The Boxer’s Omen (1983) (a.k.a. Bo)

Directed by: Chih-Hung Kwei

Written by: Chih-Hung Kwei & On Sito

Starring: Phillip Ko, Bolo Yeung, Somjai Boomsong, You-hsing Lai, Wai Lam, Hak Shun Leung, Chih Tai Lin

STORY

A Hong Kong man swears to avenge his brother’s brutal, paralysing defeat at the hands of a Thai boxer in the ring. He travels to Thailand and after witnessing a number of strange spiritual events he is approached by a monk who informs him that he and their abbot were twin brothers in their previous lives. Because of this, he is the only one who can defeat the evil sorcerer who murdered the abbot and thus release him into immortality. The man trains to become a monk and defeats the evil sorcerer, but he won’t stay down for long…

OPINION

The word that comes up most often when reading about The Boxer’s Omen is – bizarre. There’s really no way to describe this movie to the inexperienced viewer. It’s like a hallucinogenic Eastern Jodorowsky or Lynch movie mixed with Buddhist legends and philosophy. As you might be able to tell from the above synopsis, the plot is a little strange, but that’s not the half of it. It defies genre, mixing drama, horror and martial arts among other things. It has a slightly confusing non-linear structure, but that doesn’t matter because everything that happens is so… bizarre that it doesn’t matter.

The Boxer’s Omen was made at an interesting time in Hong Kong’s movie history. For a couple of decades, the territory had been churning out period martial arts movies by the bucket load, spurred by the successes of first Jimmy Wang Yu, then Bruce Lee and then Jackie Chan. However, audiences were starting to tire of the genre. Having made some of the greatest martial arts movies ever made such as The Prodigal Son and Drunken Master, big stars like Chan and Sammo Hung were moving away from period-based martial arts to modern day movies. Meanwhile, movies like Duel To the Death and Zu Warriors were trying to break away from standard period fare to more magical-based fantasies utilising imported Hollywood special effects talent.

In the middle of all this, Boxer’s Omen seemed to want to combine it all. While ostensibly set in the modern day, a large chunk of the movie is based in unchanged Buddhist temples and similar period-style locations. I don’t know for sure, but I believe that a lot of the events of the plot tie into Buddhist myths and Thai superstitions. Maybe that explains the way it all seems so utterly random to a Westerners like myself!

So, back to the bizarre… From the point where the main character sees his first visions, the movie can almost be summed up in the phrase “stuff happens”. One of the most entertaining aspects of this film is just to see what manner of craziness happens next. We have spiders drinking snake venom through straws to inject into a person’s eyeballs. Writing on a massive urn moves onto a monk’s body, ready to be unleashed again when protection from evil is required. A sorcerer who becomes enraged at the failure of his last spell (which he cast by swallowing chicken entrails, puking them back up and swallowing them again) that he tears off his own head, which then floats over and attempts to envelop the monk. An alligator is split open, gutted and then a corpse is placed within to create a monster… and so on….

As with the aforementioned Zu, the effects in this movie are actually both good and bad. They’re good for Hong Kong productions at the time, but laughably poor by modern standards, or even Hollywood standards of the day. Yet, they’re so numerous and defy all logic that I really didn’t care for a moment. If you’re at all familiar with Eastern cinema, this is a fantastic, entertaining movie. Otherwise, check out Zu Warriors, Spooky Encounters and Duel To The Death before this one, it’ll make it easier on you

Rating:

PREVIEW

AVAILABILITY

The Boxer’s Omen was released in the UK on VHS, but was cut by 23 seconds. Since then, it became a much sought-after title at underground film markets, but has so far only been released uncut on DVD in the US (linked below).

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