Knock Off - MVD Rewind

Knock Off, available for pre-order from MVD Rewind (releasing February 17) has evolved for me over the years. When I first watched this frenetic piece of Hong Kong cinema, literally filmed during the transfer of power back to China, I was very disappointed. I wanted classic Kickboxer / Bloodsport Van Damme, and I ended up with a silly film with rickshaw races and exploding baby dolls. To make matters worse, this was one of the last theatrical releases for Van Damme. I wrote this off as a late career misstep. Even when I re-visited it years later for this site, I was more negative than positive. Now, with MVD Rewind’s awesome 4K / Blu-ray upgrade, I finally get it.

A large part of my enjoyment of this film is the practical action of it compared to modern action movies. The stunts in this film are great and clearly practical aside from some explosions here and there. And the fight scenes, though chaotic, are also a lot of fun. When coupled with director Tsui Hark’s “go anywhere” camerawork (an early moment has the camera follow Van Damme’s foot into a knock off running shoe), Knock Off looks more impressive with each passing year.

I’ve also watched more Hong Kong cinema over the years, and knowing a little more what to expect from a Hong Kong film makes this easier to enjoy. With Hong Kong in mind, I know this is going to move quickly, literally and figuratively, and I might not know what the hell is going on from scene to scene, but it’s going to be entertaining. 

So while the plot involving nano-bombs, knock off jeans, Rob Schneider as a CIA agent, etc. might make little sense, it really doesn’t matter. This is a wild ride from start to finish, and you’re better off shutting your brain off for it and enjoying the inventive camerawork and stuntwork. 

This is not to say Knock Off is a classic. This will always be lesser Van Damme, but it certainly deserves another look if, like me, you dismissed it originally. Of course, the MVD Rewind treatment makes it all go down much smoother.

The Transfer

If you catch this movie on a free streamer like Pluto, it’s a tough watch. The sound mix is abysmal, and it just looks okay. The new restoration makes this a no-brainer in terms of quality. If you like this movie at all, this will be the definitive release to own.

Special Features

MVD Rewind is a dream company for Van Damme fans. They’ve already made the best versions of Double Impact and Lionheart (and I’m assuming Black Eagle, though I haven’t checked out that release yet), and they treat Knock Off with equal reverence. 

The slip-covers are nice, with the Blu-ray release getting the vintage VHS look, and the 4K getting a more traditional cover-art release. 

Each version also includes a mini-poster, which I hope to someday convince my son to hang up in his room. 

Beyond the great physical media aesthetics, the regular special features are nice, as well.

The archival making of is decent since it features plenty of on-set interviews. It's oddly promotional while also giving away almost all of the plot. But it gives a nice glimpse of what filming was like during the historic transition.

The 2020 interview with de Souza claims they were originally going to be able to film the transfer of power in Hong Kong with Prince Charles, and it would have implied that the explosions at the end would have threatened that. But the budget changed and they couldn't, so now you just get the TV coverage, and it doesn’t seem like anything happening in the movie has much to do with the transfer ceremony aside from being on the same day. To be fair, there is the moment when the boat gets too close and the gunships go to intercept, but the boat turns away and they stand down.

The interview with producer Moshe Diamant also brings up the transfer of power missed opportunity.

The new de Souza interview is half a career retrospective and half about Knock Off. He praises the stunts, and rightfully so. As action movies get more and more digital, the insane practical stunts of a movie like this make it better with each passing year. And de Souza is simply an entertaining storyteller, so going through his career leading up to Knock Off is interesting, as well.

Diamant and de Souza both seem a little too proud that nano-bombs kind of came true (mainly with the Hezbollah pager bombing thing from a few years ago).

Random Thoughts 

This has to be the first JCVD foot cam moment.

Also the first time he's been whipped in the ass with an eel by Rob Schneider…on film, at least.

“Thankness, god.” Clearly Van Damme was meant to say, “Thank goodness,” or “Thank god,” and, “Thankness, god,” is what came out. The fact that they just kept that in instead of doing another take is a perfect example of the tone of this film.

Rob Schneider is much more convincing as a sleazy jeans counterfeiter than as a CIA agent.

