Axel "Stone" Lundgren

== Early Life ==
Axel Lundgren was born in Stockholm, Sweden to Sigrid Birgitta (née Tjerneld), a language teacher, and Karl Johan Hugo Lundgren, an engineer and economist for the Swedish government. He has two sisters and an older brother. Lundgren was also raised in the Lutheran church. As a child, Axel was a runt, insecure, and suffered from allergies. Lundgren’s father was physically abusive and vented his frustration on his wife and eldest son. During his tirades, Axel’s father would call him a "loser", which motivated Axel later as he grew more ambitious to prove himself. Axel still loved his father, no matter what happened. There were many things about him that he still admired. As a child, Axel realized he was probably too much like his father, very stubborn and perhaps that's what his father couldn't deal with. Axel’s troubled relationship with his father was the reason he developed a desire to participate in heavy contact sports such as boxing and karate. At the age of 7, Axel tried judo, Gōjū-ryū and took up Kyokushin karate at age of 10. He also began training with weights as a teenager. He lived in Stockholm until the age of 13, when he moved to his grandparents' home in Nyland, Ångermanland. Lundgren’s dad always told him that if Axel wanted to make something special with his life, he had to go to America. After graduating from high school with straight As, Axel spent some time in the United States on various academic scholarships, studying chemistry at Washington State University and Clemson University. He received a degree in Chemistry from Washington State University, and then served his mandatory one year in the Swedish Marine Corps at the Amphibious Ranger School. He then enrolled at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and graduated with a degree in chemical engineering. Amidst his years of studying, Lundgren honed his karate skills by training hard in the dojo for five years, attaining the rank of 2nd dan black belt in Kyokushin at the age of 21. Axel then moved to start a new life in New York City.  
== Joining the NYPD-21 ==
Axel then decided he would get a job as a New York City police officer. Axel’s decision to join the NYPD was more based on wanting to complete something on his bucket list then protecting the citizens of New York. While on the police force, Axel earned himself the nickname of Stone because of his rock hard, chiseled physique and jaw line. Axel grew very fond of his nickname stone and eventually adopted it as his last name to further distance himself away from his father.  
== Streets of Rage-22 ==
While working a case with the department however, Axel grew more and more suspicious about the commissioner of the department. Axel had compiled enough evidence on a leader of a crime syndicate to garner an arrest warrant; however the commissioner would not give him one. Instead the commissioner said Axel lacked any substantial evidence and threatened his job if Axel and his partners continued on their senseless man hunt. Discovering through his police work that the crime syndicate leader had someone on the force in his pockets, Axel came to the realization that the crooked cop was none other than the police commissioner himself. With that Axel and his partners Adam and Blaze quit the NYPD and attempt to personally hunt down the syndicate leader themselves. Along with Adam Hunter and Blaze Fielding, Axel manages to defeat the syndicate leader (later named Mr. X) in his own headquarters. After Axel takes down Mr. X, He moved back to Sweden where he captained the Swedish Kyokushin karate team, and was a formidable challenger at the World Open Tournament.    
== Entering the King of Iron Fist-23 ==
Axel then opened a Martial Arts Dojo in Stockholm. Although initially a big hit, Axel’s Dojo’s popularity began to wane as the Sweeds interest in karate was not that high to begin with. Axel decided a good way to boost his dojo’s popularity was to compete in another Martial Arts tournament. With his good outing at the World’s he had the confidence that he could hang with any fighter in the world. Axel jumps at the opportunity of the first Tournament he sees an ad to; Axel was going to compete in Heihachi Mishima’s King of Iron Fist Tournament. Axel fought well in the first round against Eric Windsor but was ultimately outmatched by the slick Lee Chaolan in the semi-final round. Axel then went home back to Sweden and although he was depressed, he was also given a renewed vigor as a martial artist to further perfect his craft.  
