Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: The Boxer's Omen

Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. This is Rob Lamb, and oh, we have a weird one for you here today. This is gonna be last year's episode from 9-19-2025 on the deliriously weird Shaw Brothers film, The Boxer's Omen, full of just grotesque black magic and just so many mind-bending shenanigans.

Let's go ahead and jump right into it. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema, we are going to be talking about the 1983 Hong Kong action horror film, The Boxer's Omen, directed by Kwee Chee Hung. This movie is a lot of things. First of all, it is just a lot. Through one lens, it is an action-packed martial arts revenge film. Through another, it is magical insanity, just an overwhelming storm of rituals and magical items being combined, magical recipes, necromancy. You've got creaky bat skeletons, needle-nosed tarantulas, red devils, skin balloons, crocodile skulls, rotten guts, bikini mummies. Just all kinds of stuff. Basically more unhinged sorcery, slop gore, and wizard battles than you could imagine being crammed into a single film.

That's right. It's pretty wall-to-wall. And the connective tissue in there is....

No pun intended.

No pun intended. When the film isn't being just absolutely crazy, there's some very well-crafted connective tissue there. that I think also adds to the weird feeling you get watching this picture. Yeah.

Well, I was going to say, I wonder if this is what you're alluding to through yet another lens. It's a kind of interesting exploration of like Buddhist monastic piety and the quest for immortality. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't think now to be clear, you're not going to learn much about Buddhism, uh, watching this picture, but as we'll point out, there's some very nice locations here. There's some, some nice, almost documentary-style scenes of, like, street processions and normal people going about their everyday business in Nepal and in Thailand and also in Hong Kong, which, you know, can kind of, like, provide this real-world setting that really works to make all the crazy stuff feel like a real injection of another world into ours.

Yeah, yeah, that's right. Though I also want to acknowledge that what this movie is mainly known for, which is just wet madness. Uh, it has, it has a reputation among the midnight movie crowd for being an exercise in extremes. It's kind of like, Oh, you like Hong Kong horror movies. I have got one. You're not ready for, uh, and maybe you're not ready. I would not recommend as I told, uh, I watched this one first. And as I told Robin JJ, uh, I would not recommend watching this while you're eating, though I think maybe you did anyway.

I ate during part of it and JJ ended up eating during part of it.

That could be a bad move depending on how strong your stomach is. But I would recommend watching it to some extent if you have a tolerance for this sort of thing, at least, because it is one of the most amazingly, stupendously bizarre and remarkable films I've ever seen.

Absolutely. It is pure magic. And it's fitting that we say that because the film's original title is Mo, which just means magic or devil and can certainly mean dark magic, depending on the context. We get to see both light and dark magic here. Mo is also part of the word mogwai, just to give it a little more clarity there.

Oh, I see. Did you have a note is like the character, the Chinese character Mo is the thing that appears at the beginning of the film?

It is. And I think it's really interesting here. And maybe Mandarin readers can break down what's happening here a little bit. But we yeah, they're going to they're going to put up the kanji for Mo, but they kind of roll it out in three phases. And so initially the character that is added is the character that means ghost character. And then the rest of the character is added that spells out the full title, Magic. So I don't know if a native Mandarin reader would interpret that as ghost magic. Does that affect the title of the movie as you read it? I guess we sometimes have things like this in English language titles for pictures where it looks like it's going to spell one thing and then it spells another, but I don't think I'd seen

this done before, you know, like a Chinese or a Japanese film.

Yeah, that is interesting. But it's also interesting just thinking about the title being in one sense magic or, you know, sorcery, enchantment, whatever this refers to. Because that is like actually the main theme of the movie. And so in English, we've got this title, The Boxer's Omen. which paired with the opening scene makes it seem like this movie is going to be about kickboxing, which is a real bait and switch.

Yeah, yeah. It does seem very concerned with kickboxing for a little bit there, but then really goes off the cliff here into realms of magic and demons and sorcery and all sorts of gross and mind-bending things that are pretty far removed from Kicks to the Head.

Not only that does it, it not only moves mainly away from the kickboxing plot, it literally like forgets to conclude the kickboxing.

Yeah.

There's a kickboxing thread running through. It's like a revenge thing. And it never, it never finishes. We never get the final showdown. Yeah.

We were, we were joking about this off mic that perhaps Shaw brothers came to, uh, uh, to the director, uh, and said, Hey, we want you to make a kickboxing movie. And he's like, got it.

Yeah, this is about as much about kickboxing as The Shining is about hotel maintenance.

Yeah, what if they had called The Shining the hotel manager?

But I like the way in which this movie is about magic. It's like there's a healthy balance of treating magic as On one hand, of course, just an object of absolutely insane spectacle and exploitation, but then also as an object of what feels like genuine respect?

Yeah, yeah. The magic systems in this film are fascinating. Like, this movie takes its magic seriously. We've all seen movies where evil wizards dabble in necromancy. And I was thinking about this, too. A lot of people, I think, play Dungeons & Dragons, and you know there's spell components in there. And...

Your character is supposed to wave their arms and say certain things. But we often just skip over all that and say you cast a fireball. And that's the way movies sometimes do as well. This movie does not. There's almost really like a hypnotic, ritualistic way that especially the dark magic spells are presented. And in general, like the light and dark of these different magical schools is just, man, it's just so well executed here.

It's almost more focused on the rituals that evoke the magic than on the magic effects themselves.

Yeah, yeah. And the way that the spells are generated tell you a lot about the practitioner. So the Buddhist magic is the pure expression of noble virtue, while the black magic is the exact opposite. It's just pure degeneration, madness, and self-destruction.

Yeah.

