The standard library module struct does a short job:
>>> import struct
>>> x = 0xa1a2a3a4
>>> struct.unpack('4B', struct.pack('>I', x))
(161, 162, 163, 164)
A “package” with a format '>I'makes it xinto a 4-byte string in big-endian order, which can immediately be “unpacked” into four values without a signed byte with the format '4B'. Easy peasy.