=== Streets of Rage 2 ===
Axel was thinking about shutting down his dojo when one year after the anniversary of Mr. X’s defeat, Axel discovers that Adam has been kidnapped by a returned Mr. X, as a lure to bring Axel and Blaze to him in retaliation for his prior defeat. Along with Blaze, Axel joins up with Max Thunder and Adam's kid brother "Skate" to defeat Mr. X once again and free Adam and the city of New York.  
== A Winning Formula-24 ==
In a last ditch effort to save his dojo, Axel competes in the European Martial Arts Championship tournament. Axel ended up winning the European championships that year and the next making him back to back champion. Axel also won an all heavyweight Karate tournament in Australia a year after that. Needless to say Axel’s dojo’s income quadrupled as people of all ages all across Europe enrolled in Axel’s school of self-defense.  
== Streets of Rage 3-25 ==
Axel is then called upon by his former partner Blaze to assist her, Skate and newcomer/ex-syndicate member Dr. Zan in shutting down the resurrected Crime Syndicate in NY. After they successfully take down the Crime Syndicate for good, Axel and Blaze decided to pursue a romantic relationship with each other as Blaze again quit the police force to move back to Sweden with Axel.  
=== Second Chance at Glory ===
Axel then participates in the next King of Iron Fist Tournament thinking himself much improved since he first competed 2 years ago. Axel was eliminated from the tournament in the first round when he was defeated by world class kickboxer Bruce Irvin. The loss shamed Axel greatly and he decided to give up fighting for good.  
== Moving to Australia-26 ==
By the next year, Axel and Blaze moved to Australia, where Axel graduated with a master's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Sydney. During his time in Sydney, he earned a living as a bouncer in a nightclub in the renowned King's Cross area.  Blaze soon grew lonely with Axel inside of a foreign country as she had grown to truly be an NYC girl at heart. The two then decided to break up as they sensed their lives leading in different directions.  
== Whirlwind Romance with Grace-27 ==
Axel was then awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the next year. However, while preparing for the move to Boston, he was spotted in the nightclub he worked at in Sydney and was hired by Singer/Actress Grace Jones as a bodyguard. Ultimately the two became lovers due to how much time they spent together. Their relationship developed dramatically, and Axel stopped all of his plans and moved with her back to New York City. While living with Grace Jones in her New York City apartment, Axel dabbled in modeling at the Zoli Agency but was described as "a bit too tall and muscular for a model's size 40". Axel would later earn a living as a bouncer at the Manhattan nightclub The Limelight; housed in a former Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion, working with Chazz Palminteri. Axel was so happy with the direction his life was going that he decided to give competitive fight one more chance. Axel then participated and won the All American Martial Arts Tournament; something he described as the toughest tournament he ever won. That night while at a party with Grace to celebrate his tournament victory, Axel caught the eye of Academy Award Winning Actor Sylvester Stallone who was impressed by his overall look. Sylvester approached Axel to offer him a co-starring role in his next movie. Axel turned it down citing his lack of any acting experience, but Stallone told him that his experience would not be a problem and with the way he looked he wouldn’t have to say much. With a little coaxing from Grace, Axel eventually decided to pursue a career in acting.  
== From Nothing to Something-28 ==
To improve his physique and athletic abilities, he trained intensely in bodybuilding and boxing for a whole year. Axel trained six days a week—weights in the morning for about an hour, then boxing in the afternoon. He did a split of chest and back one day and then shoulders, legs, and arms the next. He boxed for an hour and a half, and did bag work and abs. He weighed 215 pounds at the beginning of his training and by the end of the year he weighed 245 pounds of pure muscle. Throughout the year,Axel took acting lessons at the Warren Robertson Theatre Workshop to try to develop his acting chops.
== Nothing is Ever Over-29 ==
Axel soon heard word of the next King of Iron Fist Tournament taking place at the Tokyo Dome and being televised in Japan. Axel couldn’t pass on the opportunity, still reeling from his latest tournament win and brimming with confidence, Axel entered with the purpose of winning the Mishima Ziabatsu fortune and quadrupling his fan base along the way. Axel was again eliminated in the first round of the tournament, this time by world champion Boxer Steve Fox. With that, Axel once again vowed to give up combat sports.   
