Michael Jai White actioner ‘Welcome to Sudden Death’ welcomes itself to Netflix and DVD

Welcome to Sudden Death | DVD (Universal)

Welcome to Sudden Death | DVD (Universal)

Welcome to Sudden Death (aka Sudden Death 2), a sequel/remake (mostly by name) to Jean-Claude Van Damme’s 1995 actioner, Sudden Death (proving our 2015 article Van Damme is the most ‘remade’ action star in the world was spot on) has finally arrived to DVD and Netflix.

Filling in Van Damme’s shoes is cult martial arts star Michael Jai White (Triple Threat, Accident Man). Co-stars include comedian Gary Owen (Ride Along), Gillian White (Never Back Down: No Surrender), Marrese Crump (Tom Yum Goong 2) and Kristen Harris (Channel Zero).

Jesse Freeman (White) is a former special forces officer and explosives expert now working a regular job as a security guard in a state-of-the-art basketball arena. Trouble erupts when a tech-savvy cadre of terrorists kidnap the team’s owner and Jesse’s daughter during opening night. Facing a ticking clock and impossible odds, it’s up to Jesse to not only save them, but also a full house of fans in this highcharged action thriller.

Welcome to Sudden Death is directed and written by Dallas Jackson (Thriller), who had this to say back in 2019 (via TAE): “It’s a remake of Sudden Death. We are shooting in Winnipeg, Canada. It’s a martial arts version of Die Hard. It takes place in a sports arena. Winnipeg has this huge sports arena that their hockey team plays in and they are letting us take it over for the summer.”

In addition to streaming on Netflix, Welcome to Sudden Death is also currently on DVD. Read our comments below to see what visitors have been saying about it.



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37 Responses to Michael Jai White actioner ‘Welcome to Sudden Death’ welcomes itself to Netflix and DVD

  1. AFS says:

    In a better world, Michael Jai White is headlining John Wick-level franchises, not getting JCVD’s leftovers.

  2. Andrew Hernandez says:

    Is this following in the footsteps of Hard Target 2? Why call it a sequel if has nothing to do with the previous film other than a similar plot? I’ll be annoyed if someone makes a movie about an undercover cop and his son, and calls it My Father is a Hero 2.

    At least I hope there’s some good action that utilizes MJW. They should just retool this movie so that it’s a sequel to Falcon Rising or Blood and Bone.

  3. American Ninja says:

    Will he fight a giant 🐧 though?

  4. It’s the biggest battle of the box office in 2020 so far –

    ‘Welcome to Sudden Death’ vs ‘ The Intergalactic Adventures of Max Cloud’.

    Who will win? Does anyone care?

  5. Cryin'Freeman says:

    Wow… trailer in 4:3 & looks like it was shot on a prosumer camera.

    • Dan Hagen says:

      The aspect ratio is definitely bizarre. It’s not even proper 4:3… but maybe 3:4 (turned on its side)?

      However, it makes more sense if the video was designed for social media. People scrolling through Facebook on their phones and seeing a video in “vertical” mode will have an easier viewing experience, I suppose.

      Might be a sign of dark times ahead. Might not. If it is, I hope I’m dead in the ground before feature-length movies are ever shot in portrait mode.

      Looks like a fun movie by the way. I’ve never seen the JCVD original so I should probably check that out first.

      • Cryin'Freeman says:

        Me too. The day we pander to this tictok/insta-bastard generation is the day I put myself in the ground.

        I’m tired of poor quality actioners. Always handheld & poorly shot. I know we’re not going to see a high quality 35mm format film anytime soon but come the hell on.

      • JJ Bona says:

        “The aspect ratio is definitely bizarre. It’s not even proper 4:3… but maybe 3:4 (turned on its side)?…. Might be a sign of dark times ahead” I think you might be onto something. It definitely looks like it was formatted to “share” on social media in that almost vertical format. I think it’s a matter of time before we see that format as an option. It’s very possible. It’s more about the comfort of holding the phone in your hand, not so much the quality or presentation of the movie. That’s where we’re headed. But to be fair, it looks like this trailer might have been leaked. Real one, in a proper ratio, should be hitting soon.

      • Ricky Lawson says:

        Movie weak 1995 way better Jamal white fight way better then fighting trash actors

  6. Mike Retter says:

    You can call me Sudden Deaf… Cos I just don’t want to hear about it!

  7. Dan Hagen says:

    I’m guessing this is another case of “helicopter shown on the box art is nowhere to be seen in the actual movie”.

    I need more Michael Jai White in my life though, so I’ll certainly be watching this when it comes out.

  8. Andrew Hernandez says:

    Just watched this on Netflix, and I would be upset if I paid money for this flick.

