GazerRise Fantastic!

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

I-Sense-A-Plot The story stars Yuen Biao as Little John, and his on screen brother Big John is played by Leung Kar Yan. Lau Kar Wing(famous director and brother of the equally famous Lau Kar Leung) plays the villain "Silver Fox".The movie opens with a hilarious con by Big John and Little John that goes horribly wrong when the beggar, played Sammo Hung (who also directed) derails the plan. The two brothers are left hungry and without money after the plan goes bad so they look for another sucker to dupe. They meet Silver Fox, who not only out smarts them, but beats them terribly.The con artist brothers realise that it is yet another opportunity to scam the man, and beg to become his students hoping Silver Fox will pay their bills, give them a place to live, and pay their gambling debts. They succeed. Silver Fox becomes their new "master" and takes care of them, but little do they know, Silver Fox is evil. He teaches the brothers to fight, and they are good. The only problem is that they can't fight without each other. Little John learns to Northern Kick and Big John learns the Southern Fist. Lau Kar Wing a real life practitioner of Hung Gar was excellent and comparatively, the other actors were out of their depth. Things go wrong when Little John learns that his master is not only evil but is also an outlaw and a cop killer. Big John is eventually murdered by the teacher saving Little John's life. Little John vows to take revenge on his old master. He runs into the Beggar, learning that he is versed in monkey Kung Fu. He begs the Begger to teach him, but the Beggar refuses. Little John eventually cons the Beggar into becoming his teacher. Apparently he's learned nothing from the death of his "con" artist brother. The Kung Fu lessons are full of insults and abuse. The Beggar and Little John don't particularly care for one another and Little John already seems to be over the death of his closest brother. Yuen Biao is nimble enough, and his acrobats are nice. But the monkey Kung Fu sucks. If you want to see excellent "Monkey" Kung Fu, go watch MAD MONKEY KUNG FU, better story, better stunts, better acrobats, and better training sequences.Yuen Biao is nothing short of amazing though and he is clearly skilled as history would dictate. But his Kung Fu skills (in this movie) are too slow, and choreographed. Sammo Hung as a director is terrible. He uses camera tricks to make the actors move faster, and to cover the fact that some of the moves are lacking. Yuen Baio and Leung Kar Yan move like they're counting numbers "1-2-3-left" arm throw, it's very slow and contrived to me.I can tell that Leung Kar Yan had no formal martial arts training, and Yuen Biao of course is very good but the choreography didn't do him justice. Plus, the students didn't care about their master, and in the end, Yuen Biao and the Beggar barely liked each other.These student-teacher relationships are all about respect but this silly movie failed to capture the essence of these important relationships.I will say that, Knockabout was very funny, and it did make me laugh. So I think fans of Yuen Biao and that other guy, Sammo Hung will enjoy this movie. I'm no fan of Sammo Hung so I didn't but Yuen Biao and Leung Kar Yan did just enough to keep me entertained. Ultimately, it was forgettable.

BA_Harrison About half an hour into Knockabout and I was ready to award it a rating of 6; the martial arts were not particularly impressive and the comedy was routine. Half an hour later and I had changed my mind; the action had improved somewhat and the story was picking up. A 7 now seemed like a reasonable score.By the end of the film, however, I was utterly flabbergasted: Knockabout had improved beyond belief, delivering one of the most impressive finales in a martial arts movie that I have had the pleasure to witness. I now award the movie an 8 and highly recommend it to fans of the genre.Yuen Baio and Ka-Yan Leung play brothers Yipao and Taipao, lovable rogues who convince a martial arts expert to take them on as students. When Yipao discovers that their teacher is actually a wanted criminal, Silver Fox (Chia Yung Liu), he is attacked by his master. Taipao jumps in to protect his sibling but is killed; Yipao barely escape with his life. Seeking revenge, Yipao enlists the help of a beggar (Sammo Hung) who is a master of monkey-style kung fu, and together they take on Silver Fox in a breath-taking fight to the death.On reflection, I now realise that the earlier, less impressive fights were deliberately underwhelming in order to show how much the brothers still had to learn. As they gain more experience, the fights get better and better, until the mind-bogglingly acrobatic ending in which Biao performs feats that need to be seen to be believed.The training scenes with Sammo's beggar involve some of the greatest acrobatics I have ever witnessed and these alone make the film worth watching. A final battle with Hung and Biao combining their monkey kung fu skills against Chia Yung Liu's snake style rounds off a wonderfully satisfying movie experience.Knockabout is a real treat for all lovers of old-school martial arts movies and especially fans of Yuen Baio and Sammo Hung.

sarastro7 "Knockabout" is a prime example of all the virtues of old school kung fu movies. It has cool characters, comedy, seriousness, a classic type of story, and loads and loads of great fighting and training sequences (especially, of course, towards the end). And it has these elements in such gold standard versions that it comprises a superb representation of the classic Hong Kong martial arts movie genre."Knockabout" brings together three of that time's top names in the world of kung fu movie-making, Sammo Hung, Ka-Yan Leung and Yuen Biao. Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao went on to do many movies with Jackie Chan, and actually Ka-Yan Leung's comedic role in this movie could well have been played by Jackie Chan. But I guess, at the time (1979), Ka-Yan Leung was a hotter name. This is the first time I've seen Ka-Yan Leung in a comedy role; he's usually very intense and serious, and often even bitter (see "Lightning Kung Fu" and "The Postman Strikes Back"). So this is quite a change. He pulls off the comedy part very well indeed, demonstrating that his acting range isn't limited to one kind of role.The main reason Ka-Yan Leung's such a hot property, however, is his marvelous kung fu skills. In "Knockabout" he and Yuen Biao are a couple of thieving brothers who're pretty good at kung fu. But when they encounter a guy they can't beat, they beg to become his students. And indeed, he teaches them to become so good that (as he tells them) "ordinary people" are no match for them. So, the happy-go-lucky brothers promptly go out in search of some "ordinary people" to test their new skills against. They find a bunch of extortion racketeers at the local marketplace, who, when asked who they are, claim to be "merely ordinary people" - and then, of course, the fighting breaks out! Very effective comedy.Sammo Hung plays a beggar/thief who follows the naive brothers, consistently fooling them out of half their loot. When their newfound master turns out to be a bad guy who only trained the brothers in order to fight off his enemies (who were using combinations of styles that no one person could counter, but two could), Sammo's the only one who knows enough kung fu to beat him. And that's leaving out a *lot* of details! This is a very good movie with a good story, but parts of it are not as entertaining as it could be. The seriousness is *too* serious, considering how wacky the movie's comedy dimension is, so it comes off as not being very well balanced.I rate "Knockabout" an 8 out of 10. It's among the really good ones, although one movie with a similar cast that is even better, is "Prodigal Son" (1982), which I rate a 9. (9 is my top rating for movies without several layers and other exceptional qualities, like aesthetic cinematography, etc. So far, the only kung fu movies I've rated a "10" are "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "Hero".)

scottnow I just love this movie and give it 10 out of 10. Sammo is great and is his usual funny self with great martial arts, but Yuen Baio is AMAZING! I know he is famous for his kicking and acrobatic prowess, but in this film he is absolutely awesome. Some of the training sequences with Sammo where he is back flipping, somersaulting etc whilst using a skipping rope really show his fantastic acrobatic skills and he looks dead cute and sexy as well. His facial expressions are great whether he is being silly or serious and shows that he also a good actor as well as being an amazing martial artist. If you are a Yuen Baio fan, this film is a DEFINITE MUST SEE.