== Bonafide Action Star-30 ==
2 years after deciding to dedicate himself to the craft of acting, Axel received his first lead role as the mighty He-Man in Masters of the Universe, based on the popular children's toyline and cartoon. He starred alongside Frank Langella, Meg Foster, Chelsea Field, Billy Barty and Courteney Cox. Axel weighed his all-time heaviest during the filming at 250 pounds. The film was a critical failure and viewed as far too violent for a family picture. It is referred to as a "flop" by Variety magazine, and has a 13% "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Axel was criticized for being too wooden as a leading man, and it was dismissed as "a glossy fantasy starring monosyllabic Axel Stone." Citing the reason Axel would never successfully make it as a top leading actor in Hollywood, one author said, "Axel Stone is limited by his size and dead pan delivery: though often compared to Arnold, he has less range." Despite the negative reviews and press, Axel found the entertainment business more attractive and rewarding than chemical engineering so he decided to pursue a full time career in acting. Axel then released a workout video later that year called "Maximum Potential".
===31-32===
Axel next starred in Joseph Zito's Red Scorpion opposite M. Emmet Walsh, Al White, T. P. McKenna and Carmen Argenziano. The plot centers on Axel's character Nikolai, a Soviet Spetsnaz-trained KGB agent who is sent to an African country where Soviet, Czechoslovakian and Cuban forces are helping the government fight an anti-communist rebel movement. Nikolai is ordered to assassinate the movement's leader, but eventually turns against his government by switching sides. The film was partly shot in Namibia and Grace Jones joined Axel during production in Swakopmund, insisting on staying in a $3000 a month villa. The film was poorly received and has an 11% "rotten" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Stephen Holden of The New York Times said as follows: "Axel Stone's pectorals are the real stars of Red Scorpion, an action-adventure movie set in the fictional African country of Mombaka. The movie was filmed from below so that one has the sense of peering up at a massive kinetic sculpture, his glistening torso, which over the course of the film is subjected to assorted tortures, is the movie's primary visual focus whenever the action slows down. And since Mr. Stone remains stone-faced, rarely speaking except to issue commands in a surprisingly hesitant monotone, his heaving chest actually communicates more emotion than his mumbling lips." Realizing the Grace Jones was becoming a little too high maintenance for him; Axel broke up with her and started dating model Paula Barbieri.  
=== 33-34 ===
2 years later, Axel starred in Craig R. Baxley's sci-fi thriller I Come in Peace (also known as Dark Angel) opposite Brian Benben, Betsy Brantley, Matthias Hues and Jay Bilas. Axel plays Jack Caine, a tough Houston cop with an inner sensitivity, who does not let the rules of police procedure prevent him pursuing his mission to wipe out the White Boys, a gang of white collar drug dealers who killed his partner while he was waylaid stopping a convenience store robbery. Axel said of his role, "What attracted me to Dark Angel is that I get to do more than just action. There's some romance, some comedy, some drama. I actually have some clever dialogue in this one. I get to act.” A year later, Axel starred in Manny Coto's action film Cover Up opposite Louis Gossett Jr. Axel portrays Mike Anderson, a tough American reporter and US Marine veteran who finds his own life in jeopardy after stumbling across a political cover-up over a Middle Eastern terrorist plan to release toxic gas and kill thousands of people. The primary terrorist group in the film is the fictional group Black October, in reference to Black September. The film was shot in Israel and Axel stays at the famous King David Hotel. Later in the year, Axel appeared in martial arts action film Showdown in Little Tokyo opposite Brandon Lee, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa and Tia Carrere. Axel plays a police sergeant named Kenner working in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles who is partnered with Johnny Murata (Lee), a Japanese American who are sent to infiltrate the operations of a new Japanese drug gang named the Iron Claw manufacturing a lethal methamphetamine while using a local brewery and nightclub as a front for the operation. Along the way, Kenner discovers that Yoshida (Tagawa), the head of the drug gang, is a member of the Yakuza who killed his parents in front of him as a young boy in Japan and the case becomes violent and personal. The film received a mainly negative reception from critics and was criticized for its violence; Vincent Canby of the New York Times described it as "violent, but spiritless." Variety wrote "Axel Stone can hold his own with other action leads as an actor and could easily be Forrest Masters-marketable if only he'd devote as much attention to quality control as he does to pectoral development." David J. Fox of the Los Angeles Times however described the film as a "class act". 
