Diamond Select Jean-Claude Van Damme Deluxe Figure
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00:00 You might be too young for the Kumite, but you're never too old to collect an action
00:04 figure.
00:05 Here's a look at the brand new Diamond Select JCVD Jean Claude Van Damme Deluxe Action Figure.
00:20 Born Jean Claude Camille Francois Van Varenberg in Belgium, Jean Claude Van Damme began studying
00:39 karate at the age of 10, earning his black belt at 18 and joining the Belgium national
00:44 team.
00:45 He also studied ballet and lifted weights, eventually earning the bodybuilding title
00:48 Mr. Belgium.
00:49 He competed in full contact karate until 1982 when he moved to the United States to become
00:53 an actor.
00:54 After a few background parts and a villainous leading role, he began a series of starring
00:58 roles and cemented him as a leading man.
01:00 He has also written and directed films.
01:03 This deluxe action figure of Jean Claude Van Damme features over 20 points of articulation
01:06 for maximum posability as well as multiple interchangeable parts.
01:10 Ah, you must be Frank Dux.
01:12 Just before we get a closer look at the brand new Jean Claude Van Damme action figure courtesy
01:16 of the folks over at Diamond Select in USA.
01:19 OK, USA.
01:20 I'd like to grab the tape measure first and see how tall the figure actually stands.
01:23 While I'm doing this as well, I'd like to send out a big shout out to a friend of
01:26 mine, Waleed.
01:27 Hopefully he's watching.
01:28 Jean Claude Van Damme stands at 6 and a quarter inches in height, or the figure's 16 centimeters
01:34 tall.
01:35 Though not directly based on Frank Dux from Bloodsport, there are definitely some heavily
01:38 influenced Bloodsport style accessories that come in clue with Van Damme here.
01:42 Primarily the splitting chairs that Jackson walks into the hotel room and sees Frank Dux
01:46 spread across.
01:47 We're going to get more to those in a moment.
01:49 The figure also comes in clue with a couple of bottles of various damages.
01:53 One is a fully intact bottle.
01:54 It looks to be probably empty.
01:56 And then there's one that's actually smashed with the bottom end of it off to the side
02:00 as well.
02:01 Now, I'm not sure the referencing why they included this.
02:04 We're not talking necessarily about kickboxing Muay Thai and Tong Pao, where of course they
02:08 would have smashed their hands in the broken glass.
02:10 But it gets a couple of broken bottles, needless to say.
02:13 I would have rather instead if they actually had included like the boards, for example,
02:17 the dim muck or the touch of death that Van Damme would have to break through if, of course,
02:21 he was the house of Tanaka.
02:22 That would have been a nice little included touch.
02:24 The actual stack board that he had to actually... no, no, the bottom one he had to break.
02:29 I think that would have been a much rather interesting accessory than including necessarily
02:32 bottles.
02:33 But you get a couple of those also as well.
02:35 He has also to a couple of gripping hands.
02:37 So if you wanted to put the bottles in his hand, like he's ready to smash it over top
02:40 of somebody's head, you can also do that as well.
02:43 The figure having already holding one of them.
02:45 The figure also comes included with like a pair of gripping hands.
02:48 So of course, the only really other accessories that he has is really again just those bottles.
02:51 So you can have the figure displayed with those instead.
02:54 He also comes included with a couple of sparring hands, ideally suitable if you want to have
02:57 Van Damme again split across the chairs.
03:00 You can have the figure displayed as I did at the beginning of this review with these
03:03 also instead.
03:04 The figure also has closed fists, which you probably can already currently see on the
03:07 ends of his forearms.
03:08 He also has off to the side here, a clear acrylic adjustable display stand that you
03:12 can actually attach onto the back of the figure's body.
03:15 Sure yes, he does the splits across the chairs, but not in a way that he can balance on his
03:19 own, at least not that I've been able to find.
03:20 But he does have instead though a display stand.
03:23 I'm sure we have seen this stand before, probably with their Nightmare Before Christmas
03:26 figures.
03:27 Probably Jack Skellington had something of a similar stand to this.
03:30 It's a clear circular stand with one peg to the side that can actually plug into only
03:33 really one of Van Damme's feet as he only has, well, he has one peg, two feet.
03:37 He also has again like the adjustable neck, which you actually have several of these.
03:41 So you have the slightly smaller one and there's a knuckle joint attaching either end of it.
03:45 Then you can also attach this part to it, or you can also go for the full effect of
03:48 attaching all three of them and you have a much longer neck.