Sure, the very first time I watched this and there was a prolonged rickshaw race ten minutes in that featured an exploding shoe and Rob Schneider whipping Van Damme with an eel, I thought, “What the fuck is this shit?” But after nearly thirty years and at least five re-watches, I dig it now.

It’s worth upgrading for the sound mix alone. It makes it almost unwatchable on Pluto. I haven’t checked the sound on other streamers.

The stunt with the car landing on the water bottles is nuts. It looks like one stunt dude on the ground misses getting hit by inches.

After watching this three times in as many days, I think I finally understand the plot.

I think the giant Buddha blowing up would be a bigger deal, especially with the handoff going on. But no one even makes a comment about it.

The final set piece on the boat is too frenetic. There’s some good shit in there that gets lost in the editing. 

Paul Sorvino inexplicably survives two nuclear-level explosions, but I think he’s really dead with the third one. 

Schneider is still talking about the jeans at the end, saying “our jeans.” Was his role in the jeans company not a CIA front? Did the movie forget he was an agent? Did he forget?

The film ends with what has to be drunken ad-libs from Schneider, talking about forming the lingerie football league. And the film closes with him saying, “No action movie would be complete without sweat.” This is fourth-wall breaking, and what is he even referencing? That’s why I think it was a candid moment that Tsui Hark just left in.

Kickboxer - "Why Doze Guys Try to Huuuurt Me?"

I got the new 35th anniversary 4K edition of Kickboxer (featuring the badass lenticular slipcase seen above) this past Christmas, and after watching it six times since then, I feel like I can write something about it.

First off, I’ve written about a lot of Van Damme movies, but I’ve held off on this one. While Bloodsport is awesome, Kickboxer is what started my JCVD fandom. I’ve watched this movie too many times to count, and I will watch it countless times in the future. Because of this, I didn’t think I’d have much to say about it beyond, “Man, this is awesome.” It’s easier to write about Van Damme movies if they’re more outrageous (Street Fighter) or just bad (Double Team). But with this new release, it’s time to finally address my favorite Van Damme movie.

Man, Kickboxer is awesome. Seriously, this is all I want from a Van Damme movie: broken English, splits training, nonsensical training, montages with on-the-nose song choices, slo-mo roundhouse kicks, Van Damme dancing, Van Damme drunk acting, and revenge. I know this isn’t objectively good, but I love it.

Watching it over and over again allows me to notice new elements. This time, a couple things stuck out to me. First, there’s a scene I’m now obsessed with. The drunk dancing stuff and Eric being a dick and doing the “Can he move like me?” stuff is great, but it’s played out. This time, Van Damme being distracted by a bird cracked me up.

Van Damme and Eric are training in the park after they get to Thailand (and Eric has had a chance to catch gonorrhea from the local talent), and they begin talking about their respective childhoods. This is mainly used as an explanation for Van Damme’s accent and loose grip on the English language, but there’s a moment in which he tells Eric that their deceased father would have been proud of him. Eric agrees, looking down for a moment in contemplation while Van Damme, having heard a bird chirping in a cage a local is holding, wanders off to check it out. Eric, rightfully annoyed, calls Van Damme back and training continues. 

It’s just such a random little moment, and I’ve somehow never really noticed it. Now it’s one of my favorite scenes. I mean, Van Damme wanders over there and stares at that bird like such a dumbass that you wonder if he’s ever seen a bird before. Perhaps it’s just great acting, but I think Van Damme really got distracted during the scene and wanted to see the bird. There’s no callback to it later, and it’s not like Van Damme talks about his love of birds or anything. It makes no sense…or does it?

Watching this movie over and over again, you’re forced to pay more attention to the dialogue. While writing about the bird scene, a line from early in the film came back to me and unlocked an aspect of Van Damme’s character. While talking to reporters about going to Thailand to prove that he’s the best kickboxer in the world, Eric says Van Damme wants to be a vet (though Eric wants him to be a lawyer). It’s never brought up again, but there are animal elements later on that make a lot more sense with the vet stuff in mind.

First, Van Damme’s fascination with the bird makes much more sense, as he’s an animal lover and wants to check out a bird he’s never seen before. The scene still needs more of an explanation, such as Van Damme telling Eric that it’s a rare whatever bird native to Thailand or something, and then Eric can say something funny and disparaging about Van Damme wanting to be a vet. But I’ll let it slide. 

