Chance Boudreaux (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is an out-of-work, homeless merchant seaman and former Marine. He saves Natasha (Yancy Butler), a diner waitress, from a gang of thugs. He learns she's searching for her missing father and decides to help. Their trail leads to Emil Fouchon (Lance Henriksen) and Pik van Cleef (Arnold Vosloo), ruthless hunters and businessmen. Fouchon and Cleef hunt something different: homeless men in their own twisted recreational sport. Based on the 1932 film adaptation of Richard Connell's 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game" and directed by John Woo in his first U.S. film, Hard Target leaves no stone unturned in one of his most stylized films of the 1990s and arguably the best of his newfound career in North America.