In the same way that the Abbott is on the verge of achieving enlightenment and immortality through righteousness and equanimity, the wizards in the picture seem to be doing everything they can to just kind of like bottom out as if they're not only, you know, plunging into the hells, but doing everything they can to accelerate their descent so they can like blast through the floor and come, come out the other side in a kind of perverse counter enlightenment. Yeah.

Yeah. In more than one way, I noticed this, the bad wizards in this movie, uh, practice magic and do their rituals. Not with the kind of scary solemnity. We're used to seeing Satanists do their stuff in the movies where it's like, Oh, you know, no, no, no. In the inferno. So being very serious while they're lowering the dagger, like in a, what was it? We just empire of the dark. It's not like that at all. It is a, they basically have two modes of ritual. They have depraved chaotic frenzy. And then they also have, Impatient annoyance. I made the comparison. I was going to talk about this later, but there's one part where we see the first main evil wizard doing a bunch of rituals when he's trying

to get a bat to revive after it has been destroyed. And he's talking at the ritual like somebody talks at their car when they can't get it to start. It's just this familiar, impatient annoyance, not somber Satanism with chanting.

Yeah. And at times there's also a detached defilement to what they're doing. You know, it's like they're doing like really gross and debased things. But it is it is also just kind of like what they do. And, you know, it takes hours to pull this off, but it's a these are necessary steps in order to achieve their sorceress.

Goals yeah that's more in the chaotic frenzy era because they're just frantically kind of I don't know picking picking up guts and chewing them and cutting things off of animals and chewing them and spitting them out and cutting things open and it seems half the time like they're barely paying attention to what they're doing.

Yeah Now, the magic systems that are depicted in the film, they seem to have many connections to magical traditions in Thailand and East Asia, real or attributed. And to be clear, in the case of black magic, as we've discussed before, we're certainly not always talking about practices that were ever necessarily practiced, even by a thin minority of people. But, you know, you end up with these tales about these sorts of things, these sorts of spells that the dark wizards and witches engage in. Right.

A lot of times what we might mean by calling something authentic, culturally authentic evil sorcery does not mean it's what people, what like sorcerers of that culture actually did. It's what people of that culture actually thought sorcerers did. Right.

And then you have levels of like, what did outsiders and foreigners think about the things that they heard about magical practices, real or imagined? And then there's in this exercise, how is all that amplified through the lens of exploitation cinema? Because this is exploitation cinema, to be clear.

That's right. I feel like with this one, maybe we should start with the plot summary at the top, because in the plot section, we're probably just going to talk a lot about these wizard battle scenes and the rituals. So the plot basically takes this form. A Hong Kong criminal named Chan Hung is drawn into a quest for revenge against a cruel Thai kickboxer who paralyzed Chen Hung's brother with an illegal strike during a match, actually after a match was over. And then at the same time, he is drawn by dreams and visions to a Buddhist monastery in Thailand where he discovers that he has a spiritual connection to the recently deceased abbot of that temple, a The abbot was a powerful and holy Buddhist monk

who died in the middle of a feud with a clan of evil sorcerers. Chan Hung discovers that in order to both avenge his worldly brother and protect the immortality of his spirit brother, the abbot, and then finally also to protect himself, because we learn that his fate is linked to the fate of the abbot, he must renounce his hedonistic life of crime, shave his head, and become a monk. And this practice of piety and self-discipline and self-denial will allow him to gain supernatural strength to fight his enemies, both physical and magical. And then from this ensues a massive series of wizard battles and escalations of wicked enchantment. Along the way, Chan Hung faces doubt, weakness, temptation,

and setbacks. Though actually those are kind of limited in scale. Like we get those concentrated in very specific moments in the film. But it ends with a sorcerer showdown in a Buddhist temple in Nepal. So stupendous that I think many viewers will probably not even notice that the movie forgets, as we said earlier, to tie up the kickboxing revenge plot.

As you speculated, Rob, I mean, you almost wonder if the Shaw brothers, you know, were like, we need a kickboxing film. And that was just the price of admission to get this film financed. But once the wizardry begins, like why settle for anything less? Do we really want to end this film with a kickboxing conflict as the final confrontation when we could have a demoness giving birth to plastic bags full of eyeballs that turn into putty mummies that cut themselves open and cut their own fingers off to bleed on each other and turn into eyeball dinosaurs?

Exactly. Yeah, I don't think anybody's left wondering exactly how the kickboxing resolved itself. All right, well, like we said, this one is a film that certainly has a reputation. It's been a very popular midnight movie for quite a while, so you almost can't provide an elevator pitch for it. It is the boxer's omen, and it casts a long shadow.

But I would say, you know, one man is about to be sucked into a world of black magic and vengeance. That's really all you need to know. The rest is more of a, It's more about sensation. Yeah. Let's listen to just a little bit of the trailer audio. Though this is one we're just going to dip in and out of it because the trailer is mostly sound effects.

But maybe you'll get just a little bit of a sonic vibe here. All right. Well, if you would like to go and watch The Boxer's Omen before proceeding with the rest of this episode, it is available. I watched it on the Image Entertainment DVD, which I believe came out in 2007, and I rented that from Videodrome here in Atlanta. It was also released on Blu-ray in the Shawscope Volume 2 box set, which actually seems like it might be the best presentation of the film, with extras, but you have to buy the entire 10-disc set to get your hands on it. There's even a commentary track by the late critic Travis Crawford on there. Though I believe JJ was telling us that you can also stream this from Arrow via Arrow's online streaming presence.

And to be clear, the box set you're talking about there is the Volume 2 Shaw Brothers collection from Arrow Video. Because there are also some Shout Factory Shaw Brothers box sets. And I was looking at their Volume 2. That's not the same thing.

