Knock Off transcript
Season 2 · Episode 19. Generated automatically, so expect the odd misheard word.
Hello and welcome to the Worst Movie Podcast. I'm Ade.
And I'm Aaron, and this is a podcast where we watch the worst movies ever made in the hopes of finding a hidden gem.
Enjoy. Welcome back, uh, Landon, our uh special guest, maybe a little less special since this is your second appearance.
Reprising his role.
Reprising role. Uh, of we haven't really named the theme for this month, I guess, but it's like uh, I guess 90s action movies. Is that is that fair? I don't know. That's probably a little too broad. The the movies that we've we've watched with you all have a certain aesthetic, so we need to figure out by next episode what what we call this category. But thanks for coming back.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Happy to explore and dive into this aesthetic that we're searching through.
Hopefully we have fewer technical issues today. Um, Landon, what have you been watching lately?
Movies for this podcast. Fair enough. Uh I've been watching much. Um I've been watching that show Silo, which I know is I I know people that read the book don't like, but uh I didn't read the book, so I'm I'm enjoying it.
That's my answer for what I've been watching too. I just started it this week.
Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah, I like it. I don't know what the I'm sure the books are better, but that's kind of always the case.
I'm holding my tongue. I'm I'm I'm turning red and just keeping it all in. No, it's not about my snobbery about the it's so as as we've talked about offline, the Wool series, which which is the name of the books, has a special place in my heart, and it was just hard for me to get through the TV show because it just seemed different tonally, and uh maybe just I don't know, wasn't in the mood for it. I try not to be snobby about that. Like I said last episode about Project Hail Mary, like I I welcome movie adaptations. I'm I'm excited for them about books I love, but uh this this I don't know. Um maybe TV shows are a little bit different or whatever, but I just couldn't get into it. I I'll give it another shot at some point.
Yeah. I love it. I think Rebecca Ferguson is incredible so far. How far into it are you?
I'm on the newest season. Oh, okay. Which um no spoilers, but it gets into flashbacks and they don't really do that until like maybe they did it last season. I can't I think that maybe this I can't remember, but I just hate flashbacks. Especially like if we've gone through a few seasons without them and then you're just throwing them in.
It's like they do a few in the first few episodes. Um like we see Rebecca Ferguson's character as a kid, uh, with her dad as a doctor. And so they do throw a few of those episodes in. And I'm I was so confused. I su I suck at like knowing when we're in a flashback most of the time. Oh, yeah. Uh and that's why I think I I agree I hate flashbacks in in movies and TV. Yeah. Uh because I think I suck at picking up when I'm when we're in one.
Yeah, it's like now that in the current season, there's a whole parallel timeline. Uh. So you're really jumping back and forth. It's weird. I loved Lost, so I don't know what is different. I mean, I think maybe it's just because Lost was like pure chaos, like jumping around all sorts of it's like an extreme version of that, so I enjoyed it.
But I don't know. I have a theory. I I hate flashbacks as well, and I feel like there's shows where I I hate it when they give you a flashback of stuff that you basically already know. Lost so much of it, it was a mystery of who are these people and what where did they come from. Yeah. Like even the whole mystery of like, oh, who's who was the one that was arrested, you know, and traveling with the marshals, and who's this person, like they have some weird skills that you don't know about, and that's a whole point of loss. But like that was one of the things I didn't like about the mid-seasons of the bear. I'm like, we already know like the you know what happened here. Like, you don't have to show us all these like spend all this time in episodes. I won't abide any uh slander on the bear. I mean, that's that's why the uh that's why I like the final season so much more. They just they're just like, all right, it's all present day, let's just move forward.
Yeah. You didn't like the uh flashback uh, what was it, knives episode or forks episode?
Forks. Forks, yeah. I I uh I don't know if you remember, but I stopped watching mid-episode and was like, I'm just done with the show. It was like too it's too chaotic and stressful, and I had to get convinced by somebody to pick it back up like nine months later or like a year later.
I loved that episode. I mean, it was about that episode.
Is it like the the fly episode in Breaking Bad, sort of like a total one-off tonal shift episode? A little it's a bottle episode for sure. Bottle episode. Okay, I didn't know. I figured there was a term for that. I didn't know what it was.
I feel like it's an op it's the opposite of the fly. The fly was like really like quiet and laid back. This was like, let's just take the whole the whole episode is takes place Christmas uh or Thanksgiving.
It's like Thanksgiving. It's some sort of holiday dinner uh family house.
Yeah, and uh everyone's just shouting each other the whole time. It is just like the house is sacked. It is so stressful.
And Jamelee Curtis is incredible in that episode.
She is she is great. Uh great actress through the whole thing.
The whole episode uh hit a little too close to home, but I was like, it was just incredible. It was I loved it.
Was that a little pun there? Too close to home. No. Uh well, I watched the invite um last week. Have you guys seen that?
I saw the title card for it on uh Prime, and I was like, Ade's gonna watch this and go like that. Is it is it streaming already? I think it's a rental on it's a new like release on Prime, I think. Great movie.
One one of my favorite movies of the year so far. Olivia Wilde, Seth Rogan, uh Ed Norton, and Penelope Cruz. They just uh it's super funny and it gets really deep at some points without being like overbearing or preachy. So the whole idea is, and this isn't really spoiling it. I mean you could get this from the trailer pretty easily, but it's this couple living in San Francisco, and they invite their uh upstairs neighbors uh over for dinner and find out that the upstairs uh neighbors are into swinging and have a conversation about joining them. Is Jonah Hill in this?
