General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Knock Off

Knock Off is a 1998 action comedy film directed by Tsui Hark, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as a Hong Kong counterfeit-goods dealer who is drawn into a terrorist conspiracy involving micro-bombs hidden in counterfeit jeans. It was written by Steven E. de Souza, produced by Nansun Shi, and released theatrically in the United States by TriStar Pictures on September 4, 1998.¹^•² It was the second of two Hollywood films Tsui Hark made with Van Damme, after Double Team (1997), and the last before he returned to Hong Kong productions.³

Key fact	Detail
Release	September 4, 1998 (wide, Sony/TriStar); R rating; 90 minutes²
Cast	Jean-Claude Van Damme (Marcus Ray), Rob Schneider (Tommy Hendricks), Lela Rochon (Karen), Paul Sorvino (Johansson)¹
Key crew	Director Tsui Hark; writer Steven E. de Souza; cinematographer Arthur Wong; editor Mak Chi Sin; music by Ron Mael and Russell Mael¹
Budget and gross	$35 million budget; $10,319,915 domestic gross; $7.8 million overseas⁴
Opening weekend	$5,516,231 from 1,800 theaters, ranking #4 behind There's Something About Mary²^•⁴
Critical scores	Metascore 37 (generally unfavorable); 9% on the Tomatometer from 43 reviews; 27% audience score⁵^•⁶
Setting	Hong Kong's counterfeit-goods trade in the 72 hours before the 1997 handover to China⁷^•⁸

Spoilers

Plot and setting

The story opens 72 hours before Britain hands Hong Kong back to China. Marcus Ray (Van Damme), a fashion designer called the "King of the Knock-Offs," sells counterfeit jeans in Hong Kong with his partner Tommy Hendricks (Schneider). A shipment of jeans to the United States proves counterfeit, and Ray's company's products turn out to be the housing for thousands of tiny micro-bombs scheduled for shipment to America as part of a Russian Mafia plot to hold United States security for ransom. Ray's partner and his boss Karen (Rochon) are both undercover CIA agents, and Ray must help the agency prevent the attack.⁷^•⁶

The title refers to cheap, Hong Kong-made copies of brand-name goods, from dolls to jeans.⁹ The film opens with a crate of dolls submerged in Hong Kong harbor that explode and kill Russian-speaking divers, and it closes with fireworks over Victoria Harbour celebrating the just-completed handover.⁸^•¹⁰ Reviewers noted that the historic background often seemed incidental to the plot; the San Francisco Chronicle's Bob Graham called it "almost irrelevant," as in Wayne Wang's Chinese Box, the other film set during the handover.¹¹

Production

Van Damme had courted Tsui Hark intensively, flying to Hong Kong several times and then sending lawyers, producers, and others to meet at the director's convenience. Tsui, who had wanted to examine the Hollywood film industry, stayed in Los Angeles and agreed to direct two films for Van Damme: Double Team (1997) and Knock Off.³ Neither film was shot in the United States, and a large part of Knock Off was shot in Hong Kong to keep costs under control. Tsui parted ways with the producers when they would not give what he felt was enough screen time to the film's Chinese characters.³

The film was financed by MDP Worldwide, which took the project to the 1997 American Film Market for pre-sales; distributor sales covered the majority of the $35 million budget. Sony acquired domestic distribution in late March 1998, first dating the film for August 21 before moving it to the Labor Day frame of September 4 to avoid Blade. It was not screened for critics.⁴ Sammo Hung served as second unit director and Yuen Bing as action director.¹²

The band Sparks wrote the theme song, which opens with the lines "I confess that this is really not my song / I bought it in Hong Kong / It's a knock off"; Ron and Russell Mael are credited with the music.¹⁰^•¹

Style and reception

Critics divided sharply over Tsui's visual approach. The Los Angeles Times' Kevin Thomas, one of the few reviewers allowed a preview, called it "fast, light and funny" and "one of Van Damme's best movies ever," praising Arthur Wong's "breathtakingly mobile camera work."¹² Others described the same qualities as flaws: the New York Times' Lawrence Van Gelder wrote that the film "runs breathlessly over land and water in familiar comic book fashion, offering more action than sense," and the Austin Chronicle's Russell Smith summed it up as "loud, stupid, blurry, frenetic."⁵ The aggregated scores reflect the negative balance: a Metascore of 37, with 6 of 13 counted reviews negative, and a 9% Tomatometer with the critics consensus "Muddled plot; stiff acting."⁵^•⁶

Audiences were also unenthusiastic: the film received a D+ CinemaScore and fell 65.1% in its second weekend.⁴ Against the $35 million budget, the domestic run closed at $10,319,915 and overseas grosses added only $7.8 million.⁴

Retrospective view

Later commentary has treated the film more generously as a document of its moment. A MUBI Notebook essay marking the film's 25th anniversary argued that its frenetic plotting and visual style, mixing slow motion, undercranking, superimposition, freeze frames, and special effects, channel the instability of Hong Kong at the handover and of a globalized world of counterfeit goods and unmoored images.¹⁰ The Film Comment interview notes that both Van Damme films, while not triumphs, featured innovative cinematography and introduced Tsui to non-linear digital editing systems.³ The film has since received a 4K Ultra HD restoration from the original camera negative in its 2.35:1 aspect ratio, released by MVD Rewind Collection with new interviews with de Souza and producer Moshe Diamant.¹³

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Action and adventure films (individual works) › Action comedies › Action comedies, 1970s to 1990s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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