Knock Off Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.5

Knock Off Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 31, 2026

Tsui Hark has built one of the most monolithic reputations in the Hong Kong film industry to the point that he's often given the sobriquet "the Steven Spielberg of Asia". That iconic status has come courtesy of any number of well remembered (even beloved) films like Once Upon a Time in China: The Complete Films, Peking Opera Blues*, The Taking of Tiger Mountain, Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back and Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, among many others. Hark's shadow looms so large in the Asian film world that it can be hard to remember he actually (briefly) worked in good ol' La La Land, or at least in its business circles, if not strictly on location there. Hark teamed with Jean-Claude Van Damme for 1997's Double Team before, well, double teaming again for this frankly pretty lackluster enterprise. Whatever deficits the film may have, as a somewhat comical commentary by the typically entertaining Mike Leeder and Arne Venema discloses, for a certain demographic Knock Off is a definite "guilty pleasure".

Writer Steven E. de Souza is on hand in some of the supplements included with this release and he freely admits he had become so successful by the 1990s courtesy of such efforts as 48 Hrs., The Running Man, Die Hard, and Judge Dredd that he had become used to seeing other screenwriters rip off his ideas, so he pretty much just decided to do that himself with regard to Knock Off, perhaps adding an unintended irony to the film's very title. In terms of the writing acumen de Souza offers here, it may be salient to briefly recall he was feted with not one but two Golden Raspberry Awards for Worst Screenplay for Hudson Hawk and The Flintstones.

Knock Off has ostensible irony in its title even divorced from any recycling de Souza may have been guilty of, with Van Damme portraying Marcus Ray, a maybe slightly higher echelon purveyor of designer copies than the type you might see, say, selling counterfeit Rolexes underneath overpasses in crowded urban centers. Ray is partnered with goofy Tommy Hendricks (Rob Schneider), who turns out to be an undercover FBI agent trying to penetrate Hong Kong's black market. What is both fascinating and ultimately kind of frustratingly ignored in this story is the fact that everything is taking place during the handover of Hong Kong back to the Chinese, something that certainly seems like it could have contributed in some may more incisively to the narrative.

This is really just kind of cornball entertainment that simply can't be taken seriously either on its face, let alone anything deeper. There are a number of relatively visceral action sequences, and some completely hilarious moments like exploding dolls (in the ocean, no less) that at least keep things intermittently propulsive. The supporting cast includes a tonally disjunctive Paul Sorvino as an FBI honcho, with a completely unsurprising "reveal" lurking late in the story. Hark attempts to invest the film with style, and if this certainly doesn't rise to the heights of his best work, it still shows his typically fluid craftsmanship.

Knock Off Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Knock Off is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual's MVD Rewind imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. As tends to be the case with MVD Rewind's releases, there's not a ton of technical information imparted on the packaging, though the back cover of the 4K UHD release (which MVD provided for the purposes of this 1080 review as well) does say this is an "HD Restoration (16 bit scan of the original camera negative) in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio in HDR-10". This 1080 presentation is quite impressive a lot of the time, especially with regard to a really sumptuously suffused palette, but even at this lower resolution, this presentation shows some pretty wide variances in grain structure which are arguably only further exaggerated in MVD's 4K presentation. Grain resolution can either be nicely tightly resolved or positively chunky and yellow throughout, and rather interestingly these differentiations are not necessarily based on lighting conditions or where various vignettes take place. The underwater footage that opens the feature, for example, actually offers a grittier, blacker looking grain field, but once things get topside there are moments with very tight grain resolution and others with a much thicker overlay of grain, sometimes within the same scene. That may end up making this 1080 presentation preferable for some, since while these changes are simply too obvious to ignore, they may be at least a bit more subliminal at this lower resolution and in SDR. Hark's penchant for "arty" framings can sometimes detract from fine detail levels, but on the whole detailing is commendable throughout in a variety of lighting conditions.

Knock Off Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Knock Off features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 options. The film has some appealing music, including by the pop duo Sparks, and it features an early scene with Van Damme himself singing along to the radio. The scoring has an audibly more spacious presentation in the surround track, and the 5.1 track also significantly opens up the action set pieces, including delivering a more reverberant accounting of things like explosions. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Forced English subtitles (somewhat hilariously with quotes surrounding the dialogue) accompany some of the Chinese language segments, and otherwise optional English subtitles are available for the rest of the presentation.

Knock Off Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Note: MVD provided their 4K UHD release (which includes a 1080 disc) for purposes of this review. I'm assuming this 1080 release has the same poster and slipcover as the 4K release.

• Interview with Steven E. de Souza (HD; 40:51) is a fun sit down with the film's writer.


• Interview with Moshe Diamant (HD; 18:24) features the film's producer.


• 2020 Interview with Steven E. de Souza (HD; 9:49) is basically an audio interview that plays to scenes from the film.


• Making Knock Off (SD; 23:15) is an archival EPK. This is kind of weirdly anamorphically squeezed.


• Theatrical Trailer (HD; 1:57)


• Audio Commentary by Mike Leeder and Arne Venema is accessible under the Audio Menu.

Trailers for other MVD Rewind releases are also included. The keepcase sleeve is reversible and also encloses a fold out poster. Packaging also features a slipcover.

Knock Off Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's probably not hard to understand why Hark decided it was probably best for him to concentrate on more "home grown" properties after Knock Off. As Mike Leeder and Arne Venema get into in their commentary track, this film has its own dedicated fan base, and those folks should be generally delighted with the technical merits offered in both 1080 and 4K, as well as the supplements MVD has aggregated for this release.