Director Tsui Hark’s gift to cinema: a POV shot of a foot going into a shoe. A knock off shoe that we receive extreme close ups of the wear and tear suffered as Jean Claude Van Damme pulls Rob Schneider on a cart in a competitive race through the streets of Hong Kong. And this is before Schneider uses an eel to whip Van Damme’s butt onwards. Knock Off (1998) is a weird chaotic mess but very entertaining. When it was released, it seemed to be on the downturn of Van Damme’s super-stardom, and it seems itself a knock off with its cut-price elements (Rob Schneider your comedy relief, Paul Sorvino being the only recognisable supporting actor; there is a quality to this movie where it feels it might only exist in hotels or in flight entertainment). Yet I had heard through some reviews that it had a certain quality, a visual escalation of Hong Kong action filmmaker Tsui Hark’s visual style, already employed to wacky heights in the Dennis Rodman-JCVD team-up, Double Team. The plot: Van Damme plays a knock-off merchant and fashion designer living in Hong Kong during the 1997 hand-over, partnered up with Schneider. There’s a hoodlum Eddie that Van Damme treats like a buddy, and an ensuing complicated plot involving Russian terrorists, the CIA, and microchip bombs that can be implanted in the belts of designer jeans. It’s all pretty confusing, which is the state that the director’s hyper visual style puts you in where even a small shot feels overloaded with framing or movement or visual information. Apparently Sammo Hung was the stunt coordinator and action director, and no real fighting flow exists as the camerawork and editing are so rambunctious. It still dazzles with its decision to make every shot swoop, zoom or zip with excitement or wacky humour. I read an article where Van Damme said he had a breakdown during the making of Knock Off, hitting rock bottom with his cocaine addiction during the 1990s. Hard to know if it affected his performance, which swings from being a loveable goof (his intro shot is him singing happily along to a cantopop song in his car) to sweaty intensity, bellowing loudly as everything starts going to hell (“YOU LIED TO ME!”). Schneider is only funny when he tries to act serious. The climatic slip and slide gun battle on a shipping barge’s slippery deck alongside shifting shipping containers is something else! Particularly since Van Damme’s hair style seems to change for the last act. The movie has one last surprise when the credit “Music by Ron Mael and Russell Mael” pops up, and you realise the tune over the closing credits is by none other than Sparks! Truly a wild ride. Recommended.
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