Black Eagle (1988)

So I guess right now I am on this binge of watching the muscles from Brussels and today we are going back to the 80's and we are checking out a film where he plays the villain. The film that I am talking about is 1988's Black Eagle which was directed by Eric Karson (The Octagon). A couple of American fighter jets are shut down over the air space in Malta and these fighter jets contain some very expensive and sought after technology on them that the Russians want to steal. So the CIA decides to send in their best guy Ken Tani (Shô Kosugi) to go in and recover the system before the Russians can get to it, but it won't be an easy job. The film also stars Jean-Claude Van Damme (Wake Of Death) as Andrei, Doran Clark (The Powers Of Matthew Star) as Patricia Parker, Bruce French (Mission: Impossible III) as Father Joseph Bedelia, Vladimir Skomarovsky (Fatal Attraction) as Col. Vladimir Klimenko, William Bassett (House Of 1000 Corpses) as Dean Rickert, Dorota Puzio (People You May Know) as Natasha, Kane Kosugi (Ninja: Shadow Of A Tear) as Brian Tani, Shane Kosugi (Nine Deaths Of The Ninja) as Denny Tani, Joe Quattromani (Helen Of Troy) as Lino, Alfred Mallia (A Fine Romance) as Peter, and Gene Davis (Tales from the Hollywood Hills: A Table at Ciro's) as Steve Henderson.

I just want to be clear about one thing about this film before we go any further and that is that Jean-Claude Van Damme did not lose to Shô Kosugi in this film. Both of the times that they fought, Kosugi would run away from the fight and Van Damme's character suffers a tragic death at the end of the film which once again prove she did not lose. Van Damme's Andrei was actually getting the better of Kosugi's Ken Tani and it was a decent fight between the two of them. I also just remembered something and that towards the end of the second fight, Andrei was shot by a priest which was why he could not chase after Kosugi. If you looked at the VHS cover to this film, it was a big build up of the action star vs the Topfighter and it could have been because Van Damme had just released Bloodsport I believe before this film. That could also be another reason for this film being so low key even to this day, but it was a decent film. There are a lot of things that the guys over at How Did This Get Made could pick apart like the fact that they say that Patricia Parker was a CIA agent who was really good, but in reality at what? Babysitting? Was the government wasting tons of dollars on an official babysitter? The car chase scene was OK, I think the music was a little more dramatic than the actual car chase and the acting was actually pretty good for the most part. I thought it was cool that Kosugi had his two kids in real life (Kane and Shane) play his sons in the film so you know that they didn't really have to act much there. I thought for the most part that Van Damme's weird relationship in the film with Natasha was like alright we get it there's a sexual attraction there, would you just let them hook up? It usually doesn't take Van Damme that long to get laid in a film, but it was right before the second fight that they finally let him. It was a decent film and it's available on Amazon Prime and I am giving the film an B- for a final grade.