''Pound of Flesh'' is a 2015 Canadian

action Action may refer to: * Action (narrative), a literary mode * Action fiction, a type of genre fiction * Action game, a genre of video game Film * Action film, a genre of film * ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford * ''Action'' (1980 fil ...

thriller film directed by

Ernie Barbarash Ernie Barbarash is a film director, screenwriter and producer, perhaps best known as co-producer of the films ''American Psycho 2'', '' Cube 2: Hypercube'', ''Prisoner of Love'', ''The First 9½ Weeks'' and '' The Cat's Meow''. Barbarash also wro ...

, and starring

Jean-Claude Van Damme Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg (, ; born 18 October 1960), known professionally as Jean-Claude Van Damme (, ), is a Belgian actor, martial artist, filmmaker, and fight choreographer. Born and raised in Brussels, Belgium, at the ag ...

, Charlotte Peters, and

Darren Shahlavi Darren Majian Shahlavi (5 August 1972 – 14 January 2015) was an English actor, martial artist and stuntman. Shahlavi was known primarily for in martial arts films such as '' Bloodmoon'', '' Tai Chi Boxer'', the 2010 film '' Ip Man 2'', '' B ...

. It is the third collaboration between Van Damme and Barbarash (following '' Assassination Games'' in 2011 and '' Six Bullets'' in 2012).

Plot

Deacon, a former black-ops agent, is in Manila, Philippines awaiting an operation to donate his kidney to his dying niece. He awakens the day before the procedure to find he is a victim of

organ theft Organ theft is the forcible removal of a person's organs to be used as transplants and sold on the black market. While some cases of organ theft are urban legends, others have been found to be true. It is also a commonly used trope in science ...

. Stitched up and furious, Deacon descends from his opulent hotel in search of his stolen kidney and carves a blood-soaked path through the darkest corners of the city - brothels, fight clubs, back-alley black markets, and elite billionaire estates. The clock is ticking for his niece and with each step he loses blood; Deacon, his brother, and his former underworld connections will journey through society's seedy underbelly, proving to anyone who crosses their path, nothing means more to a man than his flesh and blood.

Cast

Production

Filming

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as a ...

and production ended on May 24, 2014. On January 14, 2015, Shahlavi died in his sleep at the age of 42. The film's

end credits Closing credits or end credits are a list of the cast and crew of a particular motion picture, television program, or video game. Where opening credits appear at the beginning of a work, closing credits appear close to, or at the very end of ...

start with an ''In memoriam'' to him.

Reception

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 17%, based on 12 reviews, and an average rating of 3.7/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 41 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

References

External links

*
''Pound of Flesh'' (2015)
{{Organ transplantation in fiction 2015 films English-language Canadian films Canadian action thriller films 2015 action thriller films Films about organ trafficking Films about organ transplantation Films set in the Philippines Films directed by Ernie Barbarash 2010s English-language films 2010s Canadian films