Van Damme’s 'Lost Masterpiece Has a 7.4 IMDb Rating — But No One’s Actually Seen It
The actor has been nurturing the idea since 1996 — with no luck.
Jean-Claude Van Damme may have once had the chance to make the film of his life. The mysterious movie The Eagle Path (also known as Full Love, The Frenchman, or even just Soldiers) currently holds a surprisingly high 7.4 rating. But there’s a catch — only 2,200 eople have rated it. Why? Because the film… doesn’t really exist. Or almost doesn’t.
The Frenchman is a wild, chaotic passion project from Van Damme himself. He directed, wrote, edited, produced, and of course, starred in it. The plot? His character, nicknamed Frenchy, is a former mercenary living in Asia and working as a taxi driver. One day he picks up a mysterious woman — and everything spirals into chaos. What exactly spirals is hard to say, because the film is nearly impossible to find online.
It first surfaced at the Cannes film market in 2010, where it left audiences baffled. Critics described it as a strange arthouse experiment, even comparing it (nervously) to Terrence Malick — unsure what to make of it. Van Damme reportedly re-shot, re-dubbed, and re-edited the movie multiple times, eventually screening it again in Shanghai in 2014… and then it vanished once more.
Every so often, trailers pop up online. Every so often, Van Damme himself promises a proper release. But The Frenchman remains nowhere to be found — not on torrents, not on streaming, not even on DVD. Just a lonely KinoPoisk page… and a handful of die-hard fans who, for over 15 years, have kept the faith that someday, somehow, they’ll finally get to watch the movie from beginning to end. But those chances? Let’s just say… don’t get your hopes up.
