MAXIMUM RISK (1996)
Ringo Lam Goes West
One of the great underappreciated aspects of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s career is his Hong Kong era. Van Damme famously helped John Woo (THE KILLER, 1989) get a foothold in the U.S. with HARD TARGET (1993), and he later worked with Hong Kong legend Tsui Hark on DOUBLE TEAM (1997) and KNOCK OFF (1998). Sandwiched in between is his collaboration with a lesser known, but no less legendary Hong Kong filmmaker: 1996’s MAXIMUM RISK directed by Ringo Lam.
Born in 1955, Lam rose to prominence in the Hong Kong film scene in the late 1980s, alongside other Hong Kong luminaries like Woo, Tsui and Yuen Woo-Ping (FIST OF LEGEND, 1994). After making a couple of successful comedies Lam was allowed to make whatever movie he wanted. What he delivered was a stick of dynamite in celluloid form. 1987’s CITY ON FIRE was a cold, nasty undercover cop drama released in the wake of Woo’s revolutionary A BETTER TOMORROW (1986). While A BETTER TOMORROW set the template for the “heroic bloodshed” genre, with its themes of brotherhood and honor, coupled with operatic emotions, Lam took those themes and grounded them in a nihilistic world where brotherhood counts less than having the biggest gun, and honor only gets you killed. CITY ON FIRE was a bombshell of a film that went on to become a major influence on Quentin Tarantino’s RESERVOIR DOGS (1992). Lam followed it up with spiritual siblings PRISON ON FIRE (1987), its 1991 sequel, and SCHOOL ON FIRE (1988). 1992 saw the director release his masterpiece, FULL CONTACT, starring his frequent collaborator Chow Yun-Fat. A few years later, Lam was on his way to America to work with Van Damme.
MAXIMUM RISK finds Van Damme, as he was prone to do, starring as twins. This time it’s French cop Alain and Russian gangster Mikhail. As the film begins, Alain is unaware of Mikhail’s existence, their mother having given Mikhail away as a baby. When Mikhail turns up murdered trying to find Alain, the surviving brother launches an investigation to figure out who his brother was and why he was murdered. Along the way he tangles with Russian gangsters, corrupt law enforcement and Mikhail's girlfriend Alex played by the always stunning Natasha Henstridge, fresh off her breakout performance in SPECIES (1995).
While HARD TARGET has the most stylish action and KNOCK OFF has Tsui’s particular brand of HK madness, both feel somewhat compromised and hampered by working within the Hollywood system and by working with the notoriously demanding Van Damme. MAXIMUM RISK actually feels like the film with the least compromised directorial vision, sliding nicely into Lam’s oeuvre of noirish, nihilistic thrillers. While he typically wrote his own films, MAXIMUM RISK was written by Larry Ferguson (THE PRESIDIO, 1988). Nevertheless, it’s easy to see what drew Lam to the material. The story of a man’s descent into a seedy underworld searching for truth and some sense of justice is right up the director’s alley. Lam gets a strong performance from Van Damme at a time when acting wasn’t necessarily the martial artist’s strongest gift. Van Damme and Henstridge have solid chemistry, and cinematographer Alexander Gruszynski (STONE COLD, 1991) gives everything a gloomy look that fits the material.
While not being the balletic action artist that Woo is, Lam was more than capable of crafting spectacular action set-pieces. In his Hong Kong classics FULL CONTACT and BURNING PARADISE (1992) he helped redefine heroic bloodshed and wuxia action for a new generation. MAXIMUM RISK can’t rise to those heights, but the action scenes feel distinctively Lam, particularly the final shootout. Lam always favored grounded action over splashy thrills and that continues here. MAXIMUM RISK is a much more modest movie than HARD TARGET but it is an effective slice of action thriller, with ample car chases and enough of Van Damme’s patented kicks to keep action fans satisfied. Lam and second unit director Charlie Picerni (DEMOLITION MAN, 1993) make sure the action is clear, particularly during Van Damme’s martial arts fights. A long fight in a Russian bathhouse is a particular highlight.
Van Damme famously spent the HARD TARGET shoot clashing with Woo, and his collaborations with Tsui came during the height of his addiction, but his partnership with Lam proved the most fruitful. Van Damme would go on to work with Lam two more times, with the vastly underseen and underappreciated sci-fi actioner REPLICANT (2001) and the vicious prison fight drama IN HELL (2003). REPLICANT, in particular, sees Lam pushing Van Damme even further into dramatic territory and the actor is up to the task. Viewers who were shocked by Van Damme’s performance in JCVD (2008) hadn’t seen REPLICANT just a few years earlier.
Van Damme and Lam might have had more collaborations in the future but Lam sadly passed away in 2018 at the age of 63. His output slowed considerably in his later years, and his final movie, 2016’s SKY ON FIRE, is sadly far from his heyday, but it’s hard not to think there was at least one great movie left in Lam’s future, perhaps even with Van Damme. Nevertheless, just like he did for Woo and Tsui, Van Damme helped introduce another Hong Kong legend to an entire generation of Western filmgoers and cinema is better for it. The relative quality of MAXIMUM RISK is almost irrelevant to the fact that it brought Ringo Lam to America. The fact that it’s a very entertaining movie is purely a bonus.
