Ip Man | It's Bloggin Evil!

When confronted with product forgeries by Hong Kong police and company representative, Ray, a longtime Hong Kong counterfeiter trying to go legit by partnering up with Tommy to be a distributing fashion designer of V-Six Jeans, becomes embroiled in a Russian smuggling operation of hiding powerful micro explosives in counterfeit goods being sent around the globe. With their ability to be activated by satellite waves, the devices can be hidden in all types of products. The CIA, using Ray to track down another notorious counterfeiter, becomes involved and exploit Rays connection to Hong Kong’s criminal underbelly but double-crossing twist and turns has Ray struggling to trust an ally in his mission to not only find out who is counterfeiting his denim goods but also save the world from infiltrating Russia explosives. He’ll have to rely on his fighting skills as well as hesitantly trust those who’ve deceived him to unearth the person responsible to clear his name and stop the deadly outbound shipments.

To start this review with a personal anecdote, I recently sold Air Jordans to an eBay customer and come to my surprise and dismay, eBay’s authentication process determines the shoes a forgery. I’ve sold many Air Jordan and Nike shoes in the past, successfully through the authentication process, and pride myself on knowing what to for when determining fake product. This one had me fooled. An exact lookalike of the Air Jordans that passed my authenticity examination with the company tag that has all the production information including the product identity number, had the correct Air Jordan logo, and the material passed the visual and feel test with substantial promise to confidently market. Now, what eBay found is completely without reason as I don’t know what they saw or found but what I found in the 1998 campy-action-thriller “Knock Off” surely reminded me that there is always more than what meets the eye. “Once Upon a Time in China” and “Twin Dragons” action film director Hark Tsui works with western actors to achieve a nonstop, impractical, and fun to watch film that doesn’t letup or provide any downtime. The script is penned by Philadelphia born screenwriter Steven E. de Souza, the same de Souza behind “Commando,” “Die Hard,” and “Street Fighter,” orders another supersized helping of action on a Hong Kong reality-defying scale and is produced into an extremely 90’s-laden existence by Raymond Fung, Kamel Krifa (“Universal Soldier”), Moshe Diamant (“I, Madman”), and Nonsun Shi (“Double Team”). “Knock Off” is a production of Film Workshop and MDP Worldwide.

At the tail end height of his career, the Muscles from Brussels, Jean-Claude Van Damme (“Bloodsport,” “Universal Soldier”), finds himself in a self-deprecating lead role that’s campy toward showcasing his own physique but in a slapstick way. His character Ray is a likeable, affable, cool type with a tragic past, only touched upon ever so briefly and delicately in conversation, who has resorted to selling counterfeit items to make a living. Yet, Ray’s trying to pull himself into a straightened arrow by jumping at the opportunity to partner with Tommy (Rob Schneider, “Deuce Bigalow: Male Jiggalo”) for legit business. Van Damme and Schneider become a buddy action duo with Van Damme knocking around bad guys with jump kicks and parkour while Schneider provides the comic relief with very few, and pale in comparison, combative fighting moments in what is also the same kind of role from Sylvester Stallone’s “Judge Dredd.” To Van Damme’s credit, the usually unintentionally funny action star arises some comedic chops in a devil-may-care persona that eventually hammers down to a determined save lives ambition, but not before Van Damme egregiously has to thematically remove his shirt for nearly every action scene or strip down to his boxer-briefs so all can good a good view of his athletic, muscular physique. The whole course is an objectifying tragicomic, especially when he starts to rip through Tommy’s Hawaiian shirts simply by turning his body or being whipped in the rear by Tommy during a rickshaw race with Schneider commenting about his big, beautiful ass. Yes, men do get objectified as well. Van Damme and Schneider are eventually joined early on by Lela Rochon (“The Meteor Man”) as a V-Six Jeans Representative from North America with a covert agenda and the iconic Paul Sorvino (“Dick Tracey”) as a CIA operations supervisor taking on counterfeiting, both Rochon and Sorvino subdue their performances initially for twisted knots in the storylines later on that makes his evolving ensemble that much more entertaining. Moses Chan, Wyman Wong, and Glen Chin, Carmen Lee costar.