=== 35 ===
Axel Stone starred in one of the biggest blockbusters of the year in the sci-fi action picture Mortal Kombat directed by Roland Emmerich. Axel Stone (as Sergeant Andrew Scott) and Forrest Masters (as Luc Deveraux) play U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War who are sent to secure a village against North Vietnamese forces. However they end up shooting each other dead after Devereaux discovers that Scott has gone insane and has resorted to mutilating the villagers and barbarically cutting off their ears, taking an innocent girl and boy hostage. They are later reanimated in a secret Army project along with a large group of other previously dead soldiers and sent on a mission as GR operatives. At the Cannes Film Festival to promote their film, Forrest Masters and Axel Stone were involved in a verbal altercation that almost turned physical when both men pushed each other only to be separated. The two maintained a dislike of each other for years as a result of this incident. Mortal Kombat opened in theatres on August 10th, a moderate success domestically with $36,299,898 in US ticket sales, but a major blockbuster worldwide, making over $65 million overseas, which earned the film a total of $102 million worldwide, on a $23 million budget. Despite being a box office hit however, it was not well-received; mainstream critics dismissed the movie as a typical, mindless action film. Film critic Roger Ebert said, "it must be fairly thankless to play lunks who have to fight for the entire length of a movie while exchanging monosyllabic idiocies", including it in his book I hated, hated, hated this movie. Axel then broke up with Paula and reignited with his old flame, former partner and on again off again girlfriend Blaze Fielding.  
=== 36-37 ===
Axel Stone starred opposite Kristian Alfonso and George Segal in Joshua Tree, directed by Academy Award and BAFTA-winning stunt coordinator Vic Armstrong. Axel plays Wellman Anthony Santee, a former racecar driver who has turned to hauling exotic stolen cars with his friend Eddie Turner (Ken Foree). One day he is framed by police officer Frank Severance (Segal) for the murder of a highway patrolman, also killing his friend Eddie. Santee is sent to prison after recovering in a prison hospital, but escapes during transfer and takes a female hostage named Rita Marrick (Alfonso) at a gas station, not suspecting that she's a cop. On the run from the law, involving exotic cars and desert scenery, Santee must prove his innocence and prove Severance guilty of being involved in the car ring and for murder. Much of the film was filmed in the Alabama Hills of the Sierra Nevada and the desert of the Joshua Tree National Park of southeast California. A year later, Axel starred in Bruce Malmuth's Pentathlon as an East German Olympic gold medalist pentathlete on the run from an abusive coach (David Soul). Axel trained with the U.S. pentathlon team in preparation for the role, which later led to him being selected to serve as the (non-competing) Team Leader of the U.S. Olympic Modern Pentathlon team during the Atlanta Games, to promote the image of the sport and to coordinate planning and other details between the team and the United States Olympic Committee. The film was seen negatively by most critics; Film Review said it was "appallingly acted and monotonous" and Video Movie Guide described it as a "silly Cold War thriller". Later in the year, Axel appeared in Perry Lang's Men of War (scripted by John Sayles) alongside Charlotte Lewis and B. D. Wong as Nick Gunar, a former Special Ops soldier who leads a group of mercenaries to a treasure island in the South China Sea. The film was mainly shot in Thailand, with Krabi and Phong Nga making up most of the island scenery. The film was well received by some critics. One author said "Men of War invokes the most vividly remembered fighting in a foreign land of recent Western history. This innovation, associating the muscle image with the Vietnam experience, is carried over into other contemporary muscle films." Another said, "fine performance by an all-star Axel Stone as a mercenary assigned to "convince" a cast in this offbeat and disturbing film." Axel Stone then married Blaze Fielding in Marbella, Spain. The couple decided they liked the place so much that over the years they rented out accommodation there before eventually buying a family home. 
