10 Movie Henchmen Who Stole Movies From Villains

There's a general perception that John Woo's move to Hollywood in the early 1990s was entirely unfruitful, with the filmmaker struggling to assert his creative freedom within the confines of a more controlling studio set-up.

And yet, Woo produced several films that, while arguably not as flawless as his masterpieces The Killer and Hard Boiled, bordered extremely close to that level. Broken Arrow was a neo-Western military thriller that brought heroic bloodshed to a Western audience, while the totally gonzo Face/Off provided fertile ground for Woo's balletic and intricate action impulses to shine on the big screen.

At the top of the pile, though, is Hard Target, which is not only Woo's greatest American film, but also the finest movie in Jean-Claude Van Damme's extensive action catalogue. Woo illustrated an instant and masterful grasp of JCVD's physicality in the picture, starting with a fight scene in which Van Damme's character of Chance Boudreaux pulls back his coat to reveal his thighs like they're a six-shooter about to be drawn in an Old West duel. Throw in a howlingly evil Lance Henriksen, an exploding bow-and-arrow-firing, cajun-accented Wilford Brimley, and more dual berrettas than anyone could possibly pass up, and you're left with one of the greatest action films of the decade.

But despite Henriksen being on top form as usual, he's beaten out as the film's villainous highlight by Arnold Vosloo, better known to most audiences as the high priest Imhotep in Stephen Sommers' gloriously fun Mummy films, which co-starred Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz.

Vosloo portrays Pik Van Cleaf in Hard Target, the right hand of Henriksen's Emil Fouchon, who mercilessly dispatches anyone who could be a threat to his boss's operations. Already endeared to my heart for his character name paying homage to Western legend Lee Van Cleef, Vosloo takes the heavy archetype and has a truckload of fun with it, even getting a fun recurring one-liner where he taunts his opponents about hurting his feelings.

Hard Target is filled to the brim with memorable faces and characters, but Van Cleaf is up there with the very best.