All is quiet on the Tsing Yi island movie set on a wet Friday afternoon. Jean-Claude Van Damme's son, who is playing the star's stunt double, kicks a ball around with some extras.
Two Spaniards in raincoats - but more about them later - sit on the pier, waiting, while down below, in a creaky fishing vessel's hold, a climactic moment in the film Knock Off is being shot.
Veteran character actor Paul Sorvino (father of Oscar-winning actress Mira) is showing his true colours as a CIA agent turned remarkably sour. He has tied Lela Rochon (Waiting To Exhale, The Chamber ) and Rob Schneider (Men Behaving Badly ) to rickety chairs, and is expounding on why he has turned into such a bad egg.
Director Tsui Hark sits in a converted cargo container watching the monologue on monitors. It is very hot. Everybody is sweating profusely.
In fact you can call these conditions quite miserable if you have a mind to, but the cast are remarkably cheerful.
It looks for all the world like a Hong Kong movie set - a tell-tale absence of amenities, a distinct lack of gourmet cuisine - but Knock Off is also a Hollywood-backed production. One sign of this is the star's two trailers: Van Damme is having a mid-afternoon snooze in one of them, and will come to rescue Rochon and Schneider from the grisly clutches of Sorvino later.