Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Benas Mcloughlin Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

adonis98-743-186503 Action star Jean Claude Van Damme plays a fashion designer who must join forces with a C.I.A. agent to combat terrorism. Knock Off is perhaps not one of Jean Claude Van Damme's best films from the 90's but it's definitely not one of his worst ones either. It's actually quite fun and pretty action packed to say the least plus Rob Schneider wasn't that bad and if you have patience and give it a fair chance? It might actually suprise you by how good it really is. Knock Off is a fun, watchable and action packed thriller, comedy that does the job done. (7/10)

Python Hyena Knock Off (1998): Dir: Tsui Hark / Cast: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Rob Schneider, Lela Rochon, Paul Sorvino, Carman Lee: The title is absolutely correct. Everyone tries to knock each other off while viewers struggle to stay awake. The story is simply an excuse for Jean-Claude Van Damme to physically beat the tar out of bad guys and further prove that acting isn't his strong point. Tiny button shaped bombs are placed in dolls and phony salesman Van Damme and Rob Schneider get involved after a friend is murdered. Tsui Hark handles the action but he fails to drag a good performance out of Van Damme or Schneider. Hark and Van Damme previously collaborated to bring the world another action embarrassment called Double Team. Together, these films can be strapped together and sold cheap in the bargain bin at the local supermarket. Schneider does as expected and that is to provide horrible comic relief. Lela Rochon has the misfortune of playing damsel in distress because she just happened to be within arms length of the producers during casting. Also wasting time is Paul Sorvino. No point but to entertain senseless violence. Double Team was a stupid movie so it should come as no surprise that Knock Off is just as dumb. I wish they would knock it off and write a decent script, or at least give viewers the option of knocking the film off with several blows of a baseball bat. Score: 2 / 10

badfeelinganger Though the jokey lines seem out of place, the somber tone of this 1998 action movie makes the political subtext more sincere and less grandiose than usual , One of Van Damme's best movies ever..Action-packed , cheesy , Whatever you think of Jean-Claude Van Damme's acting skills, there is no denying his acumen when it comes to career-development choices. Graduating swiftly from his early, funnier films (Black Eagle) to martial-arts contest movies (Kickboxer), there was even a brief moment following Universal Soldier when stardom beckoned. But then he chose to anchor his place in the mainstream by turning to Hong Kong action flicks, a sub-genre which largely supplanted the Schwarzenegger-Stallone heroics of the 80s. Knock Off is the fourth movie in six years in which Van Damme has teamed up with cult eastern directors, and his second outing for Tsui Hark after Double Team. It is of interest only in that this is far more the director's picture than his own.Tsui's imprimatur is apparent in both the convoluted plot (involving nano bombs and Russian gangsters) and the staging of the fight sequences. It has long been accepted that Van Damme's fans don't come to his films wanting the labyrinthine complexities of The Big Sleep, but they do expect plenty of roundhouse kicks, splits and at least one 'butt shot'. Knock Off has none of these, Tsui seemingly preferring to show off his own techniques rather than his star's. The fight sequences are often filmed in disorienting close-ups, while slow and fast motion, freeze frames and Evil Dead-style crash zooms whip up plenty of sound and fury to camouflage the central emptiness.

Comeuppance Reviews Set in Hong Kong, Knock Off is the tale of how the fashion industry intersects with the Russian mafia and the CIA. As if you didn't already know. Tommy Hendricks (Schneider) is a fashion designer and his pal Marcus Ray (Van Damme) is shocked when he discovers "knock off" goods on the streets of Hong Kong, such as "Pumma" sneakers. But it's all just a ruse to smuggle high-tech weaponry such as extremely dangerous and destructive bombs that explode with green flames. When the marketing manager for V-Six jeans, Karen Lee (Rochon), gets involved - as anyone might if they were somehow embroiled in a scenario that involved Exploding Counterfeit Jeans (or ECJ's, as we like to call them) - they meet the mysterious Harry Johanson (Sorvino) and the stage is set for a lot of high-octane fights, stunts, chases and battles. Will these knock off products finally get our heroes...knocked off? Find out today! The purpose of movies, especially movies like this, is to entertain. And Knock Off certainly does. It seems to work overtime to please the viewer with all sorts of fast-paced and off-kilter scenarios, and the vibe becomes infectious. Just as director Tsui Hark did the previous year with JCVD in Double Team (1997), he teams him up with a wacky American sidekick. With Double Team, unforgettably, it was the one and only Dennis Rodman. Here, it's with unlikely action star Rob Schneider. We even get some brief Schneider-Fu, and, unfortunately, he also appears shirtless. Both Rodman and Schneider were hot in the 90's - which is easy to forget these days - which just adds even more to the nutty feel of these movies.If it's one thing Knock Off has, it's style, and we're not just talking about fashion. Hark's direction is filled with energy and overflowing with unusual camera angles (such as "shoe vision") to the point where it can be described as cartoonish. Far from a bad thing, the whole venture seems very "Hong Kong" and he probably figured, after Double Team, 'to hell with the American market, I'm doing this my way.' What reinforces that are the fun, Jackie Chan-style stunts and fights. Sammo Hung is credited as Second Unit Director, and this may seem insane, but you can actually tell. It's his action style all the way. JCVD gets a great intro to his character in the film, and both he and Rob Schneider both wear zany Hawaiian shirts for most of the movie's running time. Clearly they are the height of fashion. JCVD also has his typical funny faces on display, adding to the charm of the movie.While it was nice to see Paul Sorvino on board, though he seemed a tad bit confused (though wouldn't you be?) - especially in the scenes where he, Rochon, Schneider and Van Damme are all together (talk about powerful casting) - truly the biggest coup were getting the Mael brothers of Sparks fame to do the music. Their closing credits title song is very slick, clever and catchy, like most of their other work. You'll be singing "It's a knock off..." for weeks. Yes, weeks. Varouje Hagopian did additional music, and we've seen that name before (he seems to do the music for a lot of Billy Blanks movies). In the end, if it's zany, colorful, well-choreographed action you seek, Knock Off is a great choice.