03:51 Now unfortunately though, with the support of this, there's no way you'd be able to
03:55 get Van Damme in a helicopter kick.
03:57 Just wouldn't be able to pull that off.
03:59 But you could get somewhat similar maybe in a slight, one of his foot is maybe up for
04:03 example.
04:04 That might be one way of displaying the figure.
04:05 It's kind of got an interesting way actually, the way that you can do the splits for Van
04:08 Damme.
04:09 So I'm going to move him right off to the side here just for one second and we'll just
04:12 move the stand over here.
04:13 We're going to come back to this more in a moment.
04:15 The figure also comes included with the gestured expression head sculpt.
04:19 This looks to me like when Chung Lee, for example, throws the dust in his eyes and he
04:23 gets blinded and he can't quite see what's going on in the finale of the Kumite.
04:28 Again this would just be a case of swapping out with the existing head that he has right
04:30 now.
04:31 One thing I will say though about the head and the way that it's been painted.
04:34 I think it looks good, but I think the skin color is way too pale.
04:38 Again this is only loosely based I feel on Bloodsport, especially with the Kumite style
04:42 of outfit that he's wearing.
04:44 But I think the coloring, especially if they were to base it more closer to that movie,
04:47 Van Damme would have kind of more of a darker coloring to his skin tone.
04:52 Very similar more to like a tan.
04:53 I feel like the figure's body is a little too pale.
04:56 That's the only thing I would say certainly about it when it comes to the paint job.
04:59 Head sculpt is pretty good.
05:00 I mean it passes enough I feel the likeness of Van Damme.
05:03 From all the sides you can kind of already know the character that this figure is based
05:06 from, but like again with the two different head sculpts and especially for the rest of
05:09 his body, I do feel if anything the coloring for his skin is maybe a little tad too pale.
05:15 Head sculpt again for this one is pretty good.
05:17 I mean you're looking at it from the side, you know there could be probably an opportunity
05:21 to where maybe just the paint may have let the sculpting down just a little bit, but
05:24 I think still looking at it I know exactly who the character is.
05:27 Now again if you want to change the head sculpt we're going to come back and do this just
05:30 a little bit later.
05:31 It's just a case of popping this head off from of course the provided peg and swap it
05:34 out with this one instead.
05:36 Watch you don't kick the referee whatever you do.
05:38 Now if you did want to put this guy with the provided chairs, we're just going to put the
05:41 figure down here for a second.
05:43 He comes with what seems to be matching chairs if I don't drop actually the other one.
05:47 You can see that the way they've sculpted the chairs there's actually a little permanent
05:50 indentation to these that actually support the bottom of Van Damme's legs.
05:54 Now I have yet been able to actually get Van Damme splitting across these balancing just
05:58 on the legs alone, but then of course you can bring back in the display stand.
06:01 I'll do that more in a second.
06:03 Then to go back and if we really were to nickel and dime the source material on this, Van
06:07 Damme would have actually been straddled across two sort of wicker style chairs with slightly
06:11 lighter colored seats.
06:13 Again they kind of gave us the suggestion of what chairs could look like from that film
06:17 without actually directly pointing the finger at that.
06:19 Maybe that's one of the reasons why they didn't include the dumb muck style of boards just
06:23 because again it would be too heavily you know close to the original source material.
06:28 Now the chairs themselves what's neat about them is all again they've molded them nicely
06:31 even like the under padding here you can actually even see the boards that make up the chair.
06:34 So like they look good from all the sides there's nothing really that looks unfinished
06:37 to the chairs themselves.
06:38 We'll just put it off to the side we'll kind of quickly go back to looking at Van
06:42 Damme.
06:43 Van Damme's nicely sculpted overall with his chest.
06:44 I did notice though getting the figure out of the packaging that his torso was really
06:48 tight.
06:49 I had to actually take a few passes with a hair dryer just to soften this up and it
06:52 still feels like it's super tight but again I would much rather tight joints than overly
06:56 loose joints.
06:57 Van Damme doesn't have that at all.
06:59 Still he has sort of the the Kumite style of trunks that he would have had in the film
07:04 without again directly pointing at the movie itself.
07:06 He's got a little sash there off to the side as well and the neat thing really about
07:09 the figure is the fact that he can also possess a split.
07:11 It isn't just the case that you're splitting the legs like this.
07:15 What you actually have to do instead and I think this was kind of clever the way that
07:17 they did this they hinged it in such a way that one is stacked on top of the other.