    I was expecting mindless entertainment, but the proceedings were simply stupid. Larnell Stoval is the fight choreographer, but for most of the movie he has poor talent mixing it up with MJW. Often times, his costars look like they’re missing their cues and are not on point with the rhythm and timing.

    After Legacy of Lies and Seized, (from the reports) this seems to be the third DTV film to feature annoying as hell children. I don’t know why making kids smart asses who talk in internet slang is considered charming, but someone needs to get it into their head that it isn’t.

    If that’s not bad enough, MJW has a comic relief sidekick who’s just as terrible as the kids. Every time he makes a stupid joke, the camera stays on his face for several seconds like we’re supposed to have time to laugh.

    The movie is so cheap that it can’t afford prop guns, so the terrorists use guns that look like they were made in high school shop class that only fire six shots are are only useful at close range. I don’t know how this works for taking over a stadium.

    The only decent parts are when MJW fights his wife briefly, and then has a 3 on 1 fight scene before throwing down with Marrese Crump. (Who goes through several embarrassing moments beforehand)

    It’s a nice little fight that shows what could have been, and it’s just a shame that this is the best project these two men can collaborate on. And stay tuned for a mid credit scene that’s hilarious for the wrong reasons.

    Better yet, just skip to MJW vs Crump, and call it a day.

    • JJ Bona says:

      What you just wrote makes me want to see it even more! LOL

    • Man, I’ve missed the Hernandez takedowns! I’m glad this movie brought them back!

    • Ronin says:

      I can agree with your analysis as I worked on the film as the local stunt team was not ‘martial arts actors’ nor good stunt actors either.

      And talking with a bit of Larnell of the film… He said things were beyond his control.

      The only slight saving grace was Marrese and MJW as they worked well together, only to be massacred by two editors that do not know how to edit a fight scene properly.

      • Andrew Hernandez says:

        Wow. That explains a lot. I don’t know why Larnell wouldn’t be allowed to let loose like before, but it was clearly a mistake not to give him control.

        • Ronin says:

          Here’s the some BTS that no one knows…

          Larnell and his team had it all pre viz and the local stunt coordinator told the production they had it under control.

          2 weeks before shooting there was a fight camp that had none of the stunt men understanding the purpose of the movement let alone understanding how the fight scene worked.

          Only MJW, Marrese and MJWs stunt double understood how to move and etc. Hell even the villain trained and looked better.

          Larnell came down to take a peek and wasn’t impressed. The stunt coordinator didn’t care about the way it looked either. Just let it happen and said “yeah it was good.”
          Even when MJW asked the whole crew was anyone watching and I couldn’t say what was wrong.

          Larnell should have directed the action scenes but yeah. This is just the details of that and what I also experienced working on the show.

          • Andrew Hernandez says:

            That’s really fascinating. I hope Larnell, MJW, and Marrese collaborate on a better project down the line.

  9. Christopher Dean says:

    Bro this is a low budget woke edition, first of all, all the fight scenes are done like it’s a rehearsal or first take and the cast look like they should be in an episode of black-ish then in a action movie. The script which I’m not mad about cause its clearly a 90s action movie with the one liners and jokes and the setup. But clearly this director was most focused on having a lit woke black movie then a sudden death movie. And I don’t get considering they have a budget make a decent low budget action movie. I think the biggest problem is the director. If it was someone like Jesse V Johnson or Isaac Florentine or hell even Michael Kai White directing and doing the action choreography it actually wouldn’t have be this lame. Cause clearly there is some love for 90s action movies. The villain or a bigger problem apart from MJW’s wife and Crump. They missed a big opportunity to cast better people, i mean if you’re going to replace Boothe Powers and least cast someone like Neal McDonough or Eric Roberts hell even Ian McCunningham or Dolph Lundgren. And some more martial artists like Amy Johnston Johnston and maybe some wwe wrestlers. Up your game. And no offense to the action director/choreographer but where is tim man? He would have been more creative with the environment. And remove the daughter story line didn’t need it. Hard Target 2 was better than this. Hell the marine wwe film series was better.

    • Andrew Hernandez says:

      Larnell Stoval has done great work in the past with Undisputed III and Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, but it felt like the director cramped his style in this movie. Tim Man certainly isn’t invincible to bad directing either considering how the same thing happened to him in Legacy of Lies.

      Michael Ecklund is an interesting actor in that he has hits and misses. I was hoping he’d play the same character from Hell in a Cell instead of just being a parody villain. I don’t know anything about being “woke,” but this film was a missed opportunity to say the least.

