2020 / 119m - China
Drama, Sport
3.0*/5.0*
Knock Out poster

Watches

July 02, 2020

3.0*/5.0*

It's nice to see Roy Chow is still around. I lost track of him for a while, after he had a very promising start some 10 years ago. But Chow seems to be back on track, Knockout is one of his latest films. Not really the kind of material that will instantly relaunch him, but it's a solid film that shows his talent is still there.

The film is a pretty classic boxing drama, following the career of a promising boxing champ who sees his life slipping away when he gets mixed up in an escalated bar fight. After spending some years in prison, he tries to pick up the remains of his life and vows to stop boxing, but well ... you know how it goes in these films.

Performances are decent, the mix of drama and action works well and Chow's direction is crisp. The boxing scenes are nice and get the adrenaline flowing, but they're nothing you haven't seen before. Which is the film's biggest problem, not in the least because it's almost two hours long. It's not a bad film, just not a very remarkable one either.