Monday, July 25, 2011

1988 - KNOCK OFF, Tsui Hark deconstructs/sends up/spoofs, the Hong Kong action film.


The incredible plot to Knock Off, has something to do with planting mini bombs in pairs of blue jeans which in turn can be used to terrorize the United States by threatening to detonate their pants or something like that.




The film stars the you asked for it action team of Jean Claude Van Damme and Rob Schneider.  Van Damme is supposedly playing a fashion designer and Schneider is supposedly an undercover CIA agent, no credibility stretching here.




The real star of the film is Tsui Hark.  Once again Hark uses his super charged film technique to take a series of action scenes and stage and film them in the most kinetic way possible.  Hark's technique completely overwhelms the film as it escalates into a series of elaborate action pieces ending with a see it to believe it scene on a ship involving cargo containers rolling around the deck attempting to crush Van Damme.


Tsui Hark traffic manages another action scene.

Clearly the concept was to make an action/comedy film.  However someone should have spoken with Hark before the filming because he is definitely marching to his own drummer on this film.

A fascinating mess.

91 minutes.

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