Product Description

A martial arts expert must stop a sadistic mercenarys evil safari where bored tycoons pay half a million dollars to hunt and kill the most challenging prey of all man. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 06/01/2004 Starring: Jean-claude Van Damme Lance Henriksen Run time: 97 minutes Rating: R Director: John Woo

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20605 in DVD
• Brand: Universal Studios
• Released on: 1998-07-01
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.com
Jean-Claude Van Damme, "the Muscles from Brussels," has sought to revitalize his flagging career by working with the most adrenalized directors from Hong Kong action films. His first such effort was this, the umpteenth remake of The Most Dangerous Game, which teamed him with Hong Kong's most fluid action poet, John Woo. Woo does what he can but, as much magic as he injects into the action, he can't turn Van Damme into an actor. Still, this is above-average fare for the wooden Belgian, in which he plays a guy trying to bust a ring of hunters who pay for the right to track and kill human quarry. And Woo has the ever-reliable Lance Henriksen as the chief bad guy, always a plus. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews

Censorship & Hard Target - The American Version sucks!
As a big Van Damme fan and DVD collector, I was very eager to get hold of Hard Target on DVD. It is only available on video here in the UK so I ordered the DVD from the USA. I was shocked to find that the US version is much shorter with a lot of action cut out.

This seems unusual to me as in all other instances in my experience, the opposite is true. For instance, the American version of Cyborg is ten minutes longer than the heavily censored British release. I think I will stick with my UK VHS version of Hard Target. I hope it comes out on DVD here in England. Any true Van Damme fan must get hold of this full version! Feel free to e-mail me if you are interested in this topic.

You Must find the Uncut version!
The R-rated version of Hard Target is what happens when censorship gets out of hand. The Uncut verison is so much better, if you can find it than I highly recommend you get it! This film really does belong up there with John Woo's pervious films. It's very violent with lots of action that will surely keep you interested. John Woo is the best! The ending was great, I will not spoil it! but there is one part I didn't really like, that's the whole Shoot than jump in the air kick routine Van Damme did while killing the bad guys seemed really out of place, it's like the kicks were just added because he's Van Damme and I guess John Woo thought most Americans would want to see Van Damme's sissy kicks. As for the actors..... Van Damme is a horrible one, I heard they were going to cast Kurt Russell as the lead instead which would have made the movie 100 times better cut or uncut! But alas! we were stuck with stiff Van Damme, his bad accent on top of another bad accent and his horrible hair. But all is forgiven when sexy Arnold Vosloo (Pik Van Cleaf) makes his way on to the screen, what a wonderful job he did! He literally stole the show from Van Damme with every sence they had together in my book. Lance Herkersion(sp) was also great! all the way through! These two worked great together as the bad guys, they will send chills down your spine, just the thought that there could be guys like them out in the world is really creepy! My favortie sence will have to be the introduction of Pik when he comes in contact with Chance for the first time in Randell Poe's office, the dude looked like the devil standing at that door! A job well done! I will rate this one (R-rated) with 3 stars, but the Uncut one deserves five stars all the way! the difference is, one is a Van Damme film, the other is a John Woo film!

PRETTY COOL JOHN WOO MOVIE
Hard Target was the first Hollywood film John Woo ever did. All his trademarks are here. They are even more apparent than in BROKEN ARROW. Once the action starts the film is a joy to watch. The action is, once again, like some kind of blood-soaked and gun-smoked ballet. Watching Van Damme twirl and tumble and dive thru the air while firing a number of different weapons is very pleasing on the eye.

The plot is (yet another) remake of the most excellent MOST DANGEROUS GAME. But that doesn't make it bad. Humans are hunted for sport and that is the only similarity. The plot was recycled again only 1 year later in Ice-T's equally as good SURVIVING THE GAME.

This DVD is unfortunatly NOT the far better director's cut but is still worth buying. It is in Dolby 5.1 and is anamorphically enhanced at 1.85:1.