Yeah, make sure you get the right one. I mean, even if you make a mistake, you can end up with a whole bunch of Shaw Brothers pictures, which, you know.

Probably a good time.

It's a pretty good time, yeah. But yes, I believe it's volume two that has the boxer's element on it. It is. All right, well, let's talk a little bit about the people behind this picture and in this picture. All right, let's start at the top with Kwechi Hung. The director, also the story credit, and he did the special effects. He lived 1937 through 1999. Hong Kong movie director, active from 61 through 1984. So Boxer's Omen is his penultimate film and his final horror movie. He directs just one more film with the same screenwriter as this picture, an action comedy titled Misfire, before he apparently immigrated to or re-immigrated to the United States. I was more on that in just a minute here. But he apparently ran

a pizza restaurant in California for the remainder of his life. I have so many questions about this pizza restaurant, but I wasn't able to find out much about it. I was even looking up interviews with his son, Ming Beaverquay, who is an American film producer. In fact, he was an associate producer on the Meg movies, the recent Giant Shark movies.

Oh, the ones with Jason Statham.

The very ones. But he didn't really get into it much. But I mentioned re-immigrated because apparently Ming's grandfather attended Cornell, and he says graduated in 1922, worked in Detroit in the 1930s, and then went back to China during the Second World War. So I don't know. I found that interesting.

So from what I understand, Kui Chi Hung was not originally... best known for making, like, horror or supernatural films, right? I mean, this was some of his later work, but early on he made a lot of, like, crime dramas and.

Stuff like that. Yeah, he did a lot of different stuff, but he's probably best known internationally for this late career period when he did a lot of black magic films. Mostly in the 1980s, playing off a tradition that was kind of popularized in the 1970s by the likes of oily maniac director Ho Ming-Hua. who we discussed this film previously on Weird House Cinema. This is a film from 1976.

But Kwechi Hung takes things to just new, dizzying heights, obviously. So in addition to The Boxer's Omen, these black magic films include 1980s Hex, 1980s Hex vs. Witchcraft, 81's Corpse Mania, 81's Bewitched, to which this film I've seen sometimes described as kind of a sequel, 82's Curse of Evil, and 82's Hex After Hex. Obviously, these are all English titles, and one can generally assume that the actual Chinese titles were maybe a little less silly sounding. He also directed some horror films in the 1970s, 73's The Bamboo House of Dolls, 74's Ghost Eyes, 74's The Killer Snake, 75's Fearful Interlude, and 76's Spirit of the Raped. But he also directed several action films, including... 1980s Killer Constable, generally

considered his only Wushu film, and he also directed the 1974 serious crime drama The Tea House, and 1976's The Bod Squad, which is a kung fu sex comedy. Nice. So a popular and obviously daring visual Shaw Brothers director here. But it's easy to focus on the crazy visuals in a film like this. But he also valued great locations, which is something we see in The Boxer's Omen, as well as our lead character travels to Thailand and Nepal.

And often he would have subtle nods to the actual lives of common people, which we see here as well. Again, almost giving it a kind of documentary vibe in its real world moments. And I'm to understand in his other films, he also tackled to varying degrees the subject of corruption, police corruption and so forth. And yeah, but before he died, he apparently immigrated to the United States and ran a pizza parlor. So. Again, I wish I could find out more about that pizza parlor, but it remains a mystery.

All right, moving on to the screenplay. The screenplay is credited to On Setso, who lived 1927 through 2021. His other writings include Killer Constable, Corpse Mania, Bewitched, 82's Buddha's Palm, and also Curse of Evil. Obviously, these two work together quite a lot, but Setso's was in general just a very prolific writer. On the Hong Kong movie database, he has something like 259 writing credits.

Wow, that's a lot.

All right, getting into the cast here. Again, our main protagonist is Chan Hung, played by Philip Ko. Philip Ko lived 1949 through 2017. Hong Kong actor, stuntman, and director, active from 1970 through 2006. He has an uncredited guard role in 1973's Enter the Dragon. which this is not surprising. I think it's often the case when you look at Shaw Brothers pictures, like everybody has some connection to Enter the Dragon, even though Enter the Dragon was not a Shaw Brothers motion picture. I believe that was a Golden Harvest picture. But anyway, Philip Coe, his other acting credits include 84's The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, 87's Eastern Condors, and 88's Dragons Forever. He was also in 83's Seating

of a Ghost, 86's Magic Crystal, and 85's Ninja Terminator, starring Richard Harrison, who we just talked about, played the lead cultist in Empire of the Dark. Right. Philip Coe worked with such Hong Kong greats as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung. His directing credits include 1980's Killer Romance and 92's Hard to Kill, starring a young Robin Shue of Mortal Kombat fame. Oh, yeah. So he often played villains and was married at one point to Japanese actress Yukari Oshima, who appeared in a number of Hong Kong and Filipino pictures, including 1991's Ricky O, The Story of Ricky, in which he plays one of the Gang of Four.

May come back to that movie someday.

Yeah, it's a connection from one notoriously bloody picture to another. Okay, so Chan Hung is helping out the Abbott. I think we've established that. The abbot in question here, the one that he is connected to, that they are like reincarnations. No, they're twins in a previous life. Yeah, that's right. We're going to find out. This abbot is played by Elvis Su Kam Kong, born 1961. Hong Kong actor whose other films include 83's Shaolin and Wu-Tang. This is indeed the picture that's one of RZA's favorite films. 1986 is The Seventh Curse. 89's The Iceman Cometh. I've seen that one.

I believe that one has a lot of swordplay in it. 1996's Viva Erotica and 2013's The Grandmaster. Now, we have multiple dark wizards in this picture, and I had a hard time nailing down exactly which character was which and who played each character. I was working off of the Internet Movie Database as well as the Hong Kong Movie Database.

