Lionheart is a 1990 American martial arts film directed by Sheldon Lettich, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Deborah Rennard, Harrison Page, Lisa Pelikan and Brian Thompson. It also features the acting debut of Ashley Johnson. Van Damme plays a French Foreign Legionnaire stationed in Africa, who must desert to the United States and enter the underground fighting circuit to raise money for his murdered brother's family. The film premiered in France on August 1, 1990, and opened in the United States on January 11, 1991.