07:21 Can you see that?
07:22 So now actually instead of having it just a straight bar across and then these attached
07:25 by ball joints they actually layered the pegs.
07:29 So this one here for example is a little bit lower than this one here to the side and they
07:32 actually have just if I get my finger out of the way they just stacked the pegs on top
07:35 of one another.
07:36 Now if you want to get Van Damme in splits that's as far as he can actually go until
07:40 though you drop the legs.
07:42 The legs themselves normally in their default would be up like this close to his body but
07:45 if you drop them down just a little bit on both sides now Van Damme can do a full splits.
07:49 I'm just going to split them off on either side.
07:52 You can also as well rotate them.
07:54 There seems to be and I'm going to talk more about this when we talk about the post
07:56 Billy on the figure there seems to be a swivel right here for the leg but I can't get it
08:00 to budge.
08:01 What I'll do though instead so that Van Damme's feet are sticking upright like this you can
08:05 actually twist the thighs around and have Van Damme doing the splits this way.
08:09 Then what you'll do is I've noticed the proper length is just attaching this one.
08:14 We'll also take the top part off here.
08:16 Now we're also going to remove this knuckle joint and I find the sweet spot is actually
08:21 the one that's not the longest not the shortest but the one right in the middle the baby bear
08:24 peg.
08:25 You can actually just put that on one end plug this on the other end just like that
08:29 and then if you angle the knuckle joint that little hinge joint right there you can actually
08:33 go on the back of Van Damme's body and there's a hole right there you just plug it on the
08:37 back may have to involve actually a little bit of wiggling back and forth but once you
08:42 get that properly in place there we go you can get Van Damme obviously you're going to
08:46 have to put them on the chairs themselves but again like you've got that little groove
08:49 right there so you can get Van Damme on one side bring the leg then around on the other
08:53 side and as we did at the beginning of the review you can actually have Van Damme straddle
08:58 the chairs now obviously this would look a lot nicer as well if you can actually get
09:01 the hands popped off you know what we might actually even just do that as well just take
09:05 the hands from the provided peg just remove them take the sparring hands or the meditation
09:10 hands we'll just plug those in place and we'll just bring the hand up slightly kind of similar
09:15 to again like you would have had in the movie and again we'll just take his legs and straddle
09:18 them across the chairs now without really having again that clear acrylic stand I've
09:23 tried to do it without the stand and it just doesn't seem to work he just because he's
09:27 further back on the seats he ends up falling backwards but again like I really like the
09:32 way that they've actually decided to include this as something as an included accessory
09:36 sure yes the broken boards would have worked also really well as well for the touch of
09:39 death but I do appreciate the fact that neck that I do appreciate the fact that Diamond
09:42 Select would have included the accessories that they did as for the figures articulation
09:48 let's go ahead and move everything out of the way here we're going to detach the peg
09:51 here on the provided hole on the back of his body and just bring his legs back back down
09:55 sort of to the defaulted pose and maybe while we're also added to let's go ahead and remove
09:59 Van Damme's head which is actually fairly easy to remove from the bulge weight they've
10:03 made enough at least clearance on the underside of his head cavity so it's very easy to pop
10:08 the new head in place just pop it in place although I did honestly heat this up just
10:12 with a little bit of hot water but I don't really think I'm even necessarily needed to
10:16 just a little bit of pressure you can get it right in place so now that's again like
10:19 the shocked look on his face you know again while he's blinded and he's trying to swing
10:24 through the air again a good-looking head sculpt the only thing again I would say is
10:27 like the coloring of his skin I feel is just a little too light for the articulation on
10:32 the figure the heads gonna be on once again that ball joint so it rotates all the way
10:34 around it looks up without of course removing the head in the process it looks up it looks
10:39 down and you can also move it back and forth I want to just make sure I get it all the
10:42 way on there as to the upper torso even though I did have problems with it earlier I've loosened
10:47 it up enough that I can actually move it back and forth now it moves up it moves down there's
10:51 also a waist swivel too which is good to see the arms themselves rotate all the way around
10:56 that's the same on this side as well as for his arms you can also bring them out comfortably
11:00 at 90 degrees Van Damme also do it does have a swivel his bicep a double hinge on the elbow
11:05 and the hands do as well rotate all the way around the legs also do as you can already
11:11 see you can move them forward you can move them back but again if you want to get the
11:14 splits or you want to get Van Damme to a higher kick just bring those legs a little bit further
