Lionheart is a 1990 American martial arts film directed by Sheldon Lettich, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Deborah Rennard, Harrison Page, Lisa Pelikan and Brian Thompson. It also features the acting debut of Ashley Johnson. Van Damme plays a French Foreign Legionnaire stationed in Africa, who must desert to the United States and enter the underground fighting circuit to raise money for his murdered brother’s family.
The film premiered in France on August 1, 1990, and opened in the U.S. on January 11, 1991. It received lackluster reviews, but marked Van Damme’s breakthrough as a theatrical leading man in North America. It was released in the United Kingdom as A.W.O.L: Absent Without Leave, and in Oceania as Wrong Bet, two early titles considered by the producers
(Jean-Claude Van Damme) Lionheart
He became a popular action film star and followed up with commercially successful films such as Cyborg, Kickboxer (both 1989), Lionheart, Death Warrant (both 1990), Double Impact (1991), Universal Soldier (1992), Nowhere to Run, Hard Target (both 1993), Timecop, Street Fighter (both 1994), Sudden Death (1995), The Quest, which marked his directorial debut, and Maximum Risk (both 1996). He achieved sex symbol status in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Between 1993 and 1998, three Hong Kong filmmakers collaborated with Van Damme for their debuts in Western cinema.