Jean-Claude Van Damme Officially Returns to Martial Arts With New Yakuza Movie

The Muscles From Brussels are flexing again. Jean-Claude Van Damme, Belgian martial artist turned action movie sensation, is returning to his roots with a new action movie set in the world of combat sports. The film is set to be shopped at the upcoming American Film Market.

Van Damme was a European karate champion who moved to Los Angeles to become a movie star; after some extra and stunt work (including a brief, disastrous stint as the creature in the movie Predator), he broke out with Bloodsport, a movie based on the dubiously true story of Frank Dux. Dux claimed that he had been part of a secret underground fighting competition, the Kumite; while Dux’s story was almost certainly falsified, the movie made Van Damme an international star. He followed it up with Kickboxer; another movie centering around a martial arts tournament, it brought Muay Thai to international audiences, and further burnished Van Damme’s leading man credentials, leading to star turns in movies like Double Impact, Hard Target, and Universal Soldier.

Now, Deadline reports Van Damme is stepping back into the octagon for Katana. The new film will see Van Damme play a retired fighter and family man who’s stepped away from his troubled past and competition. However, he’s forced back into the ring when the Yakuza crime syndicate kidnaps his daughter. The movie is also set to star several real-life mixed martial artists, including Armenian MMA fighter Melsik Baghdasaryan and French Muay Thai and kickboxing world champion Cyril Benzaquen. The movie is set to begin production in spring 2027, with filming in Japan, France, and Los Angeles. The film is being written and directed by Jeremy Zag, the French film-maker best known for creating the successful Miraculous animated franchise; the movie has been in development since 2022, and was originally titled What’s My Name.

• He reads ground the way other people read a room.
• He will stand between you and the worst of it without discussing it.
• He says almost nothing, and never the wrong thing.

• The 1982 original came from David Morrell’s 1972 novel, which ends very differently.
• Stallone cut most of his own dialogue in the edit to make the character nearly silent.
• Five films across thirty-seven years, from 1982 to the fifth in 2019.

• He is better in the room than he is on paper, and he is excellent on paper.
• He will not explain the plan, and the plan will work.
• He treats charm as a tool, and it is a remarkably effective one.

• Eon has made twenty-five Bond films since Dr. No in 1962, across six actors.
• Denis Villeneuve is directing the next one for Amazon MGM, which took creative control in
  2025.
• The search for the new 007 was still running through 2026, with screen tests under way.

• He has read the thing nobody else thought to read.
• He will risk the whole plan for the artifact, and be right about half the time.
• He improvises better than most people prepare.

• The Cairo swordsman scene was improvised on the day because Harrison Ford had dysentery.
• Raiders was filmed in about 73 days, which was fast even in 1981.
• Dial of Destiny in 2023 was Ford’s fifth and last outing, at the age of eighty.

• He turns whatever is in the room to his advantage.
• He is funniest when things are at their worst.
• He has never once agreed that it is over.

• Die Hard came from Roderick Thorp’s novel Nothing Lasts Forever, a sequel to a book
  filmed in 1968.
• Nakatomi Plaza is Fox Plaza, which was the studio’s own headquarters at the time.
• Bruce Willis was a television comedy actor then, and a long way down the casting list.

• He takes the risk himself rather than assigning it.
• He is three moves ahead and will not say which three.
• He treats your survival as the actual objective.

• Cruise hung off the side of an Airbus A400M at a thousand feet for the opening of Rogue
  Nation.
• The HALO jump in Fallout took 106 takes, filmed at dusk for the light.
• The Final Reckoning in 2025 was the eighth film, and was sold as the last.

What’s Next for Jean-Claude Van Damme?

Van Damme recently appeared in Dolph: Unbreakable, a new documentary about the life of fellow European action star Dolph Lundgren. He’s also attached to Prison Fight, a movie loosely inspired by true events centering around an underground fighting tournament in a maximum security prison, in which inmates fight for their freedom.

Katana is in development; no release date has yet been announced. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.

Bloodsport