As part of the BFI’s Art of Action season, film historian Craig Ian Mann presents Run for Your Life, three “chase” films that illustrate the complex narrative themes of action cinema.
Directed by the legendary John Woo, Hard Target is an undisputed action classic starring one of the genre’s greatest superstars in Jean-Claude Van Damme – who plays a downtrodden man forced to fight back when he unwittingly becomes the quarry in a hunt across the concrete jungle.
Veteran and drifter Chance Boudreaux (Van Damme) is out of work until he is hired by Natasha Binder (Yancy Butler) to find her missing father, a former marine. Their search leads them to uncover a sinister group of ruthless, wealthy men who hunt the homeless for sport – offering them $10,000 if they can survive the game. When Chance discovers that Natasha’s father was one of their victims, he decides to turn the tables on the hunters.
