The Boxer's Omen

I've seen a lot of freaky Asian cinema - and many of the strange horror/black magic stuff from the Phillipines and Indonesia makes your jaw drop but I must say, BOXER'S OMEN (or MO)has to be one of the weirdest if not THE weirdest films I've ever seen. There is a plot but it almost doesn't matter - just the mind-blowing action sequences are enough for you and your like-minded friends to enjoy. Demon bats, spiders, eels emerge from people's mouths, strange insects burrowing into people's openings, alligator's being cut open so a corpse can be laid inside to bring the dead soul back, man oh man. Now most of the effects are really cheesy and laughable but hey - this is almost 25 years ago! Then again, some of the effects are very EFFECTive - enough to make you gasp, while as I said, many will make you howl with laughter. Produced by The Shaw Brothers, who have made legendary kung-fu movies and such horrid big gorilla movies like Mighty Peking Man totally deliver the goods with this fun trainwreck of a movie - it's like David Lynch meets John Waters meets the Mystic Of Bali. The new DVD release is great - the print is spotless.

Unless you have spent your life watching Asian horror films I doubt you've seen anything like this. This is one of the most mind blowing or mind bending films ever made. You will marvel at the bizarre twists and turns this film takes, not to mention the on the cheap monsters, full frontal nudity and magical confrontations.

The plot has a young Chinese man seeking revenge on a Thai boxer who attacked his brother after a fight and broke his neck. Heading to Thailand he ends up falling in with a band of monks who need the young man to help fight an evil wizard who has killed their leader just as he was about to achieve immortality. It seems the monk (who's disembodied spirit keeps appearing to the boxer) and the boxer were twins in a past life and have some connection so that what happens to one will happen to the other (a spiritual Corsican Brothers sort of thing) so the only one who can fight the evil is the boxer who agrees to become a monk so that he can save the spirit of his twin and his own life. What follows are a series of would be gross out sequences as the boxer fights the evil wizard, takes on the Thai boxer who paralyzed his brother and so much more. Wow.

Good looking, but with special effects that are a bit silly (when they aren't employing real animal offal) this is a movie that will make you laugh at and with it even as its bending your mind. This is a one of a kind movie that mixes up a variety of genres into a truly unique blend (you may have seen similar things before but not all in one movie). It's a serious story but with the presence of mind not to take itself too seriously. Clearly it knows the effects are less than stellar and it uses that to its advantage by playing those scenes a bit light hearted as if to say "we know they're cheap, just go with us". And you will want to go with it since the film's anything can happen attitude makes this a one of a kind viewing experience.

See this movie. If you like action films or horror films I'd give this film a try. Those looking for unique cinematic experiences need to put this on their must see list

I reckon that if I were to ever try and compile a Top Ten list of the craziest Hong Kong films ever made, it's almost a dead cert that The Boxer's Omen would be in there somewhere: the film is bats••t bonkers from start to finish. I doubt that a mere written description of the weirdness on display could ever do the film justice, but here's my best shot....

Chan Hung is a Hong Kong boxer who travels to Thailand to avenge his brother, who was crippled in a fight with unscrupulous opponent Mr. Bu-bo (played by martial arts movie legend Bolo Yeung, who rarely fights fair in his films). After agreeing to a boxing match against Bu-bo in three months time, Chan visits a Buddhist temple where he is drawn into a battle with an evil wizard who has used his dark powers to prevent the local abbot from achieving immortality.

The supernatural skirmish that ensues sees the wicked magician using some bizarre techniques to try and gain the upper hand against Chan, including summoning killer bats from the eye sockets of crocodile skulls (which also come alive), using rat blood to bring a skeletal bat back to life, cutting off a chicken's head to perform a spell, conjuring up a flying alien head from a gloopy mess of puke, and ultimately removing his own noggin from his shoulders to launch a last-ditch attack. It's all for nowt, though, 'cos the wizard loses the fight when sunlight makes his head dissolve.

