An American low-budget action film celebrated an unexpected worldwide success in 1988: "Bloodsport". With its, the world of film fans and martial arts cinema discovered a new idol: Jean-Claude Van Damme. In the 1970s there was Bruce Lee, but at the end of the 1980s a Belgian won the day. Van Damme was a karate master and had unparalleled strength and flexibility. For ten years he was one of Hollywood's hottest action stars. But excessive overconfidence and drugs bring him down again. At home in Europe he becomes a laughing stock on talk shows. Only with "JCVD" does he manage to get back on his feet, playing his character with perspective and self-irony, but without ever giving up the reputation that his action films brought him and which has been a cult for several generations. The highs and lows of his eventful life are told through archive footage and contributions from people close to the popular Belgian actor.

François, a Jewish lad, works for an insurance company and is engaged to a Jewish girl. His world is very ordered and secure and perhaps feels a bit claustrophobic. When he observes that a murderer has been declared psychologically incompetent and is to be placed in a mental institution, probably for the rest of his life, François feels the murder's plight very keenly. As time goes by, the murderer's situation is more and more unbearable to him, and he breaks off his engagement. Afterward, he has a liaison with a girl he has not known before, an act that somehow frees him. Now he wants to free the murderer somehow.