Wake of Death

Ben Archer, a former underworld enforcer living in Los Angeles, has stepped back from his old life and intends to spend his time with his wife Cynthia and their son. Cynthia works in immigration, and when she encounters a young Chinese girl named Kim, she takes the child into the family home. What she does not realize is that Kim is the daughter of Sun Quan, the head of a Chinese criminal organization, and that the girl has fled from him. When Sun Quan learns where his daughter is, he comes after her, and Cynthia is killed in the violence that follows. Ben survives the loss and turns his attention to hunting down the man responsible, drawing on his old contacts in the criminal world and setting off a conflict with Sun Quan's organization.

The film stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as Ben Archer and Simon Yam as Sun Quan, with Valerie Tian as Kim and supporting roles for Philip Tan, Tony Schiena and Claude Hernandez. Philippe Martinez directed and shares screenplay credit with Mick Davis and Kristina Hamilton-Grobler; Stanley Roup, Alan Latham and Martinez produced the film, which runs 91 minutes and was made for a budget of 14 million US dollars. It was Martinez's first directorial credit and was followed years later by General Commander, Christmas in Paradise and Black Noise.

Wake of Death holds a rating of 5.5 out of 10 on IMDb from around 11,000 votes, while TMDB users give it 6.1 out of 10 from a much smaller group of 282. The difference in volume is considerable, but both scores place the film in middling territory for an action thriller of its era.