No. Okay.
Seth Rogen.
Yeah, so Jonah Hill and Seth Rogan are filming something together. I think but it's maybe a TV show. Uh never mind.
Yeah, uh it could be. Uh no, it's th they're the only four there there's some like extras at the like very beginning of the movie, but the entire movie. It basically takes place in their apartment and just the four of them having conversations and stuff and stuff.
Does it feel like a play, like it could be a play?
Uh it may have actually been based on a play, but it's not one of those movies that feel like it was adapted from a play. It feels it feels cinematic. Without being I mean, it's not you know, there are no sweeping scenes of you know, no no battles or anything like that. But yeah, it doesn't matter. No, but it doesn't it doesn't feel like it doesn't feel like a play. Um it it moves like pacing's great and um yeah, dialogue's great, acting is you know, masterpiece.
What would you give it on your uh letterbox?
Uh I think I gave it four and a half. I like really wrestled with like is this a five-star movie? I don't know. I I need to watch it again, probably. Yeah. Really good. Well, should we get into today's movie? Big uh I don't know how to make a transition from the invite to uh we invite you to start talking about today's movie. Yeah. Well done. Uh today's movie. That's why he's here. Today's movie is Knockoff from 1998, starring John Claude Van Damme uh and Rob Schneider. Um an obvious pairing, I think. Yeah, obviously we'll get into that in a little bit. Uh directed by Suey Hark. I don't know how to pronounce that. Uh Once Upon a Time in China and Double Team, another movie that landed. You've I didn't realize this was the same director. So Double Team is the one with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman.
Yeah, I still gotta watch that. That's pretty high up on my watch list.
Another perfect pairing. Oh, you haven't watched it.
I thought you haven't, no.
Okay.
For context to the listeners, I sent uh uh these guys a little video essay that I found about this movie, Double Team, that really sells it. It looks it looks insane.
Yeah, well, it's uh it's on our list. Um the movie was written by Steven D'Souza, who did Street Fighter, so uh return insane career this guy's had. Have you seen his other well? Diehard. We talked we talked about this on the Street Fighter episode.
Uh yeah. Die Hard, 48 Hours, Commando, Running Man, Die Hard 2, Beverly Hills Cop 3, Street Fighter, Judge Dread, the original. Wow. Uh the Flintstones, the one with uh John Goodman.
This is like most of the movies that I watched when I was a kid.
I know.
Uh yeah, it really really makes you wonder what uh yeah, what what the thr the thread is through all these movies. I mean, diehard and knockoff couldn't be more different in terms of the writing, I think. This guy's just a writing machine.
Yeah, it is strange. Like I feel like the quality of writing is vastly different between some of these movies.
To say the least. Uh Rotten Tomatoes, 9%. Uh budget was $35 million, made $44 million in the box office. So I guess, you know, minor minor profit. Uh obviously with marketing costs and all that stuff, so who knows? Maybe they made it up on DVD sales. Did you mention Paul Sorvino's in this movie? Uh I didn't, but uh he's he's in my notes on the movie. Filmed in Hong Kong during the 1997 handover to China. Did did you know anything about this while it was going on or know anything about the history of Hong Kong?
Uh no about the history of Hong Kong. I wasn't really aware of it while I was going on, mainly because I was eight years old. Yeah, I was gonna say how old are you? Yeah. My geopolitics wasn't really fully informed at that point. Professor Landon at eight years old.
I was I was 10, so like I I feel like I saw it on the news, but I didn't understand.
I I do feel like that was kind of an interesting one of the one of the interesting parts of this movie. Like I wish they would have I wish I knew more about what was going on and like the history of it to appreciate maybe there are things that they were referring to uh that were happening in the handoff uh in the context of the film, but I don't know.
They kept like hinting at what was going on in the background and like you'd see little news clips throughout the the movie, but I I even watching the movie, I still didn't quite understand what was happening.
I don't think it really went that deep. No. I just don't like Yeah. I don't know if they were dropping little Easter egg. Maybe they were, but I don't know. Yeah, yeah.
Maybe it all got edited out. Uh Aaron, do you have a synopsis for the movie?
Kinda. I'm just I'm just gonna read you like a very basic synopsis. Uh John-Claude Van Van Dam, uh Rob Schneider, they play business partners in Hong Kong's fashion industry, uh doing kind of knockoffs and stuff. Uh Unknown to Van Dam, Schneider's actually an undercover CIA agent who's investigating the counterfeit industry in Hong Kong, in Hong Kong. Uh and while they're investigating, it reveals that there's kind of Russian mobsters that are flooding the market with these knockoff products that have um really small explosives in them. Uh, I don't know why they're doing that. Um, and then they kind of get pulled into this conspiracy with the CIA and the Russian mobsters. Uh there are a million plot twists and like and like double crosses in this movie.
Yeah.
Uh that is it's really hard to follow the plot of what's going on here.
But this plot made no sense to me. Like, I don't like even your description, I'm like, is that real like it it wasn't even clear to me what their business was. So the movie starts with I know this like like Rob Schneider's managing all these models, and then he like a fashion show. Yeah, but then it turns into that rickshaw race, and I'm like, oh, no, he's getting the models ready for the rickshaw race.
Now so I've seen this movie twice now, so as an expert on this film.
Uh and I don't want to get too mired down in plot points because that could be easy with this. But but yeah, what was the fashion? Because it just seemed like they just cheered for Jean-Klein Van Damme when he arrived at the Rickshaw race. That was all it was.
