Before Jean-Claude Van Damme conquered Hollywood, he shared space with Shô Kosugi on the video shelves with BLACK EAGLE, on Blu-ray/DVD combo as part of MVD Visual's Rewind Collection.

When an American military jet carrying a new laser-guided missile system is shot down over Malta, the Americans and the Soviets scramble to find it before the other can at the bottom of the sea. When cocky agent Henderson (Gene Davis, 10 TO MIDNIGHT) fails to return, the American Ambassador in Rome Dean Rickert (William Bassett, BLACK DYNAMITE) – having spearheaded top secret operations during the Vietnam war – pulls in his best asset Ken Tani (Shô Kosugi, RAGE OF HONOR) to find the F111 missiles and the "Rapid Angel" guidance system. Tani refuses because the assignment violates the only condition of his working for Rickert, that he spends the same two weeks every year with his children Brian (Kane Kosugi, REVENGE OF THE NINJA) and Denny (Shane Kosugi, PRAY FOR DEATH); whereupon Rickert has CIA agent Patricia Parker (Doran Clark, THE WARRIORS) bring the kids to Malta and appoints her as their babysitter/bodyguard. With KGB colonel Vladimir Klimenko (Vladimir Skomarovsky, FATAL ATTRACTION), enforcer Andrei (Jean-Claude Van Damme, LEGIONNAIRE), and crew searching the waters on the trawler Lyontiev, Ken must slip in under their noses posing as an oceanographer assisting Father Joseph Bedelia (Bruce French, CHRISTINE) – a sniper who fled Rickert's influence and became a Jesuit priest and scientist – collecting samples at the bottom of the ocean. It is only a matter of time before the Soviets learn Ken's true identity and target his children.

Produced by Imperial Entertainment whose combination of low-budget action productions, Asian imports (including Joseph Lai's patch-ups of cheap new footage and unreleasable Asian martial arts and horror films), and Italian action/war/horror pick-ups glutted the store shelves, BLACK EAGLE is a mess in terms of scripting (more on that later) and action. Kosugi is a personable lead but his thick accent is not conducive to much of the dialogue he is given, with his best scenes between him and his real life kids. Clark and French acquit themselves well but the rest of the acting ranges from flat to awkward to over-the-top. Van Damme has little dialogue even though the script wants to make more of the James Bondian muscle villain role by giving him a love interest (Dorota Puzio) but never actually making enough of the idea that both he and Kosugi's agent are supposed to be more honorable than those above them. The real letdown comes from their fight scenes due not only to the coverage, but also a seeming reluctant to want to give one the advantage over the other seemingly out of concern for the actors' egos and requiring outside intervention for one to best the other. The other action scenes are well-staged against the backdrop of Malta, and the ending is typically explosive. Director Eric Karson can seemingly only do so much in an identikit action flick without star presence like his earlier THE OCTAGON with Chuck Norris.

Given scant theatrical release by Taurus Entertainment (TWO EVIL EYES), BLACK EAGLE came to home video from Imperial (and laserdisc from Image Entertainment), and the same video master was used by Sterling Home Entertainment for their budget DVD. The film got an HD overhaul in its theatrical and extended cuts courtesy of German's Digidreams. Utilizing the same masters – also released in the UK and France on Blu-ray – MVD's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen encodes of the theatrical cut (93:04) and the extended cut (104:26) are watchable but detail has been flattened by DVNR although not the egregious extent of some of Digidreams other masters. These masters probably would have been considered quite good for DVD releases from a decade ago (although the DVD side of the combo looks even flatter) but at best look as good heavily compressed HD streaming. The theatrical cut carries over the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 track from the import, but it is not very impressive, and viewers would be better served by the original mono mix which is presented on both cuts in uncompressed LPCM 2.0. Dialogue is clear, the sound design rather basic, and the scoring of Terry Plumeri (SCARECROWS) supportive but unmemorable. There are no subtitle options. The extended cut scenes are interesting, but much of the deletions from the theatrical cut were scenes involving Kosugi's sons that also jettisoned some character background for Clark and French. The film works better with them in terms of characterization but perhaps not if the theatrical cut did not enthrall you in the first place.

MVD hopes to make up for the transfers with some newly-produced extras, all of which utilize material from the same interview sessions. In "Sho Kosugi: Martial Arts Legend" (21:24), Kosugi discusses his beginnings in Japan before coming to California (stories familiar to Kosugi fans from his interviews on Arrow Video's PRAY FOR DEATH and RAGE OF HONOR) as he drummed up customers for his martial arts school by appearing in tournaments, worked as an extra for eight years before landing a role in ENTER THE NINJA before being promoted to chief villain when writer/actor Mike Stone was fired, his subsequent ninja films for Cannon and Trans World, and then BLACK EAGLE. One of his sons Shane also discusses his memories of working on his father's films, although he remembers little of BLACK EAGLE (and more of what he remembers appears in the other featurettes).

Kosugi and son also appear in "The Making of BLACK EAGLE" (35:45) in which director/producer Karson recalls his beginnings as a commercial director and cinematographer willing to work half-price for anything longer than thirty-seconds, and directing documentaries for the company that was doing post-production for American Cinema which lead to him directing THE OCTAGON. Of BLACK EAGLE, he recalls scouting locations, looking for more opportunities for Van Damme and Kosugi's sons, and being promoted to producer when Shimon Arama got into a fistfight with a crew member and broke his hand. Screenwriter Michael Gonzalez recalls how he was moving furniture for Imperial's Sunil R. Shah (SUDDEN DEATH) who knew that he has a degree in screenwriting from Loyola Marymount, and in the span of a two hour drive during which they discussed BLACK EAGLE he was promoted to vice president of development. He describes Karson as doing an "adequate" job directing but goes into more detail about the screenplay's issues in another featurette. Actress Clark recalls working mainly with Kosugi's children, Shane Kosugi provides some more anecdotes, while actress Puzio discusses working mainly with Van Damme.