But for this movie in particular, we don't necessarily have the names of the characters or even a character description entailed as well.

I think most of the characters, we never learn their name. The movie never says.

This is not that sort of movie where you get to know each and every dark wizard. I was really intrigued as well by a character that pops up pretty late in the picture, a sorceress or demoness that is summoned or resurrected. And I believe, I really had to hunt around for this one, but I believe she's played by someone named Xiao Yanlin. But this is a case where we have no idea when she was born, no biographical data about her, and I think this was her only credit. But still, very memorable, sexy, demonous role, as we'll describe later on in our plot summary.

This is the character who the parental guide on IMDb warns us that she is underdressed for entering a temple.

Yes, yes. Among all the other blasphemous and awful things she's involved in, she is underdressed. All right. Now we are going to get to someone who is instantly recognizable, though, and I think easily the most internationally recognizable actor in this whole picture. It is Bo Lo Yong playing Bubo, the Thai boxer, getting to the boxing subplot that is pushed to the forefront by the English title for this picture.

Born in 1946. You've all seen this guy before, I think. He is also known as Chinese Hercules.

He is a mountain. This guy, this guy is a muscle man. Yeah.

Yeah. He is a beast and is like, he's kicking, like he's fast, super muscular, kicking with these legs that look like tree trunks. I mean, he's just intimidating and also has this just natural heel charisma, just oozing off of him. You can see why this guy was so successful.

In fact, in the kickboxing scene where the movie opens, I am by no means a kickboxing expert. I don't really know anything about it. But even my amateur eyes were looking at this and I'm like, wait, these two guys are in the same weight class? It doesn't look like they would be.

Yeah, Bolo is just intimidating. And if you have ever seen 1973's Enter the Dragon... Uh, Bolo is the guy who fights John Saxon's character. And you may have had similar thoughts in that matchup. You know, like, uh, John Saxon, you know, you're super cool, but there's no way you would have any realistic chance against this monster of a man.

Well, that would make more sense of, wouldn't it originally in the script that John Saxon's character dies and then they had to change it because he didn't like that?

I don't remember. Yeah, I don't know.

Maybe misremembering, but.

It's been a long time since I've seen it. And I don't know much about its, uh, you know, behind the scenes, uh, But yeah, Bolo was definitely in Enter the Dragon. His Hong Kong film credits go back to 1970 and include the 1973 film Chinese Hercules, in which he is not the star, but it was clearly promoted, at least internationally, with this title to capitalize on his screen presence. I included a poster here for you, Joe.

If you're out there listening, you should look this up as well. It says Chinese Hercules, the first and only muscle mad monster of the martial arts, the superhuman beast of the East. And then he's there's an illustration of him like, let's see, he's got like two guys in headlocks. And then there's a lady biting his leg as he with his elbows like bust down the pillars of some sort of a temple.

Oh, yeah, like Samson. He's pushing the pillars out. Is the lady biting his leg because she likes him or because she doesn't like him?

I cannot determine. And I'm not sure that actually watching the film would answer the question. But yeah, this guy was the real deal. He was a student of Bruce Lee's and obviously appeared alongside him in Enter the Dragon. Was in a ton of these Hong Kong action films. But then in 1988, he scored the main antagonist role in a little movie called Bloodsport. This is where I think most people are familiar with him from. This, of course, starred Jean-Claude Van Damme, Donald Gibb and Forrest Whitaker. And yeah, Bolo is the intimidating kickboxer that I believe, if I remember correctly, like brutally murders or injures Donald Gibb's character.

And then Jean-Claude Van Damme has to seek revenge against him.

Looking at this made me think about the possibility that some at some point in time, People have rented and popped in Boxer's Omen because they were a fan of Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. And they're like, oh, another kickboxing movie.

Yeah. Well, there's like maybe five minutes of it in the picture. And it's impressive. There's some cool kickboxing as we'll discuss. But at any rate, he'd work, getting back to Bolo here, he'd work with Van Damme again in 1991's Double Impact. And then apparently slowly retired from acting after a bit there. with his last film credit as of this recording in 2015. Of note, he also directed and starred in a film titled Bolo, playing the character Bolo.

This is 1979. I don't think it's autobiographical. I think it all just happens to come together that way.

Well, I believe Bolo is not his birth name, right? I think that's like a nickname. Am I wrong about that?

Yeah, I believe so. A lot of these Hong Kong actors, as you may have noticed, listeners, they have... like an Americanized show name on top of their actual Chinese name. Bolo's other major films include 72's Five Fingers of Death and the 1993 action film titled TC 2000, which also features Billy Blanks and Matthias Hughes from I Come in Peace.

So there's a lot of muscle in that picture.

That's the Tai Bo guy? Yeah.

Wow. All right, let's see. One more actor to mention here. because she is specifically called out in the movie databases. We have Wai Ka Man playing Chan Hung's girl. That's his girlfriend. She doesn't really have a name as far as we can tell beyond that. Much like the wizards, yeah. She is his often-naked lady friend back in Hong Kong.

Her other credits include 83's Seating of a Ghost, 85's Devil Cat, 85's Ghost Festival, and 93's Sexy Flower. All right, getting behind the scenes a little bit, there's some interesting names here. Horace Ma is credited with either art director or scenery, depending on which database you're looking at. And he was active from 83 through, I believe, 2022. And I think this was his first film. He'd gone on to win numerous awards for 2019's Shadow and also worked on RZA's 2012 passion project, The Man with the Iron Fist. Hmm. Now, we have two credited composers here. There's Chin-Yung Hsing, and then there's also Chin-Hao Su. Let's see. Hsing was active from 81 through 94, and his credits include The Seventh Curse,

Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, and Dragons Forever. His work was also used in Kill Bill. Kill Bill, of course, samples some various scores from different Hong Kong action films. And as for Sue, he also worked on some of the same films, but also worked on Human Lanterns, Seating of a Ghost and Bewitched. In general, I'd say the music here is really fun. There are a lot of like cool electronic effects, some of which were lifted. There's one particular sound that a number of you will remember from 1980s Flash Gordon. That's sort of like wow sound. That is lifted and used in this picture. And I've also read that there are some sound effects from Alien that are utilized here as well.

