Knock Off

Summary

“Good-bye, yellow brick road? Better buy some new CDs.”

MVD Rewind Collection recently made myself and other fans of Jean Claude Van Damme very happy when they announced that they would be upgrading some JCVD titles for the 4K UHD format. The first two titles announced were Double Impact and Knock Off. This was fantastic news because Double Impact is a certified classic that MVD had already done great justice in 2019 with their Collector’s Edition Blu-ray, and Knock Off up to this point had only been available for import from 88 Films in a Region B locked Blu-ray. While I own that 88 Films Blu-ray, I was very excited to see the film get a 4K makeover along with some new special features. 

Knock Off was the second film to pair Jean Claude Van Damme with Tsui Hark after Double Team. Both Double Team and Knock Off were commercial and critical busts for the duo. They closed out Van Damme’s largely successful run in the Nineties and may be the films that pushed Van Damme out of the A-list. It is a shame, because both films are a tremendous amount of fun that deserved more love when they were relesed. I was very excited to see how the visually stylish Knock Off would look in 4K.

Hong Kong, June of 1997, on the night before the Hong Kong handover ceremony – Russians in scuba gear search for a crate underwater. They accidentally open the crate as police come closer to their location. Baby dolls inside the crate float to the surface of the water and they explode from whatever was held inside them. In Downtown Hong Kong, Tommy Hendricks (Rob Schneider) is orchestrating a fashion show for “V-Six” Jeans. Marcus Ray (Jean-Claude Van Damme) shows up late for the event after inspecting a warehouse of goods where he notices several disappointing knock-offs, including the exploding dolls, from Triad gangster Skinny Wang (Glen Chin.) Marcus points out to Tommy that the knockoff shoes even misspelled Puma. There is a rickshaw race between Marcus and Tommy with Marcus’ adopted brother Eddie Wang (Wyman Wong.) Eddie cheats to win by switching out with a body double on one of the many possible routes in the race. The body double gets kidnapped by Russians and Marcus, believing Eddie has been kidnapped, pursues them. In an insane altercation in a small convenience store which has been smashed apart by the Russian’s van, the Russians kill the body double but they are met by Marcus’s returning fire and equestrian force by Detective Ling Ho (Carman Lee.) Inspector Han (Michael Wong) arrests Marcus and Tommy, but releases them. Marcus and Ray meet with Karen Lee (Lela Rochon) who explains that she has been sent by V-Six to inspect their business and has found that Tommy and Marcus have perpetrated fraud on the jeans which has led tothe millions of dollars in losses. If they will go to the warehouse and reveal who they worked with on the fake jeans, she will spare them. Spoiler Alert: Soon, Marcus finds out that Tommy has been actually employed by the CIA for the duration of their partnership. The unlikely pair are pitted against Russians who want to recover the baby dolls that have explosives inside them. 

Knock Off takes place exclusively in Hong Kong and it was directed by one of the best known directors of Hong Kong cinema, Tsui Hark. This is the same Tsui Hark that directed Jet Li in the Once Upon a Time in China trilogy and The Master amongst many other prominent Hong Kong martial arts films. Following in the footsteps of John Woo, who had made his big break in Hollywood before him with Hard Target, Broken Arrow, and Face/Off (before helming Mission: Impossible II,) Tsui Hark pinned his hopes on two Jean Claude Van Damme vehicles. Both films were critically and commercially rejected, which ended Hark’s Hollywood dreams and simultaneously hurt Van Damme’s viability as a leading man. It’s a shame that these films were so misunderstood, because Jean Claude obviously loved both Hong Kong and the Hong Kong style of action filmmaking. Take a look at Van Damme’s pedigree! In the Nineties he starred in a John Woo film (Hard Target,) a Ringo Lam film (Maximum Risk,) and then two Tsui Hark films. With that said, I think it is safe to say that Knock Off is better understood as a fun fast-paced Hong Kong action film, as opposed to as an American action film. When seen through that lens, I think Knock Off becomes much more enjoyable. The script by Steven E. de Souza was meant to be subversive. His goal was to go against the norms of the genre films he had been well known for writing, but his writing failed to impress the critics. That said, this is the man who wrote Commando, 48 Hrs., The Running Man, and the greatest action film ever made – Die Hard. Does it matter that the critics failed to see his script as subverting cliches believing instead that it was rifled with cliches? I think with this picture it is easy to see both sides. The picture also was plagued by numerous rewrites in order to perform better in the Chinese market, which explains why all the villains are Russians rather than Triad gangsters, for example. In a surreal form of life imitating art, some of the more ridiculous ideas in the film have come to pass (the proliferation of beeper bombs in the picture will remind you of a recent Israeli attack.)  