      • Andrew says:

        Strange I didn’t really feel like this was woke at all, and I usually detect bullshit PC politics in these kinds of movies as easily as a morning snack, agreed about the fight scenes tho, they truly felt like it was either take one or
        behind the scenes rehearsals, the camerawork was weak as hell and lacked any sense of energy and punch, even Legacy of Lies still had some sort of kinetic drive in the camerawork to make the fights more effective. Welcome to Sudden Death was just very meh (ooooh that rhyme), I wouldn’t accuse it of woke politics tho or making a Black-ish movie first as I didn’t really see/hear any lines or parts that would suggest that, but the overall film is weaker than even the worst outings of Scott this year, waste of talent really as both Michael Jai White and Marrese Crump are excellent martial artists.

        • Christopher Dean says:

          I thank you all for your opinions and appreciate that you guys agreed with me on some aspects. I agreed with some of yours.

          • Killer Meteor says:

            I’m sorry, what makes this a “Woke” film?

            • Dan Hagen says:

              Nothing really. There’s one scene where the hip-hop artist frantically points his finger at the town’s mayor (both are being held hostage), and says “kill her instead of me, she doesn’t do anything to help the black community!” after which the movie completely fails to clarify or expand upon it in any way.

  10. KayKay says:

    A remake of a 25 year old JCVD flick that flopped at the box office? Strange are the decisions taken by studios sometimes.

    Thankfully…WELCOME TO SUDDEN DEATH doesn’t shit the bed…but it does snore occasionally and rip out a few loud farts. While Peter Hyams was a master at making modest budgeted films look epic and expensive and demonstrated it in SUDDEN DEATH, Dallas Jackson sadly lacks similar chops and WELCOME…looks and feels every bit the low budget affair it is. Instead of Powers Boothe you get an actor I last saw playing the 3rd or 4th henchman in a Steve Austin flick called HUNT TO KILL as the main villain here. And not content with it’s basic DIE HARD premise, the movie also plunders other DIE HARD sequels for plot, with a goofy janitor who knows all the passageways and drives a buggy straight from DIE HARD 2 and the fearless, feisty and mouthy daughter from LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD.

    Thank God for MJW, who as always, never dials it in. No fight with a giant penguin sadly, but White does get to go toe to toe with his real life wife and dish out punishment far more frequently to the baddies than JCVD did in the original. Definitely not Larnell Stovall’s best work, but with productions of these budgets, I’d be surprised if he was given more than 2 days to put them together.

    Not a patch on the original, but thankfully also not COPS AND ROBBERS or UNDERCOVER BROTHER 2 awful

  11. Dan Hagen says:

    I just finished watching both versions of “Sudden Death” pretty much back-to-back.

    Let’s be honest: Neither of them are particularly good movies. Admittedly the 1995 JCVD original is still a serviceable popcorn flick, despite being dragged down by choppy editing, annoying kids, obvious green screen work, and probably a couple of other things I’m already forgetting. By the end of it I was mostly indifferent though.

    It also doesn’t help that I’m still coming off the high of watching “Hard Target” for the first time, one of JCVD’s best movies. (At least I think it is? To be honest, I’m not super acquainted with the guy. Do we have a “JCVD starter pack” somewhere?)

    Now, in 2020, “Welcome to Sudden Death” takes a mediocre movie from the mid-90’s and somehow manages to remake it into something even worse. I don’t know how they did it, but they did.

    All of the main story beats are still here, but with 90% less grace and gravitas. JCVD’s intense procedural of finding and disarming each bomb has been reduced to a short montage with bad music playing over it. The “twist” with the head security guard being revealed as a bad guy isn’t really handled in any interesting way, instead just showing him pull gun on MJW halfway through the movie. And at the very end, the spectacular sequence of the helicopter crashing through the roof of the stadium has been forgone in exchange for the villain simply being thrown off a catwalk.

    Do we get to see an epic build-up with MJW slowly climbing his way to the top of the stadium before finally swinging into the VIP box from above, a la the original? Nah, instead there’s just a scene where his custodian buddy hands him a rope and says “here, use this”, and the next thing we know, MJW has smashed his way into the box. We don’t get to watch anything that happens in the interim. Bummer.

    I know it’s been said already, but man, MJW’s custodian sidekick is one of the most unnecessary and cringe-worthy parts of the movie. Almost none of his comedic quips actually land, and the way the dialog briefly pauses after each one is especially painful. (“Hey guys, this is really funny, please laugh”)

    Perhaps as an attempt to modernize the story, real firearms have been swapped out 3D-printed ones (?), and US dollars are now swapped for cryptocurrency. That’s cool, I guess, but neither of these do anything to help the movie. When MJW begins attacking the bad guys with a T-shirt gun, I was hoping maybe the film was about to do something interesting and original for once, but that idea unfortunately gets tossed away after a few seconds (both literally and figuratively).

    The total cartoon-style villain from 1995 could’ve easily been improved upon, but again, they didn’t do it. They just swapped out a smarmy smooth-talking dude for a more gravelly and spiky-haired one. That’s it, that’s all they did. He may as well be the same.

