Van Damme on the Splits

A split between truck mirrors

In the frame, the actor stands above the road, his feet resting on the side mirrors of two Volvo FM trucks. The vehicles move alongside each other, and then the distance between them grows. Van Damme keeps an almost unruffled expression as his legs gradually spread apart. In a still image, the symmetry is especially noticeable: the man in the middle looks like a link between two large objects.

This is a scene from a truck advertisement, not an episode of an action film or an accidentally filmed competition. The actor, known from martial arts films, uses his signature split, but the unexpected support turns out to be vehicles. The scale of the machinery makes the familiar movement spectacular, and the calm face heightens the sense of incredible ease.

The Volvo Trucks ad from November 2013

“The Epic Split” appeared in November 2013 as part of the Live Tests series of advertising experiments. Director Andreas Nilsson staged the scene for Volvo Trucks to show the precision and stability of the Volvo Dynamic Steering system. The trucks were driven in reverse; therefore, the commercial demonstrated not only the actor’s stretch but also the coordinated movement of the vehicles.

The shoot took place at dawn at a closed airfield in Spain. One of the drivers, Mikael Roselle, later said that he steered his truck sideways by following the road markings. According to him, the movement was rehearsed for eight days without the actor on the mirrors, and the scene with Van Damme was shot in a single take. This story explains the precise choreography of the frame, which is easily overlooked behind the brief advertising spectacle.

Karting that began as a personal project

The advertising stunt acquired an unexpected gaming offshoot. Arma 3 artist Martin Valášek was making a map model in his spare time: colleagues suggested adding a track on the island of Altis, and he wanted to practice modeling. Later, the prototype caught the team’s interest, as they were looking for a small project to test a new add-on technology.

So karting was not invented from scratch as a remake of the advertisement. Other elements were gradually added to the personal model: drivers, a track marshal and time trials. The parody became a way to present this idea, unusual for a military simulator, rather than the only source of its creation.

An April Fools’ split and a real add-on

On April 1, 2014, Bohemia Interactive presented Arma 3 Karts as a playful announcement. The video “Splendid Split” played on the recognizable Van Damme stunt in the game world. The choice of subject itself created a mismatch: instead of a serious demonstration of trucks, there was entertainment on small racing cars inside a military game.

Players asked for the joke to be turned into an available add-on. On May 29, 2014, Arma 3 Karts was indeed released. This is a specific case where a parody of an advertisement became part of another product’s story: the audience got not only a funny answer to “The Epic Split” but also the chance to race themselves.

Examples of new captions

“I’m caught between ‘finish the project today’ and ‘sleep for the first time in a week.’” Two supports take on the roles of incompatible plans, while the figure in the middle represents the author, who is still trying to hold on to both.

“Two friends chose different movies. I promised both of them I’d watch with them.” Here the humor lies not in the danger of the stunt but in an overconfident promise to merge two evenings into one.

“Our family chat between the plan to go to the cottage and the rain forecast.” The split becomes a picture of a drawn-out choice that nobody wants to finish.