== No Longer a Top Draw-38 ==
Axel appeared in Robert Longo's Johnny Mnemonic, co-starring Keanu Reeves. The film portrays screenwriter William Gibson's dystopian cyberpunk view of the future with the world dominated by megacorporations and with strong East Asian influences. Reeves plays the title character, a man with a cybernetic brain implant designed to store information. Axel plays Karl Honig, a Jesus-obsessed hit man and street preacher who wears a robe and carries a shepherd's staff. The film was shot on location in Toronto and Montreal in 12 weeks, filling in for the film's Newark, New Jersey and Beijing settings. The film was premiered in Japan first on April 15th and features a previously composed score by Michael Danna, different editing, and more scenes with Axel and Japanese star Takeshi Kitano. Critical response was negative overall; Roger Ebert said, "Johnny Mnemonic is one of the great goofy gestures of recent cinema, a movie which doesn't deserve one nanosecond of serious analysis." The film was a financial disappointment, grossing $19,075,720 in the domestic American market against its $26m budget. The cloak worn by Axel in the film is now located in the lobby of the Famous Players Coliseum in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. This was his last theatrical release as Hollywood producers had given up on trying to make him Hollywood’s next big thing. Later in the year, Axel starred in his first Direct to Video in Ted Kotcheff's The Shooter, also known as Hidden Assassin, an action drama in which he plays Michael Dane, a U.S. Marshall who gets caught up in politics when he is hired to solve the assassination of a Cuban ambassador. He featured alongside Maruschka Detmers, Assumpta Serna, Gavan O'Herlihy and John Ashton.  
=== 39-41 ===
Axel starred in Russell Mulcahy's Silent Trigger, about a sniper (Stone) and his female spotter (played by Gina Bellman). Axel plays a former Special Forces agent who joins a secretive government agency (called "The Agency") as an assassin. The movie takes place in and around an unfinished city skyscraper, shot in Montreal. Later on that year, Blaze gave birth to their first child; a daughter named Ida. A year later, Axel starred in Frédéric Forestier's The Peacekeeper, playing Major Frank Cross of the US Air Force and the only man who can prevent the president being assassinated and with the ability to thwart an imposing nuclear holocaust. The threat is from a terrorist group, which has stolen the President's personal communications computer with the capability of launching the US arsenal to threaten global security. The film co-starred Michael Sarrazin, Montel Williams, Roy Scheider and Christopher Heyerdahl, and was shot on location in Montreal. The film was praised for its exciting action sequences. Doug Pratt described the first half of the film as "excellent" and described Axel's character as "tenacious", although Robert Cettl wrote "the Peacekeeper trades on the presence of B-movie action star Axel Stone, an actor who never became as popular as his action contemporaries Forrest Masters and Steven Seagal.” The next year, he appeared in Jean-Marc Piché's action/supernatural horror film The Minion alongside Françoise Robertson. Axel portrays Lukas Sadorov, a Middle Eastern templar and member of an order who are charged with guarding the gateway to Hell that, if opened, will unleash all evil. The only thing that can open it is a key which is sought for by the Minion, a demonic spirit that transfers itself into the nearby host body when his previous one is killed off. Awakening in New York City, the Minion tracks down Karen Goodleaf as Lukas arrives to America to protect her and the key. Later in the year, Axel appeared alongside Bruce Payne and Claire Stansfield in Sweepers as Christian Erickson, a leading demolition expert and head of an elite team of specialists, trained to disarm mine fields in a humanitarian minesweeping operation in Angola. In the event his son is killed and he discovers that mines are being planted during the war to kill people in the area. The film was a joint American and South African production. The Video Guide said, "that noise you hear isn't the numerous on-screen explosions but action star Axel Stone's career hitting rock bottom." 
