Van Damme The Monk
"Van Damme as you never saw him!" announces the poster. Indeed, not content with doing things in half measures to make his character more credible, Van Damme followed the way of life of the Shaolin monks during several weeks when he became a vegetarian and lost 15 kilos (Raging Monk?). In short, the tandem Van Damme/Lam left well to surprise us once more.
You had been warned. He did it! We thus could not resist the desire for making you benefit from the first visual one of Ringo Lam?s new film with Jean-Claude Van Damme: The Monk, whose Belgian actor ensured the promo in 2001 in Cannes.
Van Damme will interpret the life of a monk in the Shaolin temple who goes to the United States to find his father and must face a cruel godfather of the underworld. Filming planned for 2003, and will be made in the United States, China and Bulgaria.
Van Damme will have to practise various styles of kung fu and make serious preparation for his role by withdrawing from the world for three months to live in a Buddhist monastery in Tibet. It was also rumoured that Jean-Claude wanted to secure Jet Li as a principal adversary, but who was to be a good-guy. This is unlikely, however, given that Li refused to work with him in a previous film.
The film is being re-written, with worries that is sounds to much like Rush hour 2! Release Date -2004 (US).