I think it was just an excuse to introduce Rob Schneider's character. The whole beginning sequence of the movie is fantastic, I think. It's just like it just a way wave of insanity uh with like boats blowing up and like these yeah, the explosives have these like green flames.
Yeah, it starts with like terrible CGI, like a bond level like chase sequence and explosions and exotic locations. Like it starts wild.
But but like they have that Bond underwater sequence and they open this, you know, this crate and it's just a bunch of dolls, and the dolls explode, and it's like what? Yeah. And then it cuts to the fashion show and the rick show. And yeah, like 10 minutes in, I'm like, what the fuck is this movie, though, and like like I'm so lost. Uh yeah. I I think I think the best, I was thinking like the best out-of-context scene to watch to really understand what this movie is about, it is about like 10-15 minutes in when Rob Schneider starts whipping Jean-Claude Van Damme's ass with an eel as he rides at the back of a rickshaw. You just need to show somebody that like five-second clip, and they're like, Okay, I understand just the insanity that's coming together for this movie.
That was one of my favorite bits of dialogue there, too, when he says, Come on, move that big beautiful ass.
Rob Schneider plays like five different characters in this movie. Not actually, he's playing the same character every time, but he's introduced and he's like this sleazy fashion CEO who's saying objectifying things to these women.
He's like the worst character.
But then he ends up being like a really serious CIA agent. So you're like, is he a great actor? Is he a terrible actor? I don't know. Uh yeah.
This was my hot take. I I after like halfway through the movie, I'm like, is Rob Schneider actually a really good actor? Like my expectations were so low going into this because anything I've seen him in, he's just playing like weird eccentric character, like a you know like 20 people down on the call sheet in some Adam Sandler movie or whatever. Yeah. He's in there for like 30 seconds. Um, and then all the movies he's headlined just are terrible or seem terrible. And I'm like, he actually has some range here, and he's a real person in there, yeah. And and does really well. Like, I don't know. I kind of liked about this.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he wasn't the character wasn't great. He played it well, right? He was like the I don't know why they got Rob Schneider, though, because he was the most unfunny character in the whole movie, I feel like.
This is prime like action star, funny guy, team up, like it's like shitty rush hour. Yeah, totally. Oh my god, I was gonna make that reference. I do think I I will defend the movie a little bit. There's some things stylistically that are fantastic. Like, and it's just so over the top. And there is like a particular aesthetic that kind of permeates the movie that is is pretty cool, like the fishbowl sort of lens when the lady from the gene company, who is also a CIA agent, but they don't realize is like berating them for selling knockoff jeans, kind of zooms out. It almost reminded me of like Quentinetti. I hate to turn it. I don't want to yeah. Uh and then some of the like CGI in the movie or like the digital effects are like kind of crappy in a cool way. Anytime someone you uses a phone, they do these like zooming through Hong Kong, like you're the cell phone signal sort of thing, and they land on him. The introduction of Jean-Claude Van Damme singing in a convertible, some uh pop song like at the top of his lungs was fantastic.
Then he doesn't know the words to, clearly doesn't know the words to at all. They use like really creative cuts and stuff so that you can't see his mouth because he doesn't know a fucking word.
Uh there's I felt like there's some rid having I joked before we watched this, I was like, the the second viewing's really gonna test my enthusiasm for this movie, and I still enjoyed it.
I'm not gonna So you liked it. Aaron, did you like the movie?
I had a great time. Yeah I I think this is one of my favorite bad movies of all time. It's it's easily a five-star bad movie.
It just feels like they're winking at you the whole time. You know, like I know. This is it's like we're having fun, right? And you're like, yeah, sure, yeah. Blow some more shit up, have a cool fight scene. Awesome, let's do it.
Yeah. Uh I I loved how many practical stunts there were in this. The stunts were insane. Like they were the stunts were serious in this movie. Uh, explosions everywhere. I loved that they like the cinematographer in this movie is like one of Hong Kong's premier cinematographers, and he was taking chances. Like not all of them worked, but but he was trying everything in the book in this movie. Uh yeah.
That is a good way to describe this movie. It does feel like a sort of cornucopia of action movie tropes and like yeah.
I I don't know if I liked the the special effects. Like I there's some movies where I love the stylistic, like just the you know, that range. And it does feel very late 1990s, like run Lola Run or Go or like movies like where there are a lot of just different stylistic flourishes. And I don't know. There are parts of this though, I was like, this feels almost like film student, like you you got access to like a new library of things, and you're just like, all right, let's use every single one of them in the movie. But I I will say my journey spanned from what the hell am I watching to this is terrible to by the end, I was just like, yeah, this is this is great. Like I don't know if I don't know if I'll watch it again, but like I really uh I told I actually told a friend I said, watch the first 15 minutes and the last 15 minutes because I feel like the first 15 minutes is just like this is just all over the place, and I don't know what's going on. And then you can just like yada yada the plot and then just watch the last 15 minutes of it getting resolved.
With that prescription, I would say you have to also watch the the fruit factory fight scene. I don't think that's within the last 15 minutes, but or the warehouse. Yeah, there's just so much fruit, and like fruit is used as weapons and yeah, specifically the durian fruit was used a lot. Fantastic. So good. And that's a great, like um actually I feel like this is in a Tarantino movie, the sort of mob chasing a character or two through a factory, like that's those sorts of fight scenes. The choreography is fantastic. I thought I thought I had a that was a really fun one. And the rickshaw, which is in the beginning, the rickshaw race scene had some really great stunts, I thought.
