Double Impact begins with the opening of the Hong Kong Victoria Harbour tunnel by business partners Paul Wagner and Nigel Griffith (Alan Scarfe). Paul attends with his wife, and their twin infant sons, Chad and Alex.
However, after the celebrations, the family is followed home by a Triad hit squad on orders from Griffith and crime lord Raymond Zhang (Philip Chan). A shootout ensues, in which Paul and his wife are killed by Moon (Bolo Yeung), Griffith’s henchman. Chad is rescued by the family bodyguard, Frank Avery (Geoffrey Lewis), and raised abroad. Alex is dropped off on the doorstep of a Hong Kong orphanage.
In the present day, Chad (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and Frank are running a successful martial arts business in Los Angeles when Frank reveals a new “business” for the two of them in Hong Kong. Soon after arrival, they find Chad’s long-lost twin brother Alex (Jean-Claude Van Damme) and Frank explains their shared past.
It is revealed that Alex is immersed in the Hong Kong crime world ruled by Zhang, and has a girlfriend who works for Griffith’s company, Danielle Wilde (Alonna Shaw). After escaping the Hong Kong Marine Police for trying to sell foreign cars with electronics inside, Chad (mistaken for Alex) is taken in by the Triads to discuss the incident. During the interrogation, Chad learns about a drug lab in Causeway Bay.
Alex and Chad arrange to destroy the lab by planting C4 in the complex one night, but Chad’s clumsiness triggers a massive gunfight. The lab is destroyed, but Alex loses any respect for Chad. Later, Danielle and Alex talk on a ferry and discuss a meeting that will take place soon in a night club in Hong Kong, with Zhang and other bosses in attendance. Alex, Chad and Frank endure their third mission to take down Zhang using Cognac boxes with C4 encased in them.
Zhang discovers that both Chad and Alex are not only twins, but the twins from 25 years ago. Danielle locates the document she had been sent to recover, but is stopped and sexually harassed by Kara (Cory Everson), Griffith’s assassin. She reports her findings to Chad, who goes to meet her alone. He brings her to one of Alex’s hideouts in a bar, but they are forced to flee when the Triad comes looking for them. Due to an incomplete phone call, Alex suspects Chad of having an affair with his girlfriend and starts drinking heavily as he dreams of Danielle and Chad having sex. He attacks and fights Chad in a drunken rage upon his return, after which the brothers angrily part ways.
Double Impact is a 1991 American action film written and directed by Sheldon Lettich, and written, produced by and starring Jean-Claude Van Damme in a dual role as Chad and Alex Wagner. The film was released in the United States on August 9, 1991. The film marked Van Damme’s second collaboration with Bolo Yeung (the first being Bloodsport in 1988)
Double Impact (1991)
Directed by: Sheldon Lettich
Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Geoffrey Lewis, Alonna Shaw, Corinna Everson, Philip Chan, Alan Scarfe, Bolo Yeung, Andy Armstrong, Sarah-Jane Varley
Screenplay by: Sheldon Lettich, Jean-Claude Van Damme
Production Design by: John Jay Moore
Cinematography by: Richard H. Kline
Film Editing by: Mark Conte
Costume Design by: Joseph A. Porro
Set Decoration by: Suzette Sheets
Art Direction by: Okowita
Music by: Arthur Kempel
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures (USA & Canada), 20th Century Fox (International)
Release Date: August 9, 1991
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