After all of that, the film gets REALLY strange.

A triumphant Chan arrives home to find his girlfriend in the shower and joins her for some soapy fun; unfortunately, this spot of impromptu sex saps him of his powers, which isn't great news for the guy when three more evil wizards start to cause him trouble. They use a dead crocodile to give birth to a naked witch that blinds Chan during his bout with Bu-bo and who attacks him while he is in Nepal trying to find a relic that can end the evil once and for all. There's also something about an extract from a 1000 year-old fungus smeared with honey that can make him invincible. Oh, and the witch has her skin pulled off by a dead lama and gives birth to the three wizards (wrapped in cellophane?!?!) who then sacrifice themselves to create an army of miniature one-eyed dinosaurs with crazy hair (I'm sure I've missed a lot of other equally insane stuff out, but that should be more than enough to give you an idea of just how bizarre the film is).

The special effects used to realise all of this are undeniably cheap and unconvincing, but their shonkiness only adds to the fun. I rate The Boxer's Omen 8/10 purely for being such a relentlessly absurd—and, as a result, hugely entertaining—piece of Asian excess.

A shady Chinese boxer gets caught up in a web of fate, buddhism and black magic when he's in Thailand to avenge his brother who was crippled in a dirty fight with a thai boxer. It turns out in a past life he was the twin brother of a enlightened buddhist monk, who is now preserved in a state between life and death after being poison-spelled by a powerful black magician who wanted to stop him to reach full enlightenment and eternal life. Only the power of Buddah stops the semi-dead monk's body from decomposing, and since their fates are linked from previous lives, when the monk finally decomposes the boxer will die too... a horrible, messy death! So the boxer has to become a taoist monk and beat the black magician to break the poisonous spell and save his life and the eternal life of his ex-twin brother (are you confused yet?). But the black magician has a few cards up his sleeve too... or rather decks and decks of 'em to! The final battle between good and evil that takes place is in an inferno of laser beams, crocodile carcasses, weird magic, maggots, bats, magic relics, devouring of disgusting foods, adult baby birth, monk chanting, puke eating, monsters etc. etc. etc... You could go on and on and on!

At the risk of sounding like a fashion-blogger: GAH! OMG! I can't believe I haven't seen this before! All I can say is do believe the hype because this is an amazing slice of HK black magic-weirdness. And best of all it's not only "so weird it's good" like movies like Devil Fetus or Wolf Devil Woman, it's actually a really good, original, well-crafted weird film with good actors, production values, lots and lots of imaginative effects and impressive trippy cinematography... visually it looks nothing else! All the actors work fine but extra credit goes to the guy who played the black magician (he's sort of like an though-to-be harmless, half-crazy old hobo who gets sudden outbursts of extreme anger) - best voodoo-style screen black magician ever! Genius! Not a guy I would let anywhere near a chicken farm though... A question: Did HK producers hire their cast at the geek section at their local freak show or was it considered a normal thing to eat maggots, kill animals and puke live barracudas (!) in Hong Kong movies?

Even though I didn't find it scary (a little bit disgusting maybe) I had WILD nightmares about witches and black magic all night tonight. I even woke up at five in the morning scared as hell, decided it was too good to miss and fell right back to sleep. It was like the film's sweetness continued in my dreams.

Sorry catholicism, paganism, old school (pre-LaVey) satanism & Jewish mysticism - close but no cigar, buddhism is now the coolest religion on the block. An absolute must-see!

This one's definitely one to see, just to say you've seen it. That's not to say you won't get something out of it, but it's weird… it's tremendously weird! It starts off predictably enough, with a revenge flick set-up, but soon goes off on superbly bizarre tangents involving flying heads, automaton Buddhas and tons of maggots and oodles of vomit. It seems that anything to do with magic also involves maggots and vomit.

A word of warning to people - like me - who like to try to psycho-analyse weird films, books etc.; don't try. Your head will hurt. The best thing to do when watching this, is just to let it wash over you.