How many people died in the rickshaw race? Both in the movie and in the filming of it. Because I feel like they were just like we they didn't have permits or anything. They were just like, let's just do this in in the middle of downtown Hong Kong and see what happens.
The stunts were incredible in this movie. I I I thought that was easily the best part was the action sequences. The way you get to each action action sequence makes no sense at all. And like if you blink, you'll miss the what happens and how you got there. I was watching A scene where he was in a a building and then um it looked like it was a like a medical building or something, and then I looked away for a second and the I turned around, he's on like a billboard. I'm like, I don't even know how he got out here.
Yeah. Yeah. Uh what do you think was Jean-Claude's best stunt of the movie?
I mean, they're they're a bunch of candidates, but I tried to think about this and decipher what was actually him and maybe what was a stunt man, or I don't I didn't do enough research to know if he did all his own stunts.
I think that is he that kind of guy. Like I don't I don't know if he's I mean, I feel like that was a huge thing around this era where like Jackie Chan did all his own stunts.
Yeah, you know, a lot of the I want to believe that uh JCVD did all his own stunts.
I think that he did his own stunts for the most part. We'll just say that. We won't we don't have to research it.
Yeah. The fight scene on top of the box truck with the big awning thing, kite thing. I don't really remember what it was. That was that was pretty great. That was super bonus.
I got taken out of that at one point because I I yeah, it was fine. And then I realized like there was a shot where they're driving on the and down the street, and you can tell based on like the background, I was like, they are driving so slowly. Oh, so slow, so slow. Yeah, it's like five miles an hour. Yeah. Yeah. Then the rest for the rest of the scene, I was just like, I could just kept noticing how slow they were driving. I'm like, this has got to be so funny to watch. Like, if you know, in the world of the movie of these guys fighting and the trucks just like cooching along.
I noticed that last night.
Do you have one, Aaron? Your favorite stunt?
I mean, the the entire fight scene at the end when they're in the shipping container area and he's sliding around the wet floor was the the most unintentionally hilarious action sequence I've ever seen in my life. I could not stop laughing, and it was the it was the best. I don't think that it was his fault. It was, I think, partly the editing. Yeah. Um, because you you they would just they would cut to a shot where he's just sliding on his knees like through water, but you have no idea. Like you didn't see what propelled him there. You didn't see him like run and slide. So it just looks like he's scooting around everywhere on his knees.
I it was just the thought during the knee slide thing. Like, that's the sort of thing where if I was in that situation, I'd be like, all right, let me slide, and then I would just like stop like right in the line of fire or something, or like skin my knees or something. Yeah, like this didn't work.
Yeah, it was it was my favorite sequence of the whole movie.
That was my favorite too, and probably a specific subset of it where I like the creativity of how they were like the ship was rocking and the containers like became this you know ever-present danger to him, so he had to like navigate around them as well as like the henchmen and uh which just kept they kept coming from nowhere. Like I don't know, I don't know where they spawned from, but there were so many henchmen on that boat. But anyway, there's a specific sequence where like two shipping containers were closing in around him, and he just like thinks quickly and then does this like back and forth movement with his legs to back out. Do you know what I'm talking about? And it looks so funny, but also was so awesome too. I'm like, oh, I really want to try that.
For some similarities between this and barbed wire. Uh the cranes. First being yeah, action sequence on a dock, uh climax action sequence on a dock. Also, uh in barbed wire, we had the pleasure of meeting uh was it Fatso? Yeah. Is that his name? And then this we haven't covered yet, that the main bad one of the main bad guys' names is is Skinny, and he's uh very large man. Uh such a such a silly, so silly great character. The the yellow tinted glasses.
Well, who was he, by the way? Like he was ever present. I don't know what he who he was. He was like a mob boss or something like that.
He's the boss of that gang that Eddie was involved in. Um Eddie was his cousin, I think. Uh whose cousin? Yeah. Skinny's cousin? Skinny, yeah, Eddie and Skinny are cousins. Okay. And then I think Eddie and Van Damme were friends. Yep. But he called him his brother, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. Who knows? Yeah, they did.
This is this is a movie where they didn't do flashbacks uh that may have helped uh to really understand the relationship.
The the rickshaw uh race featured a little person that was swapped out for a child halfway through the race. Which was a strange touch. I'm having a hard time following, but I think that that's how Van Dam got wrapped up in this plot was Eddie was cheating in the race. He swapped out his his rickshaw with another one that had a little kid in it. Yeah.
And then a look-alike.
Yeah, and somebody was trying to actually get Eddie and they got the look-alike. And that's when Van Damme got involved in the in this kidnapping. He thought it was his friend.
I mean, he would have been involved anyway, because the whole thing was he was importing these or exporting these knockoff jeans that had the bombs in them. Like the whole plot is nonsensical. By the way, I I I glossed I started access and then glossed over this, but did Rob Schneider's character know they were knockoffs? I feel like he was I feel like Jean-Claude was doing something sneaky on the side because he goes to visit Eddie at the beginning.
Yeah. Rob Schneider didn't know that the genes were knockoffs. He but then they kind of knew because he was CIA and they were using Jean-Claude Van Damme to get to Eddie and his uncle Skinny or cousin Skinny or whatever to get to the Russians.
So he has this five-year operation where he's undercover in Hong Kong in the hopes of getting to some future Russian incursion thing.
