Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on November 2012

When you’re an aging action star looking to justify a revenge fantasy, few evildoings can top sex slavery. You can wreak mayhem and feel virtuous at the same time. In this low-rent Taken, the whiny 12-year-old daughter of an American visitor to Moravia is snatched by sex traffickers, so mom and dad (conveniently an MMA fighter) turn to a man known as “the butcher” (no, he sells meat), a legendary but reclusive retriever of abducted children. But before busting skulls, Jean-Claude Van Damme has to chew a little guilt-ridden scenery over a mission gone wrong. Trash, this, but cool opening scene.