The other part that it unlocked for me I used to just write off as a silly trope of martial arts movies. As Van Damme focuses during his fight with Tong Po, he remembers his time training in the ancient ruins or whatever. He has a vision of fighters from the past and, more importantly, he hears and sees an eagle, which seems to give him the power he needs to defeat Tong Po.

Part of the reason I just dismissed this as a trope is the movie Hot Rod. In that film, Andy Samberg invokes the spirits of animals multiple times to give him the strength to perform stunts and/or fight his stepdad. I can’t find anything to confirm this, but I’m convinced this is inspired by Kickboxer. 

There are actually a few similarities between Hot Rod and Kickboxer. There’s the spiritual connection to animals, the fight scenes with Ian McShane, the training scenes/montages set to ‘80s music, the relationship between brothers, a family member with a serious medical condition, etc. It’s not a full on parody or remake or anything, but I think it’s safe to say Kickboxer, and films like it, were a big inspiration for Hot Rod. 

Or maybe I watched Kickboxer one too many times, and it’s time to shut up about it.

Special Features

International Cut

The international cut is a nice addition beyond being a new version because it's in 4x3 and not fully restored, making it more like the viewing experience most people had the first time they saw it.

If this was as cleaned up as the theatrical cut, it would probably be my preferred version. But there's not enough differences for me to consistently revisit it. Plus, I was hoping an “international cut” meant full frontal nudity, but there isn't any.

It’s really only required viewing for hardcore losers like me, which is what you are if you own this version.

I’ve seen people praise it for restoring Eric’s original voice, but the dubbing has never bothered me, mainly because the edited cut is what I grew up with. And I think that’s the main takeaway here: if you grew up with this cut, now you have the best version of it. If you grew up with the edited cut, it’s just nice to have the option to check out the international cut.

The Interviews

The director of photography has the longest interview, and he has some decent behind the scenes stuff about Van Damme blowing up on set one day, yelling “Stallone was right!” But my favorite fact was about the torches during the final fight; he said there was no way they could get away with that in America because they were kerosene torches and created a lot of smoke, “but it looked great on camera.”

The Tong Po interview is okay, but he just seems to be jazzed that people still give a fuck about this silly movie.

The JCVD interview is the boundless drivel you've come to expect from him at this point.

The Commentaries

The first commentary was okay, but it was largely just them praising the movie.

The second commentary was rough. It features one of the directors, David Worth, who is in his 80s. He sounds like a bad Biden impression throughout the whole thing. The moderator tries his best to keep things moving, but you mainly end up with interactions like this: “David, where did this scene come from?” David: “It was written.” Sure, not the most dynamic question, but the moderator didn’t have much to work with. And, of course, there’s the possibility that there doesn’t need to be any commentaries for this movie, much less two, and my dumbass didn’t need to listen to either of them, but it is what it is.

Random Thoughts 

First off, this might sound weird but it almost feels wrong for this movie to look this good.

Eric introduces Kurt as wanting to be a vet, but he wants him to be a lawyer. I wouldn't trust JCVD with my dog or my legal needs.

Eric Sloan is the fucking man. The first thing he does, after placating his loser brother and going for a boat ride, is pick up a hooker and bring her back to his hotel. “Hey man, the champ needs herpes if he's going to fight Tong Po!”

That said, who gives a prostitute flowers? I know Eric's the man, but that's some beta shit.

Kurt Sloan doesn't sound like the name of a guy with a thick Belgian accent speaking broken English, but at least they came up with a reason for JCVD to be from Belgium in this instead of just expecting the audience to go with it.

During a heartfelt conversation between the two brothers, Van Damme gets distracted by a bird and walks off to check it out. I fucking love this movie.

One of the best things anyone has ever done online is create a loop of Eric doing the “Can he move like me?” routine.

Eric gets his ass annihilated for a whole round, and his first comment is about the music driving him crazy. He has a point; that music is insufferable. 

Winston doesn't give JCVD a ride because there are two more fights. So the heavyweight champion from America fighting the best in the country is an undercard?

“You aren’t good enough!” You’re right, Winston, but how the fuck would you know?