Yeah. Or maybe Rob Schneid. I don't know. Yeah. Now I'm more confused. See, you just can't think about it. You just have to let it wash over you. You just let the movie wash over you.
I enjoyed the end so much, so much more because I was just like, I give up. Um, yeah.
I think you have to. It's very zen. It beats you into submission, and then by the end, it just happens to you. It's glorious. Yeah. I'm actually shocked it only got nine percent on Rotten Tomatoes. I would give it a much higher rating.
I was so confused um by the relationship between Van Damme and Schneider at the beginning. I thought that Van Dam was in the CIA. I was so lost, it was confusing. Like I don't know how they got together in the first place. I don't know.
Uh Van Dam was the leading Hong Kong knockoff artist. Uh but they had a legit, but he was trying to go legit. He was trying to go legit. That's where Schneider comes in with the gene company. Uh, but then uh Van Damme can't resist his old ways and starts making knockoff jeans. But then somehow the Russians are involved and put explosives in all the genes. Presumably to explode and like blow up Americans, I guess. Yeah, yeah.
They were just gonna which by the way is is kind of the plot that uh Israel used a few years ago against Lebanon when they put the little like explosive chips and mobile phones and stuff. I forgot about that.
I was gonna bring that up, but I didn't want to get this podcast shadow banned to say we'll lose our our dozen of listeners.
Yeah. Uh but yeah, I mean this movie is kind of ahead of its time. Um geopolitically speaking, this is so relevant. Yeah. Uh more relevant than ever, maybe. What's your thoughts on worst henchmen in this movie?
I don't know if I could pick a worst henchman, but I do want to give a shout out to the I believe it was one of the Russians. It's at the climax of the um Rickshaw scene when the van slams into the convenience store and one I forget how it happens, but Jean-Claude Bandam pulls the guy out and he smashes the guy on the ground and his potato squashes between the guy or some vegetable or piece of fruit squashes between the guy's head and the ground. It's such a the use of fruit and and produce in this film is really next level. Yeah.
It was an extra character in the movie, to be honest. Uh I also didn't have a worst henchman. I thought they were all terrible. Like they didn't they never accomplished anything. Like they didn't capture or kill anybody of any value.
And they never they know it never seemed like they had it in hand. Yeah, my mine is the groove of henchmen that you mentioned earlier, Landon, in the market. Was that where where it's this crowd of people with like knives and machetes and stuff like that chasing John Claude Van Damme? I was like, in a movie, has has a crowd of people yelling and chasing the hero ever won? There are like a hundred people and he's just like parkouring through this market. Have you seen The Passion of the Christ? Actually I'm not. Don't spoil it, but I don't want to spoil anything, yeah. But that's not I I assume there isn't a scene. Oh, this is gonna get us banned for sure. But is there a scene of like Jesus running away from the mob? Like, I mean he's already captured, right? Yeah, fair enough. But yeah, uh that was a very long scene for him barely getting a scratch on him.
I'm like, they made contact with the machetes too, and didn't like chop off anyone's arm or anything. Rob Schneider's back's all cut up. I'm like, dude, you're lucky.
Yeah.
We each would have died in five seconds or less.
Yeah. Well, we don't we don't have the uh martial arts skills of JCBD, so or Rob Schneider, apparently.
Who's your favorite son double?
I I was giving shout-outs to the uh the stunt men that were outside the window when skinny's car came crashing through. Do you remember that stunt?
Oh when JCBD's driving it out of the parking garage onto a flatbed full of loose uh like water bottles that you would use in the office. Yeah, just no sides on the flatbed. They're just loading these things up onto a flatbed. Like, what? Those aren't gonna stay on there if you drive. So clearly set up for the for the stunt. Yeah it's which is just chef's gifts, in my opinion. Like, that's the that's what I mean by they're winking at you. Yeah. It's just like this is fun, isn't it? We're gonna drive a car and flip it over on this pile of sugar bottles.
I mean, the shot was all obviously all practical, and like the the load of the workers were right there, like they were inches away from the car. I did write down like, how do you think this was filmed? Like this was there's no way this was safe. Uh I don't know.
I saw another stunt where a stunt double was thrown from a vehicle that was crashing, and it looked like it hurt. Like they slammed into like a pole. And I'm like, they were they were earning their money for it on these stunts.
There were a lot of like extras or stunt doubles very close to like some serious stunts. When they drove into that convenience store that I just mentioned, they're coming in and there's people like right by the aisles of food that this vehicle's plowing through. I'm like, how the hell did they do that without hurting anyone? They used to make real movies. They may not have This is before woke one. No.
They may not have even been stunt doubles. They may have just been shopping at that market.
Yeah, those were just real uh people living in Hong Kong.
Yeah. Uh my favorite, we we haven't really talked about him yet, but uh Paul Sorvino's stunt double, especially towards the end, there are all these shots. Like he basically doesn't move through the whole movie. Like he's doesn't look like he's in great shape. Let's just say it that way. Yeah, and then like at the end, did he ever he was in great shape? Maybe in this maybe in his twenties. Uh and then um, especially that whole sequence where he's like getting off the ship onto the other, like trying to escape. It keeps cutting to the back and this guy running and jumps down from the ship and like does a little like I don't know, yeah, jumps from like to the pier and then on to like some other stuff and like runs away. And that guy is clearly like 75 pounds lighter than Paul Sarge.
