Peacock King

I sat down here in 2021 to watch the 1988 movie "The Peacock King" (aka "Hung cheuk wong ji") without ever having heard about the movie, much less knowing about its existence. But a chance presented itself for me to watch it, so of course I took the opportunity, especially with this being a Hong Kong movie.

Plus, the movie also had Biao Yuen on the cast list, so I thought that I would at least be sitting down to watch something adequately entertaining.

Turns out that "The Peacock King" wasn't particularly entertaining. Sure, it was watchable, but it was hardly an alluring movie, nor was it a particularly enjoyable movie.

The movie faltered with a less than mediocre storyline and having characters that were particularly bland - if not downright pointless at times. So it was hard to submerge myself fully into the story and enjoy it.

It should be said that the pacing of the movie was fair enough, but the storyline just didn't really bring enough contents to the table to make it full-out appealing and interesting.

If enjoy Hong Kong movie, then "The Peacock King" is not the best that the Hong Kong cinema has to offer. And taking the movie's age into consideration, then there are far more enjoyable movies from the late 1980s available.

My rating of "The Peacock King" lands on a less than mediocre four out of ten stars.

This was one movie where acting of Hong Kong actors and Japanese actors interaction went extremely smooth. Usually in HK movie made in Japan have HK actor doing lion share of the dialog, and Japanese actors are relegated to small roles where they speak only few simple Japanese words. Not this movie. It's amazing that the actors just went playing their role as if it was done in their native language, and somehow it all looked natural.

When you look at this movie its really difficult to tell who's the Japanese actor and who's from Hong Kong. Genetically, all Asians must be pretty close to one another.

In Cantonese version Yuen Bao is the main character, but in the Japanese version Hiroshi Mikami is the main character. They wrote the script very cleverly that the two characters are interchangeable.

Based on a comic by Makoto Ogino, Peacock King, or Kujyaku Oo is a good translation of the original comic into a movie. The original comic's ordinary person, or situation suddenly morphing into a demonic entity is also translated well into this movie.

I liked Narumi Yasuda's acting as a department worker suddenly finding herself embroiled in the world of Vajirayana Buddhism vs demons of the underworld.

World looked really peaceful and healthy in Japan around the time this movie was made. It truly was the best of times.

Really well made movie of its kind. It's a treat to watch.

Yuen Biao is a great, underrated martial artist, and personally I prefer to see him fighting against human opponents with his body (which he does ONLY ONCE, after a full hour, in this film) rather than weird stop-motion animated creatures with supernatural fireballs (which he does a lot more often here). The ambitious, large-scale special effects and sets of "The Peacock King" are worth seeing (even if they show their age sometimes, and they're not as good as those of the same director's "Seventh Curse"), and when the Hell King himself appears at the end, he looks pretty impressive. But the story, which has Biao as a sort of adventurer-exorcist-demon hunter who tries to prevent the end of the world with the help of his equally skilled brother, is just incomprehensible claptrap. (**)

A lot of people seem to misunderstand this type of film. It is fantasy, based on a famous Japanese Manga and various Japanese legends. It was very popular in Japan (making a huge star of Gloria Yip in this her first film), average in HK and poorly received in the rest of the world. Glad as I am to see it in such a good print I was surprised HK Legends released this film above others (like Pedicab Driver, still not released). It is not a straight kung fu film and to expect protracted one on one human fight scenes is to miss the point of such a film. Enjoy it for what it is, fantasy with reasonable (for the time) special effects and Yuen Biao as an actor.

Despite reasonably pitiful special effects, this was still quite an entertaining martial arts movie. Quite a good amount of fighting, acceptable acting and an unremarkable plot, this was an acceptable way to pass the time.

If you like Yuen Biao or Hong Kong martial arts movies, you will probably get enough entertainment out of this without being blown away. The first time I saw this I think I must have been pretty tired as I fell asleep. The second time it seemsd a lot better...!!

I think it deserves a 6 out of 10 which is pretty good going.