You know that feeling you get when your brother's just been paralyzed in a kickboxing match, and you need to go sightseeing in Bangkok during a montage until you stumble across a kickboxing gym?

“But you are American.”

What are you talking about, Xian? Your English is better than his. Why would you make that assumption?

So much of the training is about making him flexible enough to do the splits. This is truly a JCVD origin story.

Eric's first words to Kurt after waking up from his injury: “This is Lo. He's teaching me how to ask the nurse for a blow job.” (International cut)

While I appreciate the international cut's inclusion of a scene with Eric breaking down and telling Kurt to get revenge on Tong Po and “fuck him up!”, I like the theatrical cut better because the first time we see Eric post-injury it's a dialogue free scene of him using a wheelchair and pinching a nurse’s ass.

“Kurt, put on your sluttiest tank top. You know, the one with the weird shoulder clasps? We’re going dancing.”

Wait…the dancing scene is longer in the international cut, making it undeniably better.

What was the dude who picked up the table going to do with it? He just picked it up, held it in front of him, screamed, and waited for JCVD to kick him into the water.

“Why doze guys try to huuurt me?” is still my favorite line reading of Van Damme's career.

“What are they saying?”

“Nok su kao. ‘White warrior.’”

Fucking racists.

I love JCVD, but if his blood got splattered on my face, taking a taste would be the last fucking thing I would do. I’d probably find the nearest bottle of bleach and douse myself with it.

God, I love the abrupt endings to movies like this.

Legionnaire - The Beginning of the End

As usual, I lost all motivation for writing about movies this year. I still watch plenty of shit, but writing about it (beyond Letterboxd entries) just didn’t interest me. And now I’m going to make myself get back into it. Part of the problem is that I’m on this stupid completionist kick in which I watch every movie in a series or a director’s filmography. I don’t want to devote the time to write about every single film, so I tell myself that I’ll just do a ranking, which is why two of my last few posts are rankings of Cronenberg and the Leprechaun movies. Because of this, I currently have multiple rankings articles I’m in the middle of, such as the Craig Bond movies, the Transformers series, the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, the Alien franchise, and the Final Destination movies. Will I finish all, or any, of these? I hope so. In the meantime, I needed to fucking write something, and when that’s the case, I turn to Jean-Claude Van Damme.

The Beginning of the End 

Legionnaire always reminds me of a moment from Jackie Chan’s monologue when he hosted SNL in 2000 (you can watch it here, unfortunately it isn’t on YouTube or I would just embed the video). Chan is confronted by fading action stars as his career is in the middle of its Rush Hour heights. Will Ferrell shows up as Steven Seagal, and Chris fucking Kattan shows up as Van Damme. As Chan brags about being in Rush Hour, Kattan counters with, “Well, I did a little movie too last year. Maybe you heard of it. It’s called Legionnaire!” The audience laughs, and a defeated Kattan walks offstage. 

Having Chris Kattan portray JCVD is bad enough, but that Legionnaire joke is doubly hurtful. Not only was it a movie no one paid attention to, but it was also the first time, since becoming a star, a Van Damme movie went straight to video. His previous two theatrical films were Knock Off and Double Team, so you can imagine why this happened. His next film after Legionnaire, Universal Soldier: The Return, got a theatrical release, but that last ditch effort bombed as well, and aside from voicework and his villain turn in The Expendables 2 (in which he was named…Vilain), JCVD has been stuck in the direct to video world.

In that way, Legionnaire marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. In the old days, you could count on those theatrical JCVD movies to at least be wacky enough to be fun, but the direct to video era led to JCVD’s only truly boring movies. These are the movies with the awful interchangeable titles like Derailed, In Hell, The Order, Wake of Death, Second in Command, Until Death, Enemies Closer, etc. I’ve seen them all, but I can rarely remember a thing about any of them. But I can easily remember what each theatrical release is about. 

With the direct to video era, I would watch each new Van Damme movie hoping for the rare diamond in the rough (like Replicant or Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning). But most of the films are forgettable. And somewhere in the middle, you end up with the surprisingly decent movie, like Legionnaire. But is surprisingly decent a good thing?