Oh, okay. I did not catch that, but I can believe it. But yeah, there's a lot of fun. It's a playful musical score. Like there's some wailing guitars and some funny parts. All right, you ready to talk about the plot?

Let's get into the plot.

So we already laid out a brief sketch of the plot earlier, but at the beginning of the story, our protagonist, Chan Hung, is a mid-level Hong Kong gangster. And when the story begins, he seemingly has everything a guy like him could want. He's got money, power, a beautiful girlfriend, a nice house, luxuries, and it seems like respect in the criminal underworld. He's a respected criminal.

Yeah, he has some cool sunglasses.

Chen Hong also has a brother. Um, now about the name of the brother, I was like some online synopses, like the Wikipedia page for this movie calls his brother Chen wing though. When I was just rewatching it, I noticed, I think the only time somebody said his full name in the movie, it was a boxing announcer who called him Chen Y. Um, so I'm, I'm not sure which is more right there, but, um, His brother is also quite successful in his own domain, which is kickboxing. And they never talk about this, from what I recall, but it is implied later in the film that Chan Hung himself has previously had a career as a kickboxer.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, he seems competent getting into the ring to kickbox himself later in the picture. Yeah.

So the film opens on a kickboxing match in Hong Kong with two fighters for the heavyweight championships. And the fighters are Chan Hung's brother, Chan Wing, or Chan Wai. And on the other side of the ring, a Thai boxer named Bu Bo. That's the guy played by Bo Lo Young.

Yeah, and again, just an obvious physical mismatch here. You can tell a murder is about to take place in the ring.

Yeah, so they're fighting. And I might be a little bit confused about the rules of kickboxing because in this fight, the Thai boxer kicks Chan Wing in the back of the head between rounds. while his back is turned. I was like, wait, how is that not instant disqualification? I think the ref says something like, if you keep that up, I'm going to disqualify you. It seems like one time would be instant, wouldn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. I guess as with Buddhism, we should be reluctant to, to learn too much about kickboxing from this movie. Yeah.

It seemed more like pro wrestling rules than something with line of fair competition. But yeah. Anyway, through this, uh, and through, so because he's like, you know, kicking him in the back of the head while his back's turned, and because he's just smugly grinning a lot, we get the idea that Bubo, the Thai boxer, is a bad sportsman and a bad dude. He's vicious, he doesn't fight fair, and he has no sense of honor or shame. Now, there is no magic in this scene, which is an interesting choice that the movie does not begin with a supernatural prologue or any indication of how weird it's going to get. From the opening scene, you could easily assume that this is just going to be a hard hitting terrestrial kickboxer movie. And, you know, I think it works

pretty well in that vein. Like this is a good fight scene with strong choreography. And most importantly, I think good sound effects. It has that great, uh, frequency spanning slap with every punch and kick that connects. Uh, this is characteristic. I think of a lot of the best Hong Kong action movies is they have really great fight sound effects. Uh, and that core, uh, connection sound is like a combination of a bass drum kick, a rim shot, and then a strip of wet brisket slapping on parchment paper all at once happening. Love those percussive fight scenes.

Yeah, we have really solid sound effects throughout this picture, whether it's kicks and slaps or dripping entrails and demon slime.

Anyway, the fight is quite brutal. At different times, both Bu Bo and Chen Wing are landed just disgusting hits. At one point, Bubo has a bunch of floppy pink gore tinsel hanging off the side of his head. He gets kicked in the head and it's just like, whoa, it's like his wires are coming out, it looks like.

So Chan-Hung's brother wins the fight, but after he has declared the winner, the Thai boxer becomes furious. He runs up, he sucker punches him in the back of the head again and And then when he falls down, he stomps on his body until his neck is broken.

Brutal. Brutal.

Once again, you'd think like, okay, that that's not just disqualified. Like you'd be arrested, but instead it's just kind of like, no, you're not supposed to do that. Later after the fight, we see Chan Hung in his element. He swaggers into this cool Hong Kong club that's flooded with red light. He is wearing a sleek gray suit with a pocket square and a black shirt open about four buttons down from the neck. Also sunglasses at night indoors so that he is a cool cat. So he comes into the crime den and he is addressed as Brother Hung. Chan Hung is called in for a meeting with the boss, Uncle Chi, and the boss tells him that he has to go to a 1 a.m. meeting with the representatives of a gang from the mainland. Hung agrees, and he

makes plans to have backup with weapons waiting outside the meeting place in case anything goes wrong. Well, something does go wrong. In fact, it is a trap. The meeting takes place at some kind of construction site, and as soon as Chan Hung comes in and sees the leader of the mainlanders, he's obviously like, this is not going to be a happy meeting. He takes off his sunglasses, there's a guitar wail on the soundtrack, and Hung says, you're very cocky. You just arrived and already you're fighting for territory. And I do love, by the way, the outfit of the mainlander. He's got like this cool hat cocked to the side and he's smoking a cigarette. I don't know, something looks kind of like 1920s gangster about him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a real vicious air to him.

