The Boxer's Omen

The Boxer’s Omen

魔, Mó, Magic

Director ~ Chih-Hung Kuei

Writers ~ Chih-Hung KueiOn Szeto

1983, Hong Kong

Stars ~ Phillip Ko, Shao-Yen Lin, Kar-Man Wai

 

A gangster-boxer goes to avenge his brother crippled in a fight and enters a world of black magic to fight demons. Or something. He’s a bit of a dick, throwing a tantrum and trashing shrines when he’s caught not keeping up his monkly vows, tempted by exploitation nudity - but his is not a character study. It’s more a sequence of extended supernatural ceremonies and battles that score high on the WTF? and Batshit Crazy level that makes it compelling and enjoyable if that’s your taste.

 

Starts with brute-force boxing but it’s when the skin starts bubbling that things really kick off. Anything to do with fake bats and crocodiles is most enjoyable, but you also have other stop-motion creepies and demons, Eighties laser and lightning effects, thunder-thighs, a bad guy insisting that the next thing will surely kill his opponent, actors eating regurgitated bananas and … fuzzy caterpillars? There is always something to surprise and baffle, not least the sudden and nonsensical sample of the Tall Man from ‘Phantasm’ saying “Boy!” thrown in at random halfway through a zombie-making ritual. It’s one of those films that won’t let a lack of budget limit its ambition (inflatable crocodile from the local surf shop?) and it falls between Jodorowsky artfulness and tacky Troma gross-out without any apparent self-awareness. It is the gung-ho art-amateurness that propels it, that makes the decorous compositions with subpar effects so enjoyable and embraceable. What next? you constantly wonder. Unshackled from rhyme or reason, this isn’t the nightmare logic of, say, ‘Phantasm’ which has a basis in character psychology, or even the increasing demonic chaos of ‘Evil Dead’, but far more random. The trick is to just sit back and follow the stream-of-conscious gratuitousness to be entertained.