It reminded me of uh have you seen I think it's a Steven Segal movie, but there's a clip of Steven Segal trying like he's going over a chain link fence and it's clearly not him, and they do like 20 cuts of just like within like three seconds of him going over the fence. Have you seen that? Okay, I'll send it to you. I loved how they revealed Sorvino's character. I don't know if you remember that. He hadn't been introduced yet, but um Van Dam had realized that um Schneider was this was a CIA agent, was like lying to him the whole time, and so he's attacking him on top of this building, and he's like about to throw them overboard, and it does this like pan where like you're looking at um Van Damme and it like just slides the camera slides to the the side, and you just see Paul Sorvino standing right behind him like a villain. He goes, What are you doing? Yeah, very calm voice. Yeah, I'm like, holy shit, this is like a like a super villain reveal. Uh and that's how they introduced him in the movie. It was great. He also had uh one of the funniest. Uh it wasn't his delivery that was so funny, but it was, I think, on that same rooftop uh was one of my favorite camera tricks of the movie where Rob Schneider is telling him about the gene plot, and he says, There's this woman from V6 Jeans, she's from the states, somebody's counterfeiting them, and she thinks we're involved. We're supposed to raid the factory tonight, and it does like that Hitchcock zoom in on Paul Sorvino's face, where like the Dolly zoom, and he goes, What? And then it does this like crash pull out to like across the street. You see the whole building, and you just hear him go, shit, and it echoes across like all the buildings. And I'm like, they used every camera trick in the book in that scene. They're really known for it. I know it was so funny. It was I loved it. I loved this movie.
Was it Paul that said entrepreneurship baby cakes? Everyone like he he ended, I guess. Spoiler, he turns, he's he's one of the bad guys. Um, or I guess he did work for the CIA, but he's also working for the Russians. Same thing. Um last category or question is I'm not gay, but fill in the blank. This was easy for me. What was your favorite Jean-Claude Van Damme scene in that way? You can go ahead, Landon.
You're that eager to answer this one. Uh yeah, I didn't have a real solid answer for this, but uh I did love the after the I think it's after the Rickshaw race, Jean-Claude Van Damme's clothes are ruined, which they're just ruined over and over again throughout the whole movie. Yeah. I love that that's a touch point in reality that they stuck with. Uh they're like, oh shit, his clothes are ruined. We gotta add a plot point to how he got new clothes.
Um also clearly a good excuse to show him undressing on camera.
Yeah. He and uh Rob Schneider at uh um I guess dim sum place eating, and JCVD's wearing one of Rob Schneider's uh five thousand dollar Hawaiian shirts, and he like picks his arm up and flexes his muscle a little bit and the sting rips, the shirt rips, Rob Schneider's freaking out. Then he rips the shoulder out, and that was just that was pretty good. Um excuse to show off.
Uh yeah. It's a good uh trope too. Yeah. Ripping out of your shirt.
Yeah.
That's my favorite. I'm not gay, but Jean-Claude Van Damme looked great getting out of them jeans at the end. When he realized that the buttons on them were the explosives, and yeah. He's like stripping them off. I was like, okay, this is uh a little something for uh the Van Damme fans, I guess.
I think that was my scene too. He's he's gotta have the best legs uh that have ever appeared on camera.
Yeah. You know, Rob Schneider loved his big beautiful ass.
Yeah. Those glutes. And by the way, at the end, when they escape, they get on this boat to like escape from the ship that's gonna explode with all the jeans and stuff like that. And he just rips his shirt off, and there's no explanation for that. We didn't need one. No, it was just like, yeah, we just need one more shirtless scene, and he just goes the next few minutes, just you know, shirtless for nobody else takes their shirt off, just him.
There there was another uh a wardrobe thing where and and it was another blink and you'll miss it uh transition where I blinked, and apparently the the room with Paul Suorvino and Skinny exploded, and I missed it. And it just cuts to John-Claude Van Damme, who I just saw like two seconds earlier in an office like setting. The next thing he's like, his clothes are smoldering and like cinched, and he's just in the streets, like taking his clothes off again. Like, okay, I missed something, and he's like, uh, Johansen and Skinny are dead. I'm like, I missed so much in two seconds of this movie. I don't know.
I don't think he really, I think it just didn't. He just left and then the place blew up. They blew up a giant oh, the CIA uh headquarters. Headquarters, you know, the site was in a uh ancient statue of the Buddha uh that they blew up, and I was like, damn.
Yeah, I thought it was this controversial at the time to be blowing Buddha up like that. I'm a little offended.
You think there's cheaper real estate that the CIA could rent in Hong Kong than you think they were paying for that? An ancient hundred foot tall statue of the Buddha or a more quiet, isolated setting, not like tourists around all the time, like hiding in plain sight. Yeah, I guess so. Um I just have a bunch of. Yeah. Oh, by the way, he several pro like how did he survive at the very end? Like we saw him blow up, and then he like the very last like two minutes or whatever, he's building more bombs.
The best part of the movie, you mean the ending that we haven't talked about at all.
Why don't you take us there?
Rob Schneider and Jean-Claude Van Damme are in a a bar, I guess. Ha they seem a little tipsy, they're kind of having like a a debrief. I think they're oh, it's fireworks, so it's midnight. This whole thing's leading towards Hong Kong's uh handover. Handover, and uh he has uh the detonator, right?
Uh worst prop in the movie.
Oh, the technology. I wanted to touch on this. The bomb detectors were fantastic. The little the thing to prove that you were in the CIA was you had a card that you had to shine a special light over that said CIA agent.
