, unfortunately or fortunately, Carerre refused to star in this film, and in the end the role went to the American actress Elona Shaw.



8. In one of his interviews, Jean-Claude Van Damme said that right behind his back, his agent and lawyer wanted to push Dolph Lundgren into the film “Double Impact” so that he would play one of the twins. But why? And then, these cunning people worked not only with Van Damme, but also with Lundgren. So they wanted to make twice as much money for one film. But Van Damme killed this idea in the bud.



However, just a year later, Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren still starred together in the film Universal Soldier.

9. Many fans believed that the film "Double Impact" was an adaptation of the cult 8-bit series of games "Double dragon". But of course this was not the case. But how can you convince the fans, especially since the official film adaptation of the game, released in 1994, was simply disgusting.

12. The film "Double Impact" was the first, but not the last in the career of Jean-Claude Van Damme, where he would play two people. For example, in 1996 the film "Maximum Risk" was released, and in 2001 - "Replicant". True, these films are very much inferior to the double whammy and other old films with the Belgian.

13. Van Damme said that one day, in the midst of filming, one of the producers showed up on the set and asked to redirect part of the Double Impact budget to another film that his production company was working on.



Van Damme was simply beside himself with anger, so he took the first thing that came to his hand (it was a papaya) and simply threw the fruit at the beggar. Fortunately, he was able to dodge, after which he hastily left the set.

14. The idea to kill the character Bolo Ieng using electric current belongs to Sheldon Lettich. He really wanted the villain to die in this way, since this scene refers us to the film "Goldfinger", of which Lettich was a fan.



15. The famous model and Miss Olympia, Corey Everson, was invited to play the role of one of the villains named Kara. And she gladly agreed to participate in the filming of the film. True, despite her excellent physical shape, she did not know how to fight, so she had to additionally study martial arts in an accelerated program.



16. Jean Claude Van Damme not only played two roles in the film and participated in writing the script, but also became the producer of the film, and at the same time the director of the fight scenes. And for all this the Belgian received 600 thousand dollars.

17. With a budget of $16 million, the film grossed $30 million at the US box office. Some sources write that the film collected 80.5 million at the global box office. And of course, it’s worth taking into account the sales of video media, of which there were so many.



Jean Claude Van Damme and Elona Shaw with stunt doubles

18. When Van Damme was asked which of the brothers was closer to him, he answered without hesitation that he was much more like Chet than Alex.

19. Having starred in three films about twins, Van Damme had the idea to make the second part of the film “Double Impact”, where another (now third) Van Damme would appear. But in the end, work on the project was never started.



20. In 2012, Sylvester Stallone invited Jean Claude Van Damme to play the main antagonist in his film The Expendables 2. And as Sly himself admitted, he created this image based on Alex Wagner from Double Impact.

21. Oh, I almost forgot. It was no coincidence that Alex and Chad got their names. They were named after Van Damme's friends. Moreover, his friend Alex actually lived in Hong Kong. Well, hThe food was named after his friend and actor Chad McQueen.



22. In some moments, when two Van Dammes are shown side by side, small jambs from overlapping are visible. But it’s still worth considering that it was 1991, and at that time hardly anyone paid attention to it.