11:18 down they easily sock it back in place it's not like you're actually breaking anything
11:22 just drop them down you can bring them forward you can bring them back again you can do the
11:25 full splits by bringing those down smart that Diamond did do that still though looking at
11:30 this and feeling my finger around it it feels like there's a cut into the thigh and yet
11:35 though I can't swivel it I've tried heating this and still yielded the same result I'm
11:40 going to see if I can heat this again because I feel like the way that that's cut in there
11:43 should be a swivel which might also be the reasoning why that if you have them splits
11:47 for example the way I had to do it at least where this feet angled upward like this you'd
11:51 only then see the very ugly peg holes on the inside the ball joints so I'm sure that that's
11:55 the reason if there was a swivel they would have put the swivel there so you can actually
11:58 bring the legs out this way swivel this upright and then again you'd have the leg facing or
12:04 the feet facing upright like this again with not having that being able something I can
12:08 swivel the knees do at least to have a double hinge on there so you can bend those back
12:12 and forth there's an ankle pivot here on his feet and you can also ankle rock them as well
12:18 for a first-time figure of a Van Damme I mean the figure I think looks good I think diamonds
12:21 done a decent job on him I mean yes there still could have been a feel an opportunity
12:25 maybe they could have improved upon the paint just a little bit because again like in the
12:28 movie I don't feel like if we were again looking at this looking at this and saying okay well
12:33 this figure is based on blood sport even though it does actually say blood sport anywhere
12:36 on the packaging if I was to base it on that I would say Frank Dukes in the movie is a
12:41 little bit more darker of a color than he is depicted here I think the likeness still
12:44 lands a decent looking Van Damme I do like they included the accessories to be all honest
12:49 and fair I don't think I'm ever gonna display the figure with the bottles I just don't feel
12:53 like that was a good included accessory Dim Mok I mean the board that he has to break
12:58 in order to prove that he was part of house Tanaka I think what it made a lot more sense
13:02 to include that but maybe again that was too close on the nose maybe it'd be look too much
13:06 like blood sport that they decided not to include that as part of the figures accessories
13:10 while the idea of a helicopter kicking Van Damme would be impossible to pull off with
13:14 a figure like this not that he wouldn't be able to do it but just with the weight of
13:17 the plastic on the figure there's no way the weaker adjustable neck would be able to support
13:21 the weight with at least the splits being capable you can at least get a higher kick
13:25 for Van Damme that's really gonna look good on the shelf in fact actually the way it attaches
13:29 on the back of his body the adjustable neck that is it lines up perfectly with his feet
13:33 then attaching on to the post that's on the front of the display stand I may not have
13:37 the figure displayed like this on the shelf but it's certainly a strong contender for
13:40 one of the ways that you can display him well he's not again directly based on blood sport
13:44 I think it was the case that he probably didn't have the licensing to use the blood sport
13:48 directly there's enough still thrown in there while those chairs don't resemble the ones
13:52 that he when we see in the movie they at least are chairs that he can split across while
13:56 he's not wearing a kumite specific kind of trunks they're close enough at least in color
14:00 scheme that you know exactly what movie this is supposed to be and while I think the likeness
14:04 is close enough resembling Van Damme I think if anything maybe the paint is the one thing
14:08 that maybe lets this figure down just a little bit darkening up the colors on him because
14:12 he's very pale the way they presented this figure and maybe that's one of the things
14:16 that may have helped also the likeness looking a little bit more like Van Damme himself what
14:20 do you guys think of the Jean-Claude Van Damme action figure is this one that you guys could
14:24 see yourselves picking up I think diamonds actually planning to do more of these so I'm
14:27 definitely on board to get more Van Damme not only with the statues that they've been
14:31 doing so well with but also as well for possibly future articulated figures also let me know
14:36 down below in the comment section what's your favorite Jean-Claude Van Damme top three top
14:41 three let's go my top three I would still say is probably Universal Soldier Time Cop
14:46 and gotta throw in the classic blood sport what's yours let me know down below big thank
14:50 you once again to the folks over at Diamond Select that were kind enough to provide this
14:53 sample we could have a look at if you guys certainly did enjoy this video want to throw
14:56 it a like if you guys are loving the content you guys are seeing and certainly want to
15:00 stick around for more Van Damme if you haven't already done so make sure you hit that subscribe
15:04 button down below and you're turning on the bell notification as always guys thanks for
15:08 watching see you guys next time
15:10 you
15:12 you
15:14 you
15:16 (whooshing)
15:18 [BLANK_AUDIO]