Submitted by Lurple on 12/08/08
If you’re seeking out the indescribably weird, The Boxer’s Omen is a must-see. An insane Hong Kong cocktail of disgusting Thailand black magic, Buddhist spirit-fu, and a bit of martial arts, movies just don’t come much weirder than this one.
When Phillip Ko's brother's is crippled in a kickboxing fight against none other than Bolo Yeung (the heavily muscled bad guy from Bloodsport), it's only natural that Ko swears revenge and challenges Bolo to fight again in 3 months.
You're probably thinking that this sounds like a very standard martial arts film setup, because it does. That's not at all how the film plays out, however, because Boxer's Omen is one of the strangest films you're likely to see. Instead of training in kickboxing or kung fu, the endlessly whining Ko ends up becoming a Buddhist monk and getting a crash course in spiritual warfare. And he'll need it to fight off some of the craziest black magic attacks around.
Bat puppets, crocodile skulls that attack like Hungry Hungry Hippos, maggots, vomit, more maggots, skeletal bat puppets, more maggots, flying heads with entrails, more vomit, human brain martinis, robot Buddha statutes with glowing neon spears and throwing stars… and a group of henchmen that revive their evil wizard leader with by stuffing his corpse into a dead crocodile filled with maggots (of course) and then feeding his corpse a load of vomit. Have I mentioned that this movie contains a lot of maggots and vomit? Bringing your dead wizards back via maggoty crocodile apparently has the side effect of changing their sex, too. Don’t ask me to explain this or anything else that happens in Boxer’s Omen.
Philip Ko, super monk, will still have to kickbox Bolo Yeung along the way. So you’ll get a little more Thai kickboxing/kung fu along with your flying heads, bat puppets, robo-Buddha, and all the other things that are liable to make your brain melt. Just don’t expect to see a lot of Bolo or martial arts, as the emphasis is placed firmly on the bizarre and magical.
For its sheer madness, Boxer’s Omen is recommended to anyone who has read this review and thought “Wow, that sounds like something I’d like to see!” You know who you are. Everyone else will probably want to steer clear of a movie that spent a large chunk of its budget on maggots and things to regurgitate.
More maggots than in an
More maggots than in an Italian maggot rain here, I agree. I'd really like to know what it is with vomit and maggots in this type of magic fu movies. I always pictured black magic as being more pleasant to the magician.
Anyway, this is one of the best films to destroy innocent brains. (I guess that's my version of a recommendation.)
It's funny because the plot
It's funny because the plot is pretty simple, but the way the film goes about telling the story is bound to kill a few brain cells.
Maybe the black magic is so unpleasant because it's a way of saying "Don't try this at home, kids, because it sucks!"
Yeah, you're obviously right
Yeah, you're obviously right regarding the plot. It's the "just throw everything in" school of filmmaking without a script, I'd wager. Then, add maggots. (Working without a script was something happening in Bollywood quite often too, I've learned).
I got my problems with maggots, worms, etc, so this is a great way to desensitize me.
I would think it would be
I would think it would be cheaper to throw a lame script together than to try to wing things on the shoot, but what do I know. A lot of films do seem rather made up on the spot. I'm told that Uwe Boll's Tunnel Rats didn't have a script, which should surprise no one.
I'm betting half of Wong Jing's movies had no script, or he scribbled them down on a cocktail napkin.
Takashi Miike does improvise
Takashi Miike does improvise a lot too - if you believe what I've read in some interviews, it helps him avoid getting bored.
Wong Jing probably has a horde of monkeys chained to typewriters.
There are a few very talented
There are a few very talented directors that work without a script, which is a different sort of thing. And some improv can be a very good thing. I'm not sure if it helps or hurts Miike, but then I'm not sure which bits of his films are improvised. Writing small details might not be his strong point anyway.
Wong Jing does actually farm a lot of his work out from what I hear, and from the quality it could be hordes of monkeys. He's a one-man Nollywood.
We are rather unfair to those
We are rather unfair to those poor monkeys, now that I've slept over it.
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