=== 42 ===
Axel appeared in Isaac Florentine's Bridge of Dragons as a "human killing machine" mercenary named Warchikj alongside Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, who Axel had previously worked with in the film Showdown in Little Tokyo, Valerie Chow, Gary Hudson, John Bennett and Scott L. Schwartz. He then starred in Storm Catcher alongside Mystro Clark and Robert Miano under director Anthony Hickox, portraying a military pilot who is falsely accused of treason in a plot to overthrow the US Government. He is blackmailed into plotting an attack in which he would bomb Washington with a new jet called the "Storm Catcher" by a renegade general (Miano). Film review dismissed the film and Axel's performance as "more Axel Stone lunacy". Finally, he starred in Hickox's next picture, Jill Rips, based on a 1987 novel by Scottish writer Frederic Lindsay. He portrays Matt Sorenson, a former boxer and San Francisco cop who avenges the brutal death of his younger brother, Michael. Intent on finding his brother's killer, Sorenson infiltrates the powerful inner world of politics, business intrigue and casual sex and sadomasochism. His obsession to discover the killer's identity mounts as a series of other men are found murdered in a similar fashion and he loses all objectivity and becomes a vigilante. Video Guide said, "not very believable but, as usual, it’s fun to watch Axel Stone in action." Film Review "shuddered" at the concept of the film and remarked that Stone "should be a long-forgotten action-star." That’s exactly what Axel Stone became as he was soon dropped from his agency and blackballed by Hollywood. Axel would then move to Spain with his wife and daughter.   
== Shuned by Hollywood-43-48 ==
When Axel was 44 years old, Blaze gave birth to their second child; another girl named Greta. Axel and his family lived a relatively normal life in Spain; not in the public eye or being hounded by Hollywood paparazzi. This is not what Axel wanted however as he longed for another shot at silver screen glory. The only problem was his phone never rang for an opportunity. Axel decided to take matters into his own hands and founded his own production company Stone ENT. 
== Taking Matters Into His Own Hands-49-50 ==
Axel decided he would produce and direct his own movies the way he wants to make them. Axel knew that this was the key to having Hollywood see what he was really all about. When Axel was 47, he made his directorial debut with The Defender, in which he also starred alongside Shakara Ledard and Jerry Springer, who played the President of the United States. Axel plays Lance Rockford, the bodyguard of the head of the National Security Agency, Roberta Jones (Caroline Lee-Johnson), in a war on terror. A year later, Axel starred and directed his second picture The Mechanik (The Russian Specialist), playing a retired Russian Special Forces hit man Nikolai "Nick" Cherenko caught in the crossfire with Russian mobsters. Sky Movies remarked that The Mechanik is "hardcore death-dealing from the Nordic leviathan" and said that "The Mechanik delivers all the no-nonsense gunplay you'd want of a Friday night". 
== Back At The Box Office-51 ==
Hollywood was watching as Axel’s old friend Sylvester Stallone offered him a part in his next theatrical blockbuster. Axel told Sly that if it were anybody else he would turn them down, but since the offer came from a true friend he would accept. Axel thanked Sly for putting him on top 21 years ago and Stallone responded by saying “21 years later and I’m hoping to put you back on top.” Axel then played a drug-addled assassin alongside Sylvester Stallone, Mel Masters, Jet Li, Abel Couture, Alexander the Grater, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the action film The Expendables. The film is about a group of elite mercenaries, tasked with a mission to overthrow a Latin American dictator. It was described by Axel as "an old-school, kick-ass action movie where people are fighting with knives and shooting at each other." This was his first U.S. theatrical release film since Johnny Mnemonic 11 years ago. The film received mixed reviews from critics but was very successful commercially, opening at number one at the box office in the United States, the United Kingdom, China and India. 
