The Boxer’s Omen (1983)

The Boxer’s Omen (1983)

Starring: Phillip Ko Fei, Elvis Tsui Kam-Kong, Wai Ka-Man, Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, Bolo Yeung Sze, Cheung Chok-Chow, Leung Hak-Shun
Director: Kuei Chih-Hung
Action Directors: Luk Chuen, Chu Ko

The Shaw Brothers were probably desperate to grasp any market share in the film industry by the time the 1980s rolled around. Lau Kar-Leung’s films were still generally doing well, but most of their other kung fu output (and most everything else) were struggling against Golden Harvest and Cinema City. They did find some degree of success in the horror genre and the totally nuts approach to graphic horror and overall weirdness extended into a lot of their late-period wuxia movies as well. Long story short: Shaw Brothers made a lot of crazy films during their final years.

One of them was a horror flick called Bewitched, which you might say was a spiritual successor to Ho Meng-Hua’s two Black Magic films (also made for the Shaws). That movie was a success, coming in at #6 among the Top 10 domestically-produced films that year. That was enough to greenlight a sequel, which came two years later. The Boxer’s Omen was that sequel and it ended up being most outrageous, (arguably) most disgusting, and just all-out bonkers horror film that the Shaw Brothers produced (although one might make an argument that Seeding of the Ghost deserves that distinction).

It takes a little while for us the viewer to find out how this and Bewitched are connected. The movie starts out at a kickboxing match between Chan Wing (Johnny Wang Lung-Wei, of Invincible Shaolin and Five Shaolin Masters) and a Thai fellow named Bu Bo (Bolo Yeung, of TC 2000 and Shootfighter). Although Chan Wing technically wins, Bu Bo pulls a dirty trick and attacks Chan from behind, doing some elbow and knee drops that ultimately break his neck, leaving his paralyzed. In Chan Wing’s corner is his brother, Chan Hung (Phillip Ko Fei, of The Loot and Shaolin Intruders). Chan Hung appears to be a boxer as well, in addition to a mid-level of Triad of sorts.

After finding out that Chan Wing will never walk again, Chan Hung decides to go to Thailand to challenge Bu Bo to a revenge match. But not before getting into some trouble with a Mainland gang vying for territory and then getting it on with his hot girlfriend (Wai Ka-Man, of Seeding of a Ghost and Rocky’s Love Affairs). The former point is interesting, because the gang gets the drop on him and the only thing that keeps his life is the magical intervention of a monk (Elvis Tsui Kam-Kong) whom Chan has never met before. The same monk visits him after his lovemaking session, although it appears only Chan can see him.

So, Chan heads to Thailand, where he barges in on a public event celebrating Bu Bo’s “victory”—amusingly enough, the spokesman for Muay Thai says that Bu was the rightful winner despite some prejudice from the Hong Kong referee. Yeah, okay. If you say so. Bu Bo gives Chan three months to prepare for the fight. One day, while sightseeing on the Mekong, Chan sees a Buddhist Temple. While those are a dime a dozen in the Asia, one of the arches is growing bright yellow, like he had seen in one of his visions. Intrigued, he visits the temple, where all of the monks know his name and somehow were expecting him. The head monk then explains the meaning of the visions.

The monk whom Chan Hung has been seeing is Qing Zhao, who was the monk that assisted Melvin Wong against the evil Thai sorcerer Magusu (Hussein Hassan) in Bewitched. When that film ended, Qing Zhao had destroyed Magusu with his Buddhist “white” magic and taken the little plush bat demon that emerged from his body. We then get a flashback sequence in which Qing Zhao performs a ritual to destroy the bat demon, which calls the attention of another Thai sorcerer, presumably Magusu’s superior. This guy performs a spell in which he mixes cobra venom with the preserved brains of a dead person and has a trio of oversized spiders (played by plush dolls) suck up the mixture. He then unleashes them on Qing Zhao, who kinda-sorta “dies.” The problem is that this spell not only is going to kill Qing Zhao, but it threatens to prevent him from achieving Enlightenment, upon which he is on the cusp.

So what does that have to do with Chan Hung? Apparently, he and Qing Zhao were twin brothers in another life so they have a karmic bond extending into this one. On one hand, Chan Hung is the only person who has the ability to defeat the sorcerer and save Qing Zhao from losing his chance at nirvana. On the other hand, that also means that if Qing Zhao dies from this black magic spell, Chan will die, too. Sorta unfair, isn’t it?

Chan Hung initially dismisses the story as a bunch of hokum and returns to Hong Kong. But shortly after he arrives, he has an episode in which he vomits an entire moray eel and decides that the monks may have a point after all. So, he returns to Thailand and agrees to become a monk in order to defeat the sorcerer…but will he be ready for the magical battle that awaits him? And when he learns that this new sorcerer has a trio of colleagues who are just as, if not more, talented?

The Boxer’s Omen is a phantasmagorical parade of the gory and gooey, with Chan Hung being unwillingly drawn into the Battle Between Good and Evil…between white magic and its opposite, sorcery of the blackest sort. It is a battle drenched in bodily fluids (especially vomit…oh, how much vomit is in this film) guaranteed to make almost the staunchest of viewers gag at one point. Ironically, the time I winced was when Phillip Ko Fei was slicing his own arm open in order to fill it with the Essence of Iron: that scene made me think of the uncomfortable Naked Blood film from Japan (shutters).

But beyond that, some feel that there is a spiritual side to the film, especially as the hero finds himself travelling to Kathmandu, Nepal. The main idea is about saving someone with whom you share a bond from a previous life and we learn a little more about the Monk Qing Zhao’s history of lives, including one as a Tibetan Lama. Part of the finale has Qing Zhao manifesting himself as the Lama from his previous life in order to fight their final foe: the Crocodile Witch. I’ll be honest though, I can see some people seeing a hint of spirituality in terms of the story being about one’s quest to guarantee another man’s salvation, but I think that ends up buried in knee deep in all the regurgitation, animal blood, slime, putrid brains, and everything else this film has on display.

I mean, this is a movie where a man stabs himself in the neck with a pair of needles and suddenly becomes a male version of the Penanggalan (from Mystics in Bali). This is a movie where a man bites the head off a chicken and spits the blood onto an army of crocodile skulls, which attack its opponent. This is a film where the characters kill a crocodile, remove its innards, stuff a dead body into it, and that body is reborn as a naked woman (full-frontal nudity and all)—although let me note here that the story never specifies if that body is of the one sorcerer who gets defeated and is being reborn as a man, or if it was of a female sorceress who needed to be resurrected anyway.

But with all the flying goblin heads and vomit-eating that defines the many magic sequences, everything else almost becomes unimportant. Yes, there are a pair of martial arts sequences (thanks to the bouts with Bolo Yeung), but they’re pretty standard and forgettable when compared to a man getting attacked by dozens of plush bats or a monk trying to kill a walking skeleton bat. There is a fair amount of full-frontal nudity—from both the reliable Wai Ka-Man and whomever plays the Crocodile Witch—although there is a good chance that the next disgusting magical ritual will be a total boner killer.

The Boxer’s Omen is recommended for Hong Kong cinephiles, although newbies may be put off from further explorations into HK horror if they have weak stomachs. This is for the gorehounds. The fans of the extreme. The ones who scoff at limp and weak PG-13 films made for teenie-boppers want something “real.” The sort of person who find the Terrifier movies to be endearing. The Boxer’s Omen is for the hardcore. It is not for the faint of heart.