TL;DR version - It’s a good Sammo movie, you should check it out. The plot is kind of a mess, but that’s almost a given with this style of movie.
For those that want a more rambling take, there are three things I think are pretty interesting in Knockabout
Yuen Biao
After releasing 2 monumental films the previous year, Sammo’s only release of 1979 was Knockabout. And, in many ways, it doesn’t seem like a big film in his catalog. When it gets mentioned it’s usually in the context of Yuen Biao, Hung’s ‘brother’ from the Chinese Opera school.
Like Hung, Yuen had been in movies for years by 1979. But always in the background. If you watch the fights in Warriors Two and Enter the Fat Dragon closely you’ll see Yuen get beat up multiple times in each movie.
In Knockabout he takes the lead. Well, for the first half of the movie he’s co-lead with Beardy (Bryan Leung Kar-yan). And in the second half of the movie he’s kind of co-lead with Sammo. But it was more of a lead role than he’d ever had before.
And, with a few exceptions, Yuen Biao is not a Lead Actor kind of performer. If you look at his filmographythere aren’t many posters that feature him front-and-center. Of his 146 films (criminy) I’d say there are 3 or 4 where Yuen Biao is the clear lead: Prodigal Son, Dreadnaught, The Iceman Cometh (not based on the play, btw), Knockabout
Usually he worked in a pair of leads (i.e., Righting Wrongs) or in a group (all the Jackie/Sammo/Yuen movies).
But as Knockabout makes clear, especially in its later training sequences, this is bananas. Yuen Biao is fucking awesome.
So what’s the difference here? Why are Jackie and Sammo famous and Yuen Biao is a ‘just’ hugely accomplished actor with a 5 decade career?
Knockabout offers a joking answer; in the final fight Yuen can’t overcome the boss because he ‘lacks power’. And I think this is part of it. Other bright stars of this time (Jackie, Gordon Liu) could project power in their action. Jackie especially — watch The Fearless Hyena, also released in 1979, for a particularly good example of this.
But Yuen’s style was different. He wasn’t ‘schticky’ and he didn’t impose his physicality. He was Just Really Good. There’s a grace and precision to Yuen’s work that no one can match. But, other than Fred Astaire, grace and precision don’t usually lead to Lead Actor status.
If you’re going to watch one of Yuen Biao’s leading roles…well, it should probably be Prodigal Son. But if you’re going to watch two, then Knockabout is a good choice.
Sammo’s Fight Choreography
Through most of Knockabout we see what I’ve come to think of as “Sammo Standard” fights. These are usually outside and feature 2 fighters. They start on a medium shot then quickly cut or zoom to a wide shot. In the wide shot there’s plenty of room on the sides for the fighters to explore. Sometimes the camera will pan with them as they move back and forth. Then there’s a cut to change the setup or cover a tricky stunt. Then you’re back to that medium shot and you repeat from there.
This approach worked, and Sammo’s team was really good at taking advantage of those wide angle long takes. But there’s not a ton of variety. They were usually two-dimensional affairs — a lot of left and right but not much else.
At the end of Knockabout a fight that had been very standard moves to a new location, a restaurant. Suddenly the space is confined by tables, chairs, and a roof. And then Sammo and Yuen hop on the tables — our two-dimensional fight gains a third dimension.
The fight in the restaurant is great. Yuen climbs around on the roof joists, does backflips on tables and jumps around with abandon. It’s an evolution in Sammo’s style, one that takes better advantage of setting and props. And I wanted to highlight it because I’m hoping to come back to this when I get to re-watching Pedicab Driver as part of this Sammo retrospective.
The Ongoing Sammo/Lau ‘Beef’
Man, I love making up weird theories about Sammo Hung and Lau Kar-leung! See my Magnificent Butcher or Warriors Two reviews for more of my weird nonsense. This is something that will also come back when I re-watch Pedicab Driver, btw.
Knockabout was the first Sammo film featuring Lau Kar-wing, younger brother of Lau Kar-Leung. Kar-wing had worked on Kar-leung classics like The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and Challenge of the Masters. But in 1978 he started working with Sammo, both as an actor and behind the scenes at a studio they started with Karl Maka. He had a role in Warriors Two, but in Knockabout he gets promoted to lead bad guy and is a ton of fun.
Kar-wing continues to bounce between the two groups, appearing in both Sammo and Lau Kar-leung movies, while also working as a director and choreographer. I wish I knew more about this relationship! It seems super interesting.
