“There’s no easy way out, there’s no shortcut home” aren’t just lyrics from the killer Robert Tepper song featured in Rocky 4; they can sum up the roller coaster of time on this Earth for Swedish movie star Dolph Lundgren. So much so that his life’s documentary Dolph: Unbreakable could’ve easily also been titled: “Unbelievable.” Director Andrew Holmes’ film is one that can be chalked up to as a reality is stranger than fiction type of story.
I first saw Dolph: Unbreakable at Newport Beach Film Festival in 2025, where it blew me away just as much as it did to meet the giant Viking of a man in person there. The documentary opens by showing Lundgren’s battle with an aggressive form of kidney cancer (which I wasn’t aware of before this), and later jumps to his childhood, where he grew up with a physically abusive father. The theme of being haunted by his dad keeps coming back in the movie, just as real abuse will pop up as other issues throughout someone’s days.
Everyone knows Dolph as the behemoth action hero who played larger-than-life characters like the Punisher and He-Man, but it takes a lot more inner strength to be vulnerable about his personal struggles. Besides the aforementioned problems, Dolph admits to drug, alcohol, and steroid abuse along with infidelity during his longtime marriage, while also not always being present for his kids. He wonders aloud if his cancer is penance for the mistakes that he made. All of this must come with a certain amount of shame, so kudos to Lundgren for putting it out for the world to see, to possibly help others who are dealing with similar situations.
” the roller coaster of time on this Earth for Dolph Lundgren …”
It’s impressive learning about Dolph being a judo champion at a young age, while also being intelligent enough to be accepted into MIT (he didn’t stay long because he was already on a rocket path to stardom). Plus, the fact that he was filming Aquaman 2 along with one of the Expendables sequels, while he was physically broken down by his cancer, is astonishing.
The way that Dolph Lundgren broke into Hollywood is fascinating as well. He started off as the boy toy/bodyguard to enigmatic actress Grace Jones before eventually being cast in the iconic role of Drago in Rocky 4 by Sylvester Stallone. It’s cool seeing both Sly and Arnold Schwarzenegger talk so glowingly about their pal and co-star Dolph, with Arnold going so far as to say that Lundgren is the “ultimate immigrant success story.” Even when Schwarzenegger is playfully asking Dolph about what his work duties were with Grace, you can tell the level of affection that these Hollywood giants have for him.
Dolph: Unbreakable touches on his entire career, such as his B-movie action days that Dolph admits were draining because they were done mainly for a paycheck. The fluctuations of highs and lows in both his personal life and acting career are so insane that I’m much more impressed with his real life than I was as a kid marveling at the seemingly indestructible Drago.