The casting of Rob Schneider (like Dennis Rodman before him) as JCVD’s sidekick is probably one of the reasons this film took so much heat. Schneider does not have comedic abilities that are as sharp as some of his peers from SNL, but he can be really effective in smaller roles as evidenced by the numerous parts he has taken in Adam Sandler films over the decades. Keep in mind, he had just played the sidekick role in Judge Dredd along with Stallone, so Hollywood must have thought this was what people wanted to see.  I actually think he does just fine in the role, although a portion of his jokes certainly land with a thud. Meanwhile, Van Damme looks like he is having an absolute blast on this film. Whether singing along to a song in Cantonese, mugging for models, or kicking Russian ass, it just seems like Van Damme is having the time of his life. The action in this movie is frequently demanding of the star, and he delivers in a big way. Some of the stunt sequences performed by Van Damme rank amongst his very best. Other actors fail to make as much of an impact, and it leaves the viewer wondering if Tsui Hark failed to draw convincing performances from the side actors due to translation issues? 

Overall, Knock Off is a fun and fastpaced Hong Kong action picture that showcases a happy and energetic Van Damme. While it is not his best movie, it is still a tremendously entertaining picture that I enjoy revisiting. Fans of the film are going to love having an opportunity to own it stateside in beautifully rendered 4K.

Video

MVD Rewind have provided a great looking transfer of Knock Off using an HEVC encode in 4K UHD with an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The cinematography of Arthur Wong (who had worked on Iron Monkey and Once Upon a Time in China) does a great job of capturing some truly chaotic fight scenes while also pulling back to reveal details that make Hong Kong such a memorable setting. I really like the overall look of the film minus a few special effects that have aged poorly. Fine detail is solid throughout the proceedings and I can’t imagine the film looking much better. Grain is well resolved, and the transfer is filmic. The HDR enhances the colors of the picture (specifically reds and blues,) but also makes the picture slightly darker than the Blu-ray counterpart included in the set. I never imagined that this picture would get the 4K treatment, and I commend MVD for their work.

Audio

MVD Rewind has provided a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track along with an English LPCM 2.0 Stereo track. The 5.1 track expands the sound field and allows the action to become more convincing. The soundtrack features a noticeable contribution from the band Sparks. While this 5.1 track can’t match an Atmos track, I was very pleased with the amount of immersion afforded by the 5.1 remix. Dialogue is clear and the track didn’t have any noticeable hiss.

Supplements:

4K UHD Disc 

• Audio Commentary by Mike Leeder and Arne Venema 

1080p Disc 

• Interview with Steven E. de Souza – this career spanning interview is one of the best that MVD Rewind has ever produced. Steven E. De Souza is a true legend in the realm of action film screenplay writing. As a big fan of his work, it was fantastic to hear him hold court for three quarters of an hour about how he got his start in the business (which is very funny and clever,) and how he wrote some of the defining action pictures of the best era for those films. After some fantastic stories, he dives into how Knock Off was shaped as a script and how it was meant to play with forumylas from his prior work in an entertaining way. He also discusses his experiences on set and his appreciation of the fast paced filmmaking techniques of the Hong Kong film crew.
• Interview with Moshe Diamant  – Moshe Diamanté has produced a hundred films that you have probably seen if you are interested in a Jean-Claude Van Damme picture. This interview is conducted remotely and Moshe has fond memories of his time working on Knock Off and his long career which produced numerous JCVD vehicles. The interview was a little bit less interesting than the prior interview only because Moshe has a fairly thick accent and less engaging personality than Steven. 
• 2020 Interview with Steven E. de Souza – this audio interview that plays to scenes from the film was originally on the 88 Films release. It is a fun piece.
• Making Knock Off  – an archival EPK. This is kind of weirdly anamorphically squeezed
• Theatrical Trailer
• Audio Commentary by Mike Leeder and Arne Venema

Overall Scores:

Video – 4.5/5

Audio – 4.25/5

Supplements – 4.5/5

Overall – 4.25/5

Knock Off is admittedly not going to rank as one of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s very best films, but it is a film that I have a great time watching (and a picture I have returned to several times.) The picture was going to have a rough time critically from the start because critics love to bash anything that Rob Schneider touches. Action movies were easy fodder for those intellectual film critics who constantly proved their intelligence by denying themselves the joys of any junk food entertainment. Even when an action film of that era proved to be extremely intelligent, critics often missed the mark in their evaluations, and Knock Off is not exactly Shakespeare. That said, the film delivers some truly incredible action setpieces that showcase the best elements of Van Damme’s stunt and martial arts expertise while showcasing the best elements of Tsui Hark’s directorial style. The film is best enjoyed as a wild Hong Kong action picture as opposed to evaluating it as a traditional American action film. This fundamental misunderstanding of the picture led to it being largely dismissed, and also led to Tsui Hark retreating from Hollywood backed projects to continue his extremely successful career in China. MVD Rewind have provided some wonderful supplements including a truly exceptional interview with legendary screenwriter Steven E. De Souza, and a wonderful looking 4K transfer of the film. The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is consistently engaging and very active. This is likely to be the very best edition of Knock Off that will ever exist, and I truly appreciate MVD Rewind for highlighting this picture (and more JCVD pictures to come) in 4K UHD. If you are a fan of this picture, this release can not come more highly recommended.