“Knock Off” isn’t your typical Jean-Claude Van Damme beat’em up action-thriller though it follows the same principles as one. Hark Tsui puts forth a kinetic ball of continuous energy, ever evolving and dynamic to keep scenes from getting stale. From the opening illegal rickshaw race through the streets of Hong Kong city to the massive Budha temple explosion to the cargo ship container toppling scenes, there’s plenty to behold in Tsui stunt and special effects juggernaut. A less serious Van Damme with Rob Schneider joined at the hip is the peculiar buddy action-comedy we never knew we wanted, brush stroked with late 1990’s superimposed fireballs and the legendary pushed to the limit Hong Kong stunt effects that look quite expensive and detailed beyond belief. Some of Van Damme’s swift movements are aided by a stunt wire that’s briefly visible in hi-def and a few of Tsui’s stylistic edits, ones that zoom in, try to seamless transition, and give an interior view of a sniper’s scope or a barrel of a gun is heavy handed in it’s editing. While Tsui gets his filmic credit as the one-and-only director, it’s stunt supervisor Sammo Kam-Bo Hung (“Ip Man”) who should receive recognition for helming the camera for the stunt scenes. You can see the different styles being pushed together between Tsui’s unconventional down shot angles and Hung’s more straightforward impact in an action shot, creating an eclectic design that adds to the intrigue, especially in Tsui’s downtime moments of conversation that’s not only witty and fast but at an off centered framing that’s more vertically skewed while keeping the concentration on the actors in a wider anamorphic lens in an environment that seemingly wraps around them.

They say imitation is a form of flattery but this legit MVD Rewind Collection release of “Knock Off” fawns clear adulation with a 2-Disc, 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray release. Coming in as the 6^th title on the company’s 4K LaserVision Collection, cojoined with the Rewind Collection label, the HEVC encoded, BD66 4K UHD, presented in 2160p in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, is noted having a hi-def restoration with a 16-bit scan of the original camera negative that provides more a dynamic color range and saturated depth. There’s definitely an improvement and a difference in contrast to the standard Blu-ray with a vivid offering of a multihued Hong Kong cityscape from the HDR10 that’s not offered in 8-bit or even 10-bit color depth. Interiors are subjected concreated warehouses of the colorless and dark variety but no banding to note and no block distortions. Textures are surprising not there at the level we’d expect but likely due to Tsui’s heavy use of superimposition effects with green fireballs and other types of overlayed explosions, and the action scenes often retract a good amount of detail too. The 1080p Blu-ray is an AVC encoded BD50 with the same aspect ratio as the 4K. It too offers a solid presentation but not to the extent of the 4K and still suffers from the same wishy-washy texturing, but the overall presentation is solid and worth the value. The English language tracks available on both formats are a DTS-HD 5.1 Surround Sound Mix and an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 Stereo. For any action film with lots of range, depth, and conversation, you certainly want to go with the surround sound option that harnesses every direction and that’s the clear choice with “Knock Off” as it opens the lines of directional communication with the back and side channels, leaving all the dialogue and heavy LFE lifting with explosions primary in the front and clear immersive resonation. Dialogue has no issues with the original audio track albeit being ADR but used with the original cast’s voices. English subtitles are available for selection. The 4K special features include only an archival commentary from action film experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema. The Blu-ray contains te same in tandem audio commentary plus a new interview with producer Moshe Diamant, an archived interview with screenwriter Steve E. de Souza, the original making-of featurette, and the original theatrical trailer. MVD’s Rewind and LaserVision Collection set comes with a thin, cardboard O-ring slipcover that has faux crinkled front image, the original cover art of the highly original Van Damme with a gun (my hint at sarcasm) like a laserdisc paper sleeve would have. Inside is the black Amaray with the same primary image for the sleeve art sans crinkling but if you reverse the sleep, you’ll see the classic Rewind Classic design with the same Van Damme image. The Amaray has snaplocks on each side of the case on the inside – 4K UHD on the right and Standard Blu-ray on the left – with an insert containing a mini-folded poster of the LaserVision Collection artwork. “Knock Off” is rated R, has a runtime of 94 minutes, and is A region locked.

Last Rites: “Knock Off” is no cheap…knockoff. The Hong Kong production is action-packed, outrageous, and campy fun with Van Damme in taking a step back from being the stoic hero and charismatic hero to be the anti-hero caught in the middle who just knows how to roundhouse his way out of an nefarious Russian plot involving nano-explosives.

You Better Damme Believe It! “Knock Off” on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from MVD Rewind Collection!

Young Dawa Wang and his mother live in a rundown mansion in 1980’s China. Dawa’s father labored in a wood factory over the course of a year, away from his family, and was supposed to return to celebrate in the New Year, but when he didn’t arrive, Dawa’s mother phones the factory to only find out that there was a landslide at the factory that drowned many of the workers. Not only does Dawa’s mother fear his father is dead, she suspects the house is haunted by his spirit on that very New Year’s Eve night. However, the presence was much more malevolent. Years later, Dawa, a young man, leaves home against his mother’s desperate wishes as their life of poverty drives him to seek solace in wealth, but when the news of his estranged mother’s demise, the now upcoming restaurant entrepreneur returns home to identify her body and to collect on a wealthy realtor offer on his childhood home. Dawa again comes face-to-face with the baleful presence, sparking the unravelling of a 30 year mystery.

