A Masterpiece!

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The film follows Marcus Ray, a former denim knockoff artist who has moved on to work for V-6 Jeans. But as the film starts, the movie is more concerned with Russians in Hong Kong, who are not only dealing in knockoff jeans, but ones that have little explosives in them that are as powerful as a stick of dynamite, and emit green flames (yes, green flames). The movie starts in the middle of a sting operation where the Russians are trying to get their latest shipment, but something goes wrong and the cops move in. The film briefly sets up some of the Russian antagonists, mostly by giving them colorful looks, or in one case a cough. But when the cops arrive (led by Michael Wong), everything goes nuts.And from this opening action sequence Tsui Hark decides he didn't want a single shot in the movie to be boring and so every place he puts the camera is interesting and surprising. In the opening chase sequence Michael Wong is in a boat chasing the Russians, and one of the Russians has a sniper rifle. He shoots one of Wong's men, but to show that death, Hark cuts to blood bursting in air. It's impressionistic, and the film borders on chaos, incoherence even, but every decision is bold and crazy. Right away he sets the tone, as the film stock seems to change in moments, and he'll use a fish eye lens for the hell of it."Knock Off" offers so much unique visual information that it's overwhelming. Which is probably why I went back and saw it again the next day, and made a point to see it five times in the theaters. The film spoke to me, and it continues to, I've probably watched it at least once every year, and love showing it to people who have no idea what they're in for.As far as action genre is concerned, this movie is absolutely great. Action fans will be pleased.

Knock Off deserves a spot as one of Jean Claude Van Damme's worst movies that he has had the misfortune to appear in. For some reason, it disappeared without a trace from cinemas, then made a quiet entry on home video. Needless to say when I hired this out, I found myself dismayed at how forgettable this garbage was as well as a waste of time and money.Hong Kong based fashion designers Marcus Ray (Jean Claude Van Damme, Universal Soldier) and Tommy Hendricks (Rob Schneider, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo) are involved in a fashion line of knock offs of major label merchandise including shoes and jeans being their popular items on the market. Their boss, Karen Leigh (Lela Rochon, Waiting to Exhale), who is also a CIA agent sent to find the mole in their operation, is threatening them with a jail term if they do not cooperate after they have been busted. Spearheading the CIA operation in Hong Kong is Harry Johannson (Paul Sorvino, Goodfellas), who also has a very shady agenda.The cast is wasted in a pathetic movie which was also penned by Steven E. de Souza who was also the brains behind such action classics including 48 Hrs. (1982), Commando, (1985), The Running Man (1987), Die Hard (1988) and Die Hard 2 (1990). It seems here that his idea reached its expiry date and became stale very fast.Don't get ripped off with Knock Off.1/10.

Yes! This is more like it! Guns, kicks, punches, bombs and there's even something for the ladies as the plot centres around the pointless world of fashion and of course Van Damme spends most of the film naked. This time he teams up with NFL star Dennis Rodman to take on some evil fashion designers who have been weaving their clothes from hemp. Once worn these clothes will instantly intoxicate the wearer, send them into fits of laughter, make them hallucinate and 'trip', and eventually descend into a spiral of addiction, crime, and murder that every drug user ever has suffered. Van Damme is a former model turned super cop and decides he is the best man to infiltrate the group, kick them in the face, destroy the clothes, and save the world. Unfortunately his boss decides to send a more flamboyant character along as a more modern partner. So they go undercover (sometimes literally!) as a gay couple pretending to want to buy a large shipment of these wonderful summer outfits. This leads to some jolly moments as Van Damme and Rodman attempt to 'out camp' each other with scenes reminiscent of the parties Oscar Wilder and Noel Coward used to hold for each other. Rodman keeps wearing shorter and shorter skirts, while Van Damme tucks his socks into his shoes and ends every sentence with the word 'sailor'. 'The only thing worse than not having any clothes is having too many' says Van Damme. 'The only thing worse than having no clothes is yo momma' replies Rodney.Of course the main focus of the film is the fighting and we are not disappointed. Famous Japanese director Sue Hark shows her trademark style with flashy camera movement, bullet tracking shots, cameras attached to Van Damme's sandals so that we can see a foot eye view of someone on the other end of The Mussels From Belgium's brutal attack. It is truly rewarding, as rewarding as throwing a dart into Jim Bowen's left cheek.Dennis Rocksmarth's moves are OK. Being a big lad we assume he can look after himself and he throws a few left hoops and upperclamps. His attempts at kicking are hideous and made my cat cry, I've seen better kicking from Peter in Dawn Of The Dead. Sue goes one further though with her interpretation of what would happen if you wore a cardigan of drugs. One character begins to giggle and roll about the floor, and we see what they see; we move to split screen a le Mario Kart. The top half is normal colour vision but spinning around 350 degrees, while the bottom half becomes black and white with blasts of neon colours. This eventually blurs into one and the character enters a world full of spinning knives and shoes being thrown from room to room. It reminded me of playing Doom naked with a live mouse and synthesiser instead of the usual keyboard/mouse combination. The floors and walls are melting and being sculpted by invisible artists into bewildering phrases such as 'Burt's Beans are Number 1!', 'If you sit in my kitchen you will become a-', 'Jacob the Chicken knows more than your Spleen ever will', and of course 'Carry your Turnip with Pride, Brain'. None of this makes much sense and it got a bit irritating after 7 minutes. Eventually the character reaches a help desk made of fire (which itself is made of water) and asks the Sheep in a Tux what is going on. 'Baaaa' replies the sheep. 'Well, that's what I though but I sought clarification'. As she turns away a large bubble engulfs her in slime and pops loudly. We cut to a wide shot of the women splatting against the ground and realise she has thrown herself off a building.In the end the co stars work well together and would go on to star in several more films together, including a theatre version of this film. I haven't seen it but if it's half as good as this it'll be average. If it's the same quality it'll be great! Best Scene: When VD and the DR are lying in bed together and Rodman feels something prodding him. 'Those aren't pillows you're hands are between!'

When a friend and I can't find any movies that interest both of us at our local video store, we usually just try to find the worst action movie we can and get a few chuckles. Naturally, anything with Van Damme is instantly a contender, and after reading the first line on the back of the box and seeing the words "counterfeit jeans" we were sold. In no way were we prepared for the cinematic abortion that we would witness. Van Damme's character appears to be (I say appears to be because the plot was nonsensical, even with obvious overdubs contained to explain gaps in the narrative) a salesman who pushes blue jeans. His business partner Rob Schneider is on first appearance a patently offensive mincing homosexual, though for some reason in all his later scenes he no longer displays any of these tendencies (other than a ridiculous scene where he smacks Van Damme's ass with an eel from the back of a rickshaw). In the early scenes, characters show up with no attempt to explain who they are and we move from a warehouse full of counterfeit goods to, for some reason, a rickshaw race. Here one gets a full sense of just how thoroughly his senses are about to be assaulted. Tsui Hark jams this puppy with as many unnecessary camera tricks as he can, including one in this scene where we see Van Damme's tennis shoe blow out from the inside. There is no way I can do this film justice by describing it, but suffice to say that many ludicrous, idiotic action scenes follow. Anytime someone dies it's especially hilarious. Lela Rochon and Paul Sorvino show up, the former basically just pointing her tits at the camera and the latter appearing to recognize how idiotic the movie is and hamming it up; listen to his "scream" in the second of the three scenes in which his character is apparently killed off. Do yourself a favor and check this movie out.