Yeah. So the gangster says, you know, it's bold of you to come here alone. And Hung says, I've been in Hong Kong a long time. I've seen it all. But then the mainlander guy's like, bet you haven't seen this. And then from somewhere up above, he drops a burlap sack full of chopped up human body with bloody arms poking out of it. And whoops, inside the sack is Uncle Chi, Hung's boss. And then the other gang reveals that they also killed all of Hung's backup. And now they're about to kill him as well. So they like tie him up, hang him upside down by his feet and plunge his head into a bucket of water. So it's brutal. Yeah.

So suddenly we've gone from sports movie to violent crime movie. And it seems like that movie is about to end here rather quickly.

But now we're about six minutes into the film. We're about to get the first sudden intervention of magic. There is a divine interruption of this gangland execution when an otherworldly wind and an emanation of white light burst into the scene, frightening and confusing the gangsters. And then we cut away to see the source of this power. In the doorway to the warehouse, there is a bald monk naked at the shoulder but wrapped in gold robes with a gold band around his head from which dangle these two large spheres or discs on either side down below his jaw. And then in the dark all around, we can see jets of white radiant energy squirting off of him.

He almost literally looks like a lawn sprinkler of holiness.

He does. Yes.

Suddenly Chan Hung is free of his bindings. The ropes come undone. He looks around and he can stand up. And all of the rival gangsters lie dead on the ground. The apparition of the monk says, Chan Hung, you must follow me. Chan Hung asks, who are you? But he doesn't have time to figure it out. He hears police sirens approaching, so he has to flee the scene. And then he goes back home to spend the night with his girlfriend.

Yeah, and a really steamy sex scene ensues. But it's also important because it helps establish that our hero is a lover. He is a lusty gentleman. which is going to be important later on.

Yes, I think you were supposed to think back to the scene immediately when he later promises the Buddha a vow of sexual abstinence.

Yeah.

So later that night, Chan Hung has another strange vision. He is awakened from a dream to see a glowing orange symbol floating in the air over his bed. It sort of looks like a carrot symbol or like a capital letter A without a crossbar.

Yeah, and I'm not sure if it's intended to be read this way, but the symbol sort of looks like the character for Ren, which means man or person.

Also, the symbol has its own soundtrack cue. It's like a hollow rhythm beating on a metal drum. And the symbol leads Chan Hung into the living room where the TV is on. It's blasting static and filling the room with blue light. And then the vision of the monk in bodily form appears once again. He tells Hung that there's something he needs to explain to him. But the vision disappears when Hung's girlfriend walks into the room and startles him. The next day, Chan Hung visits his brother in the hospital. His brother is still in traction, covered all over with bandages like a burn victim. I don't understand why the bandages are like all the way around his head.

Yeah, it's like a cartoon level of bandaging here.

Yeah. The doctor informs them that the brother's kickboxing career is over. He's going to be paralyzed for the rest of his life. And Chan Hung is shaken and the brother whispers that Hung must take revenge for him. He wants to see Hung get revenge on the Thai boxer. So we cut right to it. Next, we're in Thailand and we see busy city streets filled with cars. You've got rivers, canals with motorboats, beautiful Buddhist temples and shrines all around. Chan Hung goes to an event where a local promoter is presenting an award to Bubo, the Thai boxer.

The gist of the ceremony is kind of like, well, they say Bubo showed the Hong Kong champion what boxing is all about. And then they say that, you know, the Hong Kong judges were biased against our guy. The fight was rigged. So the judgment doesn't really count. So we declare our fighter the winner. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a small gathering, but it looks like the local press was invited. And of course, our hero has shown up as well. Yeah.

So the MC presents Bubo with a championship belt, but before he can claim it, Chan Hung walks up and he smacks it to the ground and he starts cussing it at Bolo Young here. And they yell at each other for a bit. And then they finally agree that in three months, the two of them will fight a grudge match in Hong Kong.

And to your point earlier, it really does feel like pro wrestling at this point. Here we have our obvious heel and our obvious face here teasing the next big matchup, the grudge match.

In my English subtitles, by the way, they were calling each other Hong Kong boy and Thai boy.

Yes, same for me. So, okay, it seems like the vengeance here is off to a great start. You know, they have something on the books, so good enough.

Sure, but it's about to get more complicated, because while riding in a motorboat down the river canal after the confrontation, Chan Hong suddenly sees a familiar shape. At the peak of a roof of a Buddhist temple... He sees that glowing orange shape from his waking dream. So it's like, what's this? He has to go in and investigate. When Chan Hong approaches the entrance, a monk in orange robes greets him and already knows him by name. He says they've been expecting him. Inside the temple, we're treated to visions of altars and shrines glowing with gold and candlelight in the dim interior. And the monks all sing a hypnotic repeating chant. We will hear this chant or something like it many times in the film, and it has

a powerful effect. The way it just kind of like cycles on itself, I found it deeply hypnotic.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

And of course, these temple locations that they're using are also just so amazing here. We'll have some sets later on, but At least a number of these early interiors that we're encountering. Like these are, I believe, actual Thai temple interiors.

Well, the head monk wastes no time getting into an explanation for Chan Hung. He says, a year ago, our abbot went to Hong Kong to take care of a black magician, Mai Gu Su. Okay. And so then we see the sorcerer in question. He is getting out of a taxi cab and going into the airport. And he's not dressed like a wizard, by the way. In fact, to show that he practices black magic, he's dressed all in black. He's wearing a black shirt, black shoes, black pants, black belt, and has Elvis hair. Yes. So this guy's walking into the airport and then suddenly from behind him appears the abbot dressed in his orange robes, illuminated from behind.

So he shimmers with this pious light. And his head is also surrounded by a halo. There's a circular pattern of rainbow-colored prismatic feathers. And the abbot calls out to Maegusu, who turns and looks at him like, oh no, I've been caught. And then the abbot holds up in his hand a tear-shaped shard of mirror and then throws it at the wizard. It attaches to the wizard's forehead and immediately starts to sap his black magic and destroy his body.