I Prefer Shitshows

If you look up anything on Legionnaire, you’ll likely come across user reviews along these lines: “Better than you’d expect,” “Give this a chance,” “Surprisingly good,” etc. And it’s true, Legionnaire is better than you’d expect; but you’re expecting straight up dogshit, so how big of a compliment is it?

Legionnaire is a throwback film a la The Quest in which Van Damme attempts to make a romantic historical epic. Van Damme plays a boxer in 1920s France who refuses to take a dive for a mobster. He then has to join the French Foreign Legion to escape. While in the Legion, Van Damme becomes friends with three other legionnaires, and the film focuses on the bond that forms among soldiers. Van Damme doesn’t really learn anything, and it doesn’t seem like he really needed to join the Legion to get away from the mobster (especially when his girlfriend was left behind), but this is the movie. 

Ignoring those issues, this is a surprisingly effective story about these four characters that is light on the action you come to expect from a Van Damme film. Sure, there are battle scenes, but Van Damme doesn’t do the splits or even kick anyone. That’s how you know he’s serious. 

I’m not against Van Damme trying to prove he can act (I loved his performance in JCVD), but there is a time and place for it, and the late 1990s were not it. His movies were failing at the time, but his physicality wasn’t. He could still do roundhouse kicks, and there’s a time limit on that ability (there is not, however, a time limit on doing the splits; Van Damme will be buried doing the fucking splits). This was a movie Van Damme should have made in his 50s, not his 30s.

Despite that, the film works. As a Van Damme fan, though, I don’t particularly care if the film works. I want a shitshow like Double Team more than I want a serviceable historical drama. I’ll remember the goofy shit from Double Team for years; I’ll forget every minute of Legionnaire by next week.

That’s what annoys me the most about JCVD’s direct to video era: there aren’t enough crazy movies. And I don’t understand it. I get why some of the theatrical stuff had to play it safe from time to time, but what do you have to lose when you’re making a movie called Wake of Death? I like to think that I am a typical Van Damme fan, and fans like the goofier moments of his best films, like the drunk dancing in Kickboxer, or the “Mwah!” of Bloodsport. 

And if we can’t get the classic goofy stuff, then at least make a movie in which Van Damme plays twins, or has a rickshaw chase scene with Rob Schneider, or faces of against Mickey Rourke and a tiger, or plays an all-American Street Fighter character without even attempting to lose the accent. Give me any of that shit, as long as it’s fun and memorable. 

Thankfully, Van Damme has embraced more comedic stuff in later years, with the Jean-Claude Van Johnson series and The Last Mercenary. Neither of those were great, but they’re a lot better than the forgettable shit. And I’ll gladly take a comedic misfire over Legionnaire, a movie so forgettable that it makes me think of Chris Kattan playing Van Damme on SNL more than it makes me think of the movie itself. 

Van Damme Character Name Check

Alain Lefevre. The movie begins in France, so Van Damme was guaranteed to have a fitting name for this one.

Random Thoughts

This is still technically an action movie, but the boxing scene was regular boxing, not kickboxing. And the rest of the shit was military action, and I want to see Van Damme kicking people, not shooting them.

The drill sergeant is fucking awful. He growls every line like a maniac. It just doesn’t fit with the somber tone of the film. He can’t say normal lines (like “Unpack the ammo”) without snarling them. Every time he talks, it ruins the scene.

Kudos to this film for acknowledging that the Foreign Legion are intruders in a foreign land. A lesser film would attempt to romanticize their mission. Instead, this is much more about the friendship developed by four legionnaires rather than the military goal.

Guido is one of the most destined to die characters I’ve seen recently. He has a girlfriend back home. He’s hopelessly innocent (he spends time with a prostitute talking about his girlfriend). He’s clearly the weakest soldier in the group. It just seemed like he could die in any scene. So when the first big battle started, you knew he was a goner.

Could they not film an ending that shows him finding Katrina? I think I would rather have seen him die with his friends instead of this ambiguous ending. He’s alive, but there’s no guarantee he will make it to another fort. And once there, it’s not like the Legion is just going to let him leave. I don’t know. I just thought this film deserved a more definitive ending than the one we got. There are a few earlier draft endings, according to IMDb trivia, but I don’t know how legit they are. Either way, they weren’t filmed, and this ending is all we have. Oh well.

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