== If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It-52 ==
Axel Stone then directed and starred in the Mongolia-based action adventure, Diamond Dogs. Axel portrays the character of Xander Ronson, a mercenary hired by a group of American fortune hunters to act as their guide and bodyguard, while they search for a priceless Buddhist artifact deep within the Chinese wilderness. They get more than they bargained for, however, as they come face to face with Russian mercenaries also after the artifact. Later that year, Axel wrote, directed and starred in Missionary Man alongside Charles Solomon Jr. Described as a "modern western" by Stone, Axel plays a lone, bible-preaching stranger named Ryder who comes into a small Texas town on his 1970's Harley-Davidson motorcycle to attend the funeral of his good friend J.J., a local Native American carpenter, only to later get mixed up in a series of brawls with a local gang. According to Axel, it had long been a desire of his to direct a western, having long been a fan of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, yet he did not want to spend the time and money building an old western town and hiring horses, so decided to set it in modern times with a motorbike instead of entering the town on a horse in the manner that Clint Eastwood would. 
=== Burying The Hatchet ===
The Expendables 2 started then principal photography, with Simon West at the helm and Axel reprising his role. The film was released by Lionsgate later on in the year. During the filming of this movie, Axel was able to reconcile his friendship with Forrest Masters who was starring as the villain in the movie. The two were able to talk out their differences with Forrest’s son Mel as mediator and their 15 year “cold war” came to an end. Ironically enough a close friendship soon developed between the two. 
== 53-54 ==
This was followed by another direct to video film Command Performance, a hostage action drama in which Axel, a proficient musician in real life, plays a rock drummer forced to face terrorists at a concert in Moscow. The film co-starred Canadian pop singer Melissa Smith, playing a world famous pop singer in the film and his own daughter Ida on her screen debut, who played one of the daughters of the Russian president. The story was inspired by a concert Madonna put on for Russian President Vladimir Putin, although Axel has also likened the pop singer to Britney Spears. A year later, Axel directed and starred in the hit-man thriller Icarus (retitled in the US and the UK as The Killing Machine). He plays a businessman named Edward Genn, working for an investment company, who has a shady past as a KGB special agent known as "Icarus". He tries to escape from his past life, but his identity is discovered and he is hunted down, placing the lives of his wife and daughter and himself in jeopardy. Retitled in the US and the UK as The Killing Machine, it opened theatrically in Los Angeles for an exclusive one-week engagement at Laemmele's Sunset 5 Theater in West Hollywood.  
== 55-62 ==
Axel played the lead role in Uwe Boll's In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds. The following year, Axel starred in One in the Chamber co-starring Cuba Gooding, Jr and The Expendables 3. A year after that, Axel appeared in The Package co-starring alongside Alexander the Grater. Axel continued to release 1 film a year with the films Legendary: Tomb of the Dragon alongside Scott Adkins, Battle of the Damned, and Ambushed with Abel Couture and Vinnie Jones. Axel Stone then reunited with his good friend Forrest Masters in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, where he plays Andrew Scott's clone. The film was released theatrically in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and directly to video in the United States and other parts of the world. Since its release, the film has received better than average reviews for a straight-to-DVD franchise sequel, with film critic Brian Orndorf giving the film a B, calling it "moody, pleasingly quick-draw, and knows when to quit, making the Mortal Kombat brand name bizarrely vital once again." Dread Central gave it 3 out of 5 knives, saying "there is almost nothing but solid b-level action until the credits roll." On the negative side, Pablo Villaça of Cinema en Cena said in his review that while he praised Master's performance, he criticized that of Stone and described the film "dull in concept and execution". 
== 63-66 ==
Axel then upped his level of production making 2 films in a year: Blood of Redemption (with Billy Zane and Vinnie Jones) and Puncture Wounds respectively. 2 years later, Axel starred in Skin Trade, an action drama about human trafficking that he also wrote and produced, alongside Tony Jaa and Ron Perlman. One year Later, Axel Stone co-starred in Mortal Kombat: Death of Forrest Masters along with Forrest Masters.
== Legacy-67- ==
Axel then chose to semi retire from acting; turning down roles until he finds one that he truly loves. Axel and his family moved to Los Angeles full time, where Axel runs his own Martial Arts Dojo/ Acting School where people can come to learn how to fight, act, or both. When it's all said and done, Axel Stone will goes down as one of the greatest Hollywood Action Stars of all time next to the likes of:  Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris , Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Steven Seagal , and Forrest Masters.