Action breed
Following the success of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone’s shoot-em-up kind of action, newer breeds of action heroes spawned in the 80s and 90s. Steven Seagal and Jean-Claude Van Damme brought their own charms to the action scene and became big in their own right with big-budget studio movies and their giant faces covering the movie posters. Seagal and Van Damme’s successes would then have studios clamoring for more face-punchers and head-kickers, but very few would be able to duplicate the kind of notoriety of the aforementioned stars.
Here are 5 action stars, who are crowd pleasers, and may have even broken through or crossed over into big studio movies, but their careers are largely defined by smaller, more obscure films throughout their careers when they should have had their own big studio hits, like an Under Siege or a Universal Soldier.
Thomas Ian Griffith
Cobra Kai would thankfully bring back the delightfully evil Terry Silver, but after making his initial debut in the role in 1989, Thomas Ian Griffith could have been a bigger deal. He had gone all out, chewing scenery like he was starving, in his first film role in The Karate Kid Part III and following that appearance, he got to write his own project with Excessive Force (with New Line Cinema hoping he would become their face of action). Unfortunately, that’s mainly where his career would peak. Although Griffith would get to play the head Vampire in John Carpenter’s Vampires, his more notable films would include very obscure movies like the pretty funny action comedy, Hollow Point, and the Die Hard-at-a-ski-resort film Crackerjack.
Jeff Speakman
When the new breed of action stars brought new martial arts styles to the table, like Seagal’s mastery of Aikido or Van Damme’s Kickboxer spotlighting Muay Thai, Speakman was a practitioner of Kenpo and his film, The Perfect Weapon, was the vehicle for him to showcase his skills. The Perfect Weapon never reached the heights of a Seagal or Van Damme box office hit, but it’s still a cult favorite with action fans. Speakman had a good screen presence. For his first time as a leading man, Speakman has an impressive debut and, while his career continued, they were mostly straight-to-video fare.
Michael Jai White
Michael Jai White has had quite a bit of success, with movies like Spawn and appearing in The Dark Knight, but just like that Kylo Ren meme says, “More!” Michael Jai White should’ve been in more big action films. He’s shown his dramatic prowess in the HBO biopic Tyson, his comedy sensibilities in Black Dynamite and his franchise potential in Spawn. He’s a worker. You won’t find a shortage of movies on his resume, but it’s unfortunate to see him in an Asylum movie when he’s capable of so much more.
Scott Adkins
Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White seem to go hand-in-hand a lot. They are frequent collaborators in action films, and while Adkins made appearances in films like Doctor Strange and The Expendables 2, he should also be leading in big-budget studio action films. Adkins, much like White, has an amazing set of skills as a martial artist and he has been able to thrive in his career, despite not getting high-profile projects. It’s a testament to him that he has become the face of the Undisputed franchise, despite not appearing in the original film and being introduced as the villain. For a time, he was a fan favorite to become the next Batman. Talk about an amazing “What if?” timeline that would have been. Ultimately, Adkins was born in the wrong era. Had he been older, he would’ve broken out in the late 80s or early 90s.
Mark Dacascos
Many action fans would have loved to see Mark Dacascos use his martial arts skills in some higher-profile titles. Dacascos gained delayed acclaim after appearing in the French movie Brotherhood of the Wolf, but he would follow it up with Cradle 2 the Grave, which wasted him and his fight with Jet Li was watered down (pun intended if you’ve seen the movie) while being disappointingly intercut with other scenes. Dacascos got to have a bit more spotlight by being the main villain in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, but Dacascos’ career is majorly populated wth obscure films. His movie Drive (not the Ryan Gosling film) truly showed that he could have done Jackie Chan/Jet Li-type action.
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