Derrick Tao and Mak Ho Pong’s “The Lingering” is a Cantonese Hong Kong ghost story written by Edmond Wong {“Ip Man” franchise screenwriter) and the first penned worked by Zheng Dong. Originally titled “Ku Zak,” “The Lingering” marks a freshman film under the directorial duo of Pong and Tao who manage to scare up a rich atmospheric supernatural fright. Laced with Chinese traditions and catered to retain a more modernized kitsch, Tao and Pong have rendered great fluidity through the decades without the realization of a massive time gap between the two first and second acts; a relatively tough obstacle for any first time directors and the filmmakers manage to pull it off seemingly with ease and poise under Mandarin Motion Pictures productions, the company behind the money aggregating “Ip Man” flicks so there was money to toss at the ambitious auteurs.

“Keeper of Darkness” star Kai-Chung Cheung stars as the grown up and successful Dawa who salivates at the prospect of fame and with a lucrative restaurant franchise as his finger tips, Dawa will go as low to ignore his mother and sell her willed estate to further his prosperous image. Perfect for his role, Cheung challenges himself to be the arrogant and thoughtless whippersnapper many elderly quip about while they throw an angry fist in the air in some kind of protest. The character arch feels deserved with Dawa, going from a young innocent boy, to a bratty teen and young adult, to a successful and negligent son, and then reverting back to being the loving boy he once was; the stages were pleasant to behold and both performances, Cheung and the young child actor, did an excellent job at their respective roles. Cheung’s love interest counterpart is played by Anthena Chu, whose previous films included a couple of sequels, that must be mentioned here, were in the series realm of “Raped by an Angel.” Chu, a complete angel in “The Lingering” dons the role of Dawa’s well-off wife with well-off friends who offer well-off contracts to fund a well-off life for Dawa. While Anthena’s role is rather complimentary to Dawa that symbolizes poor and wealthy children can unite as one, her character flounders the rest of the way and becomes a hapless, if not second string, catalyst in Dawa’s rediscovery of love for his mother. Completing the cast around Cheung and Chu is Bob Yin-Pok Cheung, Fung Lee, Yao Tong, and Terry Zou.

From out the gate, “The Lingering” amps up the shadowy, spine-tingling specter action with an ominous roaming presence, a creepy kid, and a surplus of jump scares complete with an equal amount of braised pork dishes. The first act, set 30 years prior, is all about the pseudo scare with mounting music to, low-and-behind, nothing actually there to frighten the Cantonese out of you Westerners and, to give credit to Edmond Wong and Zheng Dong, a developing mystery enshrouds this mother and son of who exactly looms around the rustic Wang mansion. However, as the narrative progresses into Dawa’s older self, a man desperate to forget his roots, the mystery becomes a mystery more so when his family home becomes haunted by his own mother. At this point in the second act, “The Lingering” is up to two different spooks circulating the grounds like illuminating ghosts in Pac Man. By the third act, the whole haunt falls to pieces and an overwhelmingly forced theme is stuff down our throats about how us children should never forget about the sacrifices of our parents and how their love sustains them despite our affectionate inadequacies and equal rights – Dawa’s equal right to be rich – yeah, it’s a stretch, I know. The philosophy is sound but the execution irreverently chokes out the ghostly atmospherics in baffling fashion and a, for a comical effect, blue balls moment.

Sticking around on Blu-ray home video is “The Lingering” courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment. The region A and widescreen, 16:9 aspect ratio, release teeters heavily on the tint scale with a over-saturating bluish hue, especially during night scenes or darker moments of plight, making defining the object in the mirror or in a brief photo capture difficult to define. Blue for sad as it’s saddening to lose a chunk of that goose bump atmosphere to over tinging. The Cantonese language 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio is by far the reigning attribute of unfiltered bite tracks including a sparkly clear dialogue track, a formidable LFE score that’ll get the blood pressure up, and simple, yet effective, range and depth with the ghost house antics. Available are English subtitles that sync well, yet are more on the kindergarten-ish side of interpretation; almost as if audiences couldn’t comprehend comprehensive and/or complex sentence structures. Bonus features include the trailer and other Well Go USA Entertainment preview trailers. Clocking in at 87 minutes and more of an ode to parental sacrifices, “The Lingering” doesn’t stick around to neatly gift package to it’s audience an eloquent evil apparition feature as promised in the beginning that saw a 100 meter sprint into a tormenting zone that harrows a mother and son by a bloodied soul aimless in disposition, yet compelled to crucify the family.