So the magician starts screaming in pain, and then he starts clutching at his face, which begins to melt and turns into white, goopy paste. Green light floods the scene, and then the wizard starts exploding. Not in one big explosion, but lots of little explosions, beginning with balloons that inflate underneath his sloppy skin. And they're all over his arms and his neck and face. kind of like an infestation of boils, but they are full-on skin balloons which each blow up and pop.

There are a number of subgenres that can be applied to the boxer's omen. We should mention that one of them is body horror. There's a lot of body horror in this movie. So if that's not your thing, if you're not open to it, then I would maybe pass on this one.

Yeah. So the wizard collapses to the floor while he's popping all over, popping off. He collapses to the floor of the airport terminal and He melts some more and screams on the floor, and then he pulls himself up over the top of a bunch of orange plastic chairs, at which point he has morphed into a different form, that of a withered old wizard with long white spiderweb hair and pale skin and a big black spot on his forehead with long pointy bugle fingernails. I guess... This means that this is my Gusu's true form, and the Elvis wizard, the guy in black, was sort of his glamour spell.

Yeah, yeah, that was my interpretation as well.

The abbot, now sitting cross-legged on the airport lobby floor, is praying with hands folded, and this keeps exerting magical suffering on the wizard. And then the wizard collapses on the ground, seemingly dead, with dry plaster skin. And then out of his mouth, something begins to wiggle. It is a bat. It is a bat crawling out of his mouth, a bat that lived inside the wizard's mouth. And it's so cute. And it squeaks and flies away.

But if you think that's the end of it, it is not. One thing you'll quickly learn about this film is most pictures would leave it at bat, but not the Boxer's Omen.

No, no, we're just getting started. The abbot catches the bat in his hand. He puts the wiggling bat in his pocket and then goes back to his temple in Thailand. So, like, did he get on an airplane with the bat squeaking and writhing the whole way?

I don't know. It was a different world back then when it came to flying around.

Back at the temple in front of a shrine with a golden Buddha, he does a ritual to defeat the black magic involving a bunch of candles, a dagger, a bell, a pink flowering tree branch. This might be a cherry blossom branch. I'm not sure. But here we begin to see a symmetry. While the abbot is doing a holy ritual in his holy place, we first get a glimpse into the realm of the anti-holy, some kind of devil's temple.

Somewhere else, there is a large room filled with shelves containing clay jars. And at one end of this big room full of jars, there is a giant shrine to the demons and dealers of black magic. So we have a roaring bonfire presided over by a statue of a huge winged devil with glowing yellow eyes, four horns around a bald head. And note that the fire seems to be basically emanating from the demon's crotch. And then in front of that, four giant white statues representing Han. with curled clutching fingers, and on each hand, a statue of some kind of nasty animal. You've got scorpions, bats, spiders, and I think snakes, or maybe caterpillars. All around, there are various other implements of evil strewn about the room.

You've got skulls, daggers, and a tea kettle, I guess, for tea.

Well, you gotta have tea either way. So, yeah, this is glorious looking. Some great use of red and green gels. This looks like the most amazing Halloween decorations you could imagine. Very well done. And I could be off on this, but I think maybe each nasty animal corresponds to a different wizard we're gonna see during the rest of the picture here. But at any rate, we're about to touch base with with a related wizard to the wizard that was just murdered in the airport. This is going to be our main wizard for the picture. And then later on, we'll deal with some of his apprentices, three of his apprentices.

So four wizards remaining in this movie. Right.

So back at the temple, we see the abbot doing his own kind of magic. He's doing an exorcism of the evil magic by hammering a gold dagger into into the heart of the demon bat that he holds captive. Um, and then we see the bat at the evil shrine and green goo starts to pour out of its heart. And then the Abbott pours holy water over the captive bat.

And at the evil shrine, the bat statue dissolves and melts away, leaving only a bat skeleton behind. Then we, it's kind of like the moment where something has, something has gotten the attention of a higher up in response. Uh, Out of somewhere in the evil shrine, a being awakens. We see it first as a figure in black with glowing red eyes, then revealed to be a man wearing a monstrous bat mask with a big white wig. The figure flies across the room, takes off the bat mask, revealing that he is a man with a mustache, wearing a black headband, a red and gold mark on his forehead.

And this will be our main evil wizard for the film, or at least the first half of the film. And he looks down at the skeleton, a little bit sad, and says, how dare he kill my bat? So let the counter rituals begin. And I want to say, just by describing it, it is hard to convey the ludicrous, frenetic feeling of the scenes where the bad wizard carries out his black magic invocations and recipes. Part of the effect, I think, is the cinematography. Something feels almost in fast forward about it. Part of it is also the actor's performance.

The actor who plays the evil wizard has this uncontrollable, mischievous, satanic spider monkey energy. He's so good. And then part of it also is in the content of what he is doing, which is so off the wall. So it's like, open a jar, grab a live rat out of the jar, take a bite out of the rat. spit blood all over the bat skeleton and start screaming at it to revive, revive.

And this is the part I was talking about earlier when I was like, it's not the kind of somber reverence for Satan that you expect out of movies like The Devil's Reign or Empire of the Dark. Instead, this is a guy in a hurry yelling at his car when he's turning the key and it won't turn over. I don't know. It's a delightful choice, I think. And so the wizard gets his bat skeleton and up and walking around and he's chasing it, clicking a bone at it and, uh, trying to get it to move faster.

And meanwhile, at the Abbott's temple, while he's doing that, the bat skeleton at the Abbott's temple gets up and starts walking around too. It's walking toward the door. So the wizard is remote controlling a distant bat skeleton with his own bat skeleton. Yeah. Covered in rat blood that he spit on it.

