Jean Claude van Damme used to be a high profile action movie star, and about as highly rated as Stallone and Schwarzenegger. He has made a lot classic action movies such as Bloodsport, Kickboxer and Hard Target. Unfortunately his stardom has dwindled in the past years, and you now almost exclusively find him in B-movies. Which is a real shame, because most of these, even though made on a shoestring budget are still entertaining, especially for the action flick lovers amongst us.

In Pound of Flesh he plays the role of Deacon Lyle a Kidnap and Rescue expert. Deacon finds himself waking up naked in a hotel room bathtub, in icecold water. It is not long before he dicovers that he has become the victim of a bunch of organ traffickers, who have stolen his kidney. The kidney was to be used for a transplant for the daughter of his estranged brother. Now Deacon has to travel through the dark streets and corners of Manila in order to find back his kidney before it’s too late. He gets help from one of his old contacts and his brother. Working with his brother presents it’s own set of problems though, as he is the complete opposite of Deacon. The trail begins with a mysterious woman whom Deacon remembers was with him in the hotel room, just before his kidney was taken from him. Time is running out however, and the ruthless people behind the theft will stop at nothing to prevent Deacon from getting what he wants.

Pound of Flesh is a pretty decent action movie. The script will not win any oscars, but it at least tries to do something different than your usual run and gun flicks. Actionwise there are some interesting fight scenes involving Van Damme in which he proves, even though he is getting old, he can still pull off some moves. The green screen effects in this movie are where it loses points though. Some of the carscene effects are downright silly, and could definitely have been avoided when shooting from another camera angle. The acting is okay enough for a B-movie, and it is nice to see veteran actor Aki Aleong reunited with Van Damme. If you like action movies in general, and don’t mind watching a B-movie from time to time, you can’t really go wrong with this one.

I give this movie a 7 out of 10 score.