Yeah, I I had a note on that. Like they go somewhere. I was like, are they did they go to the library to find the CIA badge fire machine? Like it didn't, it wasn't clear where they were.
They had that detonator prop though, and it was like the hero prop. They kept showing it up close, and it like had LEDs on them that didn't even light up, and like they didn't know how to use it. They'd like press a button and then turn a dial, and I'm like, what this is so unsatisfying.
It looked like a compass inside of an early cell phone.
Yeah.
But anyway, the uh I forget how it all unfolds, but they show it's Paul Sorvino's character, right? He's survived, he's like making more bombs or whatever, and and just a few blocks away is where Jean-Claude and Rob Schneider in this bar, and uh Jean-Claude drunkenly turns the dial on the thing and explodes Paul Servino. And then they don't even pay any mind to it, they think the explosion's just part of the celebratory fireworks. Um fantastic, just total this like they couldn't have ended the movie in a better way.
I don't know. I was just I was just confused because we literally saw him play blow up like like two minutes before third time's the charm, as they say. Yeah, yeah, I guess he blew up three times, so I don't know. Yeah. He's around for a sequel, I guess.
We were robbed of a sequel.
There's still time. Uh did you guys catch that um Jean-Claude Van Damme said thankness God? No. Like there was some action sequence he barely gets out of the scrape, and he's like, Thankness God.
Somewhat related. I I did wonder if some of the actors uh performed their lines in a different language in Chinese or something, because it parts of it seemed dubbed. Yeah.
But yeah.
Yeah. I'm sure there's ADR.
Almost all of it. Yeah. Anything that seemed like ADR fit the aesthetic of the film. Like it's just so good.
Um few random things. I I think this is when they introduced uh Eddie when Jean-Claude Van Damme first met Eddie. I feel like this is a common trip in movies, but I really want this to happen in real life. So maybe with maybe we can discuss this uh offline. But uh they met and it's like they had this fake fight that turned into a hug as their greeting. Like they're it was like they're about to fight and they're like punching each other, and then it was like, nah. Like clearly just for the audience for us to think there's gonna be a fight, but they're really it was like Arnold and Carl Weathers and and Predator.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, that's a better example of that. Uh they start like like doing the arm wrestle thing or whatever, and uh say son of a bitch. I think I'm just gonna start doing it, see see if I can just have that happen organically. Yeah.
Um Rob Schneider had one of the worst Sean Connery impressions I've ever heard in this movie. Just surprising given his background. They asked him if he likes Bond movies or something. He's like only the Connery ones or something.
The ones with Connery and Money a Penny.
It was horrible. Yeah. Um are knockoffs that much of a thing anymore?
Uh, I don't know.
Have you shopped on Amazon lately? Timu.
Yeah. I mean I remember knockoff sunglasses being like a big thing in the 90s, like fake Oakley's and stuff. Yeah.
I mean, Amazon I know has knockoffs, but you think you're buying the real thing. But like, are there like they have like Pumas here with two M's. Um I mean, are they selling these knockoffs in real stores as if they're real items, or are they selling them as knockoffs to people who are looking for a discount?
Aaron Powell I think they're selling them as real items because they talk about how much money they're making. Well, and they're selling the knockoff version of the actual gene that they're supposed to be making.
I know that um like counterfeit watches and stuff lately have gotten uh like nearly undetectable and they're being sold as the as the real deal. So maybe we're due for a a remake.
Oh. Yeah.
Counterfeit Cuban cigars. Who's in the remake? That's the question. We were just talking about like who is our modern um like action hero like like Schwarzenegger or Van Damme or like I don't know that that type of actor is big anymore.
Well, they just have like I think there's this thing where it's like, oh, we're gonna have the non-action hero doesn't have to be. Yeah, like Bob Odenkirk. Yeah, that's exactly what I was saying.
Um this isn't my take. I heard somebody talking about this lately and can't remember who it was, but just about how there really aren't action movies um like this anymore in the box office that are doing well. Like the superhero movies kind of took the place of the blockbuster action movie, or like, yeah, the big franchise stuff like Mission Impossible or Born Identity. There isn't there aren't those like one-off action movies like um anymore. And if there are, it's it goes to streaming. Like there just isn't that like blockbuster budget for it. So you don't have that.
It's not minting like your next Jean-Claude or We've been robbed culturally. I know. I know. Um that is funny, I'd never really considered that, and I do always find myself going back to these 90s action movies to scratch that itch. Like I went through a whole thing where I was like, I'm just gonna watch every Schwarzenegger movie from the nineties. Yeah. I did that a couple years ago, which was a wild ride. Nice. Every Schwarzenegger action movie. I skipped uh jingle all the way or uh Well, you're really missing out.
Uh I watched every Predator movie a few years ago, and that was that was a treat. I haven't seen all of them. Did you watch the latest one? Yeah, watched them all. Yeah. Oh no, no, no. Not I haven't seen the latest one that just came out uh this year, though. That's the one where um there's like the half person that he carries around on his back and stuff. Yeah, I think I haven't seen that.
I think that was a year ago or so. Um I really liked that.
I've heard that's really good though.
Did you catch the Street Fighter video game cameo in in this?
Was that at the end?
No, there was uh it was one of those scenes with Eddie. I think before Eddie blew up, it was like a back room with like some arcade uh um consoles like in the back, and one of them was Street Fighter.
