Hard Knox
I found myself interested in this, mostly because of Penn who is an Australian karate champion who had a minor appearance in some Hong Kong action films back in the nineties. Her blonde hair made her very conspicuous as a rarity to the genre, being one of the few Gweilo women. The film which was in part intended as a pilot for a TV series seems to have been her attempt to get some fame in the U.S. She apparently gave up on acting after it did not work out for her. For now she is the CEO of Signal 8 Security, a private security agent in Hong Kong whose website lists Jackie Chan amongst others as a client how ironic!
This is, in some ways, art imitating life, as here she portrays Niki Knox, who owns her own private security firm. On Jackson’s (Chong) wedding day, her father Darrell (Lee Majors) is flung to the coma land by a wicked Delicious Malicious (Kessell), who is in need of three jewels which Darrell has promised to keep safe.
As a side business, Malicious has a PPV showing her blowing things up and destroying other buildings. But the gems are the most important thing, and Niki has to keep them from the wrong people otherwise. There’s going to be some seemingly bad things happening, she has to do that with the assistance of ex-cop Steve Hardman (Calabro), who is now her subordinate, and even after being betrayed by someone extremely close to her.
Cynthia Rothrock’s Hong Kong films bestows several different facets to her personality as compared to her works in America and it seems the same effect happened to Penn as well; her brute force in In the Line of Duty V seems to be lost here. Again, what was I truly expecting from a TV movie, particularly one that too tries to use Sydney as a backdrop but failing terribly with Penn’s Aussie accent.
It still might have worked, though, especially if it had been more linear, pitting only Knox against the evil Malicious, who at least entertained the audience. This is a classic example of a sidekick being much better than the main villain.
There are too many supporting roles, almost none of which are useful, and Calabro especially drains the energy from every scene he is in. There’s no chemistry with Penn at all, and I would just much rather have seen this sister doin’ it for herself. As stated, I am not sure this was much of a stretch for Penn’s role here, but she’s quite likeable.
I may have even convinced myself to be interested in watching the show though only if Steve Hardman was to be quickly and painfully killed off in an early scene. That will remain mere speculation. Because while the pilot has so far met with positive responses in the USA, it seems that the sales in the rest of the world were so unconvincing that the production company has not managed to move on to the second season, and the project was closed. I wouldn’t say it was particularly a great loss either.
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