Steven Seagal vs Jean-Claude Van Damme

JCVD

Known as the Muscles from Brussels for his hard-bodied physique and Belgian origins, the 54-year-old spin-kicking specialist beats up bad guys, but does so with a charismatic quip, smile and adorable accent on top.

SS

According to his website, the soft-talking 62-year-old action star is a ponytailed man whose “spiritual beliefs and humanity are woven into every aspect of his life.” Despite the cultivated deepness, he is not taken seriously.

OEUVRE (JCVD)

The star of such fight-filled films as Bloodsport, Universal Soldier and Hard Target, he is often cast as the underdog in ruthless brawling contests. More bankable than Seagal, it’s believed his films have pulled in more than a billion dollars.

OEUVRE (SS)

He is what his films say he is: Above the Law, Hard to Kill and Out for Justice. He usually plays an ex-cop or a former special forces agent seeking revenge. At his cool-under-pressure best in the 1992 battleship-set thriller Under Siege.

CINEMATIC ETHOS (JCVD)

“In an action film you act in the action,” he has said. “If it’s a dramatic film you act in the drama.” And somewhere, Laurence Olivier starts a slow clap in response.

CINEMATIC ETHOS (SS)

“I am hoping that I can be known as a great writer and actor some day,” he once said, “rather than a sex symbol.” He can take solace in the fact that he is absolutely not a sex symbol.

ACTING CHOPS (JCVD)

Best when not stretched, the washed-up action star was at the top of his comeback game when he believably played a washed-up action star in 2008’s JCVD.

ACTING CHOPS (SS)

A low-talking squinter in the Clint Eastwood mould, the unschooled thespian had Nietzsche fans in tears with a line from the 1994 action-adventure On Deadly Ground: “What does it take to change the essence of a man?”

COMBAT (JCVD)

A lithesome, kick-happy middleweight who can take a punch. It’s hard to say if he’d ever resort to ponytail-pulling. His groin is particularly dynamic; his splits are the source of industrywide awe and orthopedic envy.

COMBAT (SS)

A hulking brute trained in Aikido, a Japanese martial art that apparently involves breaking the bones of assorted stooges and tiny Asians who attack in an orderly, one-at-a-time manner. Also, he has no problem with going all handgun Dirty Harry.

BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW (JCVD)

Got all wet in the 1988 miniseries War and Remembrance, in which he carried a polio-crippled President Franklin Roosevelt (Ralph Bellamy) out of a pool.

BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW (SS)

Is the sublime reincarnation of a 17th-century monk, Chungdrag Dorje. Hard to kill, indeed.