So this was a few years after the Street Fighter movie, so you're just casually mentioning Eddie blowing up like it wasn't one of the most insane deaths. Also, everyone blew up in this movie. There's so much we didn't cover. Eddie opens a safe, and coming out of the safe is a missile that hits him in the chest and launches him out the window and across the street, and he hits the other building and explodes. Like, where did the missile come from? The Russians, obviously. They've got the technology. And then then in the uh boat chase at the beginning of the movie, there's this rifle that cat keeps being used. And he they shoot somebody with that rifle, and like their head explodes. Huge parts of people explode from this rifle. Yeah. It was uh it was a violent movie, it was fun.
It was fun. Well, what uh what are your all picks, Landon? We'll start with you.
I didn't really come up with one. Sorry to agree on that question. No, that's I mean, people can just watch this movie. I don't know what I agree. Like, you should just watch this movie.
All right, I agree with you. What's yours, Aaron? I picked police story. It's uh early Jackie Chan uh Hong Kong Kung Fu movie. Uh similar, like stunt-wise, I feel like. Uh just a better movie though. I don't I don't think I've seen that. It was like it was a very early, it was kind of the one that got him noticed, I think, in the the United States.
I've watched that within the last few years. It is awesome. I forgot I did have an alternate pick, but I haven't seen it. I don't know if that counts.
It can't it can't do that. But I want to know what it is though.
The d well, I think I saw it when I was a kid. I haven't seen it as an adult. I most definitely saw it when I was a kid. Uh it's um another early Jackie Chan movie by the same director, uh Twin Dragons, where uh Jackie Chan plays two different characters in the film. Is that confusing? I mean, I don't know. Did you like the Nutty Professor or with Nettie Murphy?
Yeah, but the Nutty Professor wasn't in Chinese.
Well, are we really talking you're saying that people should watch this movie, but then you're complaining about a plot point being confusing in a movie scene.
Fair enough. You got me there. I feel like I saw a lot of Jackie Chan movies in the 90s, but they all kind of blurred together. So I don't know if I've seen that.
Well, he's got two kind of careers. He's got his Hong Kong movies and then he's got his Hollywood movies.
Right.
I feel like his Hollywood movies were really huge when I was a kid. But we used to watch his Hong Kong ones on VHS at home. Yeah, I remember going back and watching some of those Hong Kong ones, but they're good, they're good movies.
That's why that was my I was interested in seeing another film from this director to uh but I like that it has an obvious gimmick like Jackie Chan's playing two characters. Hopefully, I don't do his Hong Kong movies have the blooper reels that his Hollywood movies had? I think so. It's fantastic.
I I mean I've seen Police Story, it's been a long time. I think it's got that at the end where you see all the stunts that go bad and yeah. Yeah. That was my favorite part of Jackie Chan's. Oh, loved it. Yeah.
I realized that I forgot to pick an I'll pick, but um I will cheat a little bit. And when we're talking about no more action stars, did you guys see Rebel Ridge on Netflix that came out a few years ago?
Possibly.
Remind me. Two two years ago. It's uh this former Marine Um Aaron Pierre is the star. I don't know if you know his name that goes to this uh he town to post bail for his cousin, and he gets the money seized by like the town's corrupt police. Yeah, I saw it. Uh did you like it?
Yeah, I liked it. It's um it's it's Black Reacher, right?
I mean uh kind of, I guess. Um I mean I I I do like uh Alan Richtson? Richtson? How do you say uh um like he's probably a a solid action star, like you know new up and coming. Um he's in a new movie that was in theaters, Detroit. I I haven't seen, but it's on my list. Uh it's not called Detroit, it's set in Detroit. Um anyway. Rebel Ridge. So Aaron Pierre, who stars in that, is co-starring in the Green Lantern show on HBO, Lanterns. Oh yeah. I watched the first episode this week and I was like, this is awesome. So really, I was interested.
You're the second person that said that, and I'm just filled, couldn't be filled with more doubt.
Yeah. I mean, I I hesitate to I didn't put it on my what I'm watching because I usually like try to wait till I'm at least halfway through the season to recommend it. So, you know, TBD. But um yeah, I think he's he's fun to watch.
Rebel Ridge had Don Johnson in it too, as like this racist, shitty police chief, and I loved him in that yeah role.
You should you should watch it, Lane. It's it's a great like crack open a beer and watch a yeah, watch a fun action movie for for a while. It's actually a little bit more.
But scratch is a similar itch to this.
It's just an itch. I like it's just like when I watch movies, that's what I want, you know. I want to like I like using movies to like shut off. I like engage with music and art at like such a critical level all the time that I don't necessarily enjoy them the way that uh just a shitty movie is just so it's like bad pizza. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I'll s oh yeah, that's a good pairing. Actually, some dominoes and uh but what about good pizza?
Like good pizza is also good pizza is also good.
An indulgence.
Give me a Tony's. They put three pepperonis on the whole pizza.
You just pull it in and eat it like a taco. Not me. Give me that vegan artisanal pizza. Well, on that note, um I think that's that's all we have for knockoff. Landon, thank you again for joining us. I should have asked last time, anything you have to promote, or uh it seems like guests always do that on podcasts.
So yeah. Maybe thematically that's better for the next episode.
So Okay. All right. Man of mystery. All right. Well, uh, that's all we've got. Hey, if you want to write us uh the worst movie podcast at gmail.com. Um like, subscribe, all those things. We appreciate it. I'm a day.
I'm Aaron. Thanks for listening to the worst movie podcast.