    The fight scenes, again, feel stiff and choppily-edited. MJW’s talent almost entirely goes to waste, just as JCVD’s did 25 years ago. Even the finale wasn’t good. There are literally no redeeming qualities here, not even as a “bored sunday afternoon watch”, and not even as a “just skip to this one part that’s actually good”. Nope. None of it’s good. You’re better off just re-watching the original.

    Even the cinematography sucked. Everything about it was amateur: The direction, the lighting, and the blocking all made the experience feel more like watching a TV show than an actual movie.

    It’s weird to think that I was legitimately considering spending money on this movie. I’m glad I didn’t. The fact that it went directly to Netflix probably a raises a red flag on its own. Maybe someone will write a more extensive and thorough BTS article on this movie, explaining what unfortunate and misguided sequence of events lead to the creation of this.

    I’m not sure what else to say. I guess I should mention the “Universal 1440 Entertainment” logo that’s displayed at the beginning of the movie; those guys are basically Universal’s D-studio. They’re the ones responsible for “Hard Target 2”, as well as last year’s “Doom: Annihilation”. I haven’t gotten around to watching either of those movies yet, and now I’m wondering if I should even bother.

    • To be honest, I’m not super acquainted with the guy. Do we have a “JCVD starter pack” somewhere?

      We don’t (although we probably should!), however I know that both myself and COF overlord JJ Bona rate ‘Knock Off’ in JCVD’s Top 5. Most JCVD traditionalists hate it, however for me everything about it clicks. Shot during the HK handover, this was Tsui Hark’s second English language flick, and he uses the opportunity to throw every camera trick in the book at the viewer. All of this is complimented by a wild eyed performance from JCVD at the height of his cocaine addiction (the ‘Making Of’ available on YouTube is a hoot, as he’s clearly high as a kite), Rob Schneider with co-star billing, choreography by Yuen Bun, Michael Wong (’nuff said), and the 90’s HK gweilo crew out in full force (Mark Houghton, Mike Miller, Jeff Wolfe, and Kim Maree Penn). Oh, and the whole thing is about explosive counterfeit jeans. It may be accidental awesomeness, but it’s still awesome.

      And at the very end, the spectacular sequence of the helicopter crashing through the roof of the stadium…

      But you didn’t answer the million dollar question – does the helicopter featured on the cover of the ‘Welcome to Sudden Death’ DVD make an appearance in the movie itself!?

      Maybe someone will write a more extensive and thorough BTS article on this movie, explaining what unfortunate and misguided sequence of events lead to the creation of this.

      Just putting it out there, it won’t be us! 😛 This is one of those times where, before we’ve even got a chance to check out the movie ourselves for the sake of a review, the onslaught of comments on this post have made us realise some movies just aren’t worth the torture of sitting through (plus, I think everything that could be said has been said from you guys!)

      They’re the ones responsible for “Hard Target 2”, as well as last year’s “Doom: Annihilation”. I haven’t gotten around to watching either of those movies yet, and now I’m wondering if I should even bother.

      I gave ‘Hard Target 2’ a 5/10 back when I reviewed it at the time of its release in 2016 (check it out here). Overall I thought it was a lackluster affair, but as you’ll see from the comments there where those who enjoyed it more than I did.

      • JJ Bona says:

        “This is one of those times where, before we’ve even got a chance to check out the movie ourselves for the sake of a review, the onslaught of comments on this post have made us realise some movies just aren’t worth the torture of sitting through (plus, I think everything that could be said has been said from you guys!)” Something tells me if Lionsgate had put it out, we would have beat the comments. lol

      • Felix says:

        Huge Knock Off fan here as well, Paul! It’s so full of energy and fun.

    • Andrew Hernandez says:

      Your comments are very fair. As I was watching the movie, I was reaching in vain for something I could like. I’m such a supporter of Marrese Crump even though he doesn’t have any good movies on his resumé (Aside from training and doubling the late Chadwick Boseman in his Marvel films.)

      The prospect of him and MJW fighting was too much to pass up, and I was glad that there was something competitive even though the editing could have been better.

  12. Dan Hagen says:

    “But you didn’t answer the million dollar question – does the helicopter featured on the cover of the ‘Welcome to Sudden Death’ DVD make an appearance in the movie itself!?”

    It does not, sadly. “Welcome to Sudden Death” has no helicopters to be seen, as opposed to the original “Sudden Death” which features helicopters in abundance. So not only does this new version of the movie betray it’s own poster, but it also betrays the 1995 original. It’s a double-whammy!

    Thanks for making me acutely aware of the movie “Knock Off”, by the way. That one wasn’t even on my radar, but after watching the trailer, it looks like an absolute banger. I’ll put it on my list.

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