In both cases, it's moving with kind of a windup toy. Um, yes. Uh, energy to it. And this is a, I mean, all the scenes in this movie are pretty weird. This one is weird early on because I'm like, am I rooting for the bat skeleton? The tension we're building here, I think I want the bat skeleton to escape the abbot.

And our dark wizard is like saying things like, get out of there, get out of there. There's nothing else to see. You got to get out of there. And I'm kind of like, yeah, go bat, go.

He's so annoyed though. The wizard is just like, get out. There's nothing to see. Yeah. He's trying to get it to hurry up. Fortunately, I guess, uh, from the Abbott's point of view, the Abbott catches the bat skeleton in mid escape. And then he gets out a giant Looney Tunes size hammer, like a huge mallet and smashes it.

Yeah. Just over and over again to just smash, smash, smash, smash, smash.

And the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, wizard does not like this. He says he broke my magic again. Damn. So the magic continues. The wizard starts frantically playing a reed pipe instrument like a snake charmer. He still has blood on his mouth from biting the rat, by the way. Serpents come out of several clay jars. Their tongues are flicking.

They slither on the floor. The wizard grabs them and milks the snakes for venom, which is a kind of green sour apple juice that drains into a flask. And then he opens another clay jar and pulls a head out, a defleshed skull. covered in jelly, like spam, with eyeballs and brain intact.

Oh, it's so gross. It's so gross. But it just perfectly executed. This is pure Halloween right here.

He pulls a bunch of worms off the head, breaks open the skull, revealing fresh brain, like full, fleshy, fresh brain, pours the snake venom that he just milked into the.

Brain, stirs, Yeah, scrambles it all.

Scrambles it, pours the venom slash brain combo into a clay pot and cooks it, pours out the green juice on the resulting green juice on this like white board, then gets out a sack and releases from it three tarantulas, which crawl out and drink the juice through straws. And the tarantulas, much like the bat, are sort of felt textured and look very cute. Adorable.

Yes. Yeah. Again, very much a wind-up toy sort of vibe going on here with these little creatures.

And the wizard is screaming, grant me infinite power, Lord of the Dark. And then later we see the wizard sneaking into the abbot's temple, Assassin's Creed style. There's some fence climbing and light parkour. He's a very agile wizard. And he obviously hates it in here, all these Buddhas and this holy stuff. He's repulsed. But the wizard finds the room where the abbot is sleeping. He crawls up the wall like a spider. I guess he has sticky hands.

Then he crawls on the ceiling, then releases his magic tarantulas, which descend on threads to the abbot's bed, climb on the abbot's face, and pierce his eyeballs with magic golden needles.

Yeah, and again, this is all a flashback. This is all providing a little backstory here. But it's also just a nice snapshot. at where the film's going from here. So I want to add just a general note here that part of the movie's real charm is the way amid glorious set design and lighting, we'll go from some really grisly prop use and things that might be entrails from a local butcher shop to some really cool looking animated effects. And then the use of puppetry and wind up toy effects for things like bats, spiders, skulls, and little demons. And on one level, yeah, there's, kind of a wide drift here in the quality of the effects that's one way of looking at it but there's also kind of a house-esque otherworldliness to it that can almost

be hard to explain like just a real madness to the whole affair that the wind-up toy effects kind of punctuate you know.

Yeah yeah like the the variability of the effects textures almost emphasize the unpredictability of the story and and the things that are happening.

Yeah and just like you know he goes to all these grotesque extremes committing multiple atrocities to create some sort of magic potion. Then this like obvious wind up toy creature drinks. And then we move on to the next level of the spell slash vengeance plan that's in effect. But again, I think the other way to interpret all this is that dark wizards are as crazy as they are vile. Like you just have to be completely shamelessly unhinged in order to practice these dark arts. But don't fret.

There are going to be more spells and there are going to be more spell components. Yeah.

The other thing I wanted to say about the Dark Wizard is it almost feels, I mean, they're productive. They're on this constant improvisational grind. These guys feel like, you know, get up at six and get to the dark magic immediately.

Yeah. Yeah, those atrocities aren't going to commit themselves.

Anyway, finally, we're sort of getting caught up. So back in the present, the monk finishes explaining this backstory to Qianhong. He explains that the abbot, again, whose name was Qingzhou, was about to achieve immortality.

Or as a different translation might put it, maybe like enlightenment or liberation.

But because of the poison injected into his eyes by the cursed spider's He can no longer attain that goal unless somebody breaks the magic spell. And the abbot prophesied that three months or a man named Chan Hung would come to the temple and he would be the one who could break the curse. Chan Hung does not believe it, but there will be proof. The abbot's body was placed inside a giant urn upon his death. And if there is any decomposition of the abbot's body, they will know that it was nonsense. But if the body is perfectly preserved, then they'll know it was all true. So they go to check out the urn. Some monks shatter it with big mallets, and the abbot is not rotten at all. Uh-oh, Chin Hung is now implicated. He's got to help.

Yeah, fabulous scene. I love the shattering of the great urn. And inside, yeah, the uncorrupted corpse of the abbot. Playing on very real traditions in both the East and the West of holy men whose bodies do not fully decompose. You know, also getting into traditions of self-mummification.

Also, right after this, the monks lock Chan Hung inside the room with the abbot's body. He's trying to get out, but they lock him in there. And the body starts talking to him. It says, you must be curious as to why I've summoned you here. It's because we were twins in our past lives. That's why your fate is similar to mine in this life. So whatever happens to me will happen to you.

Uh-oh.

So because of the golden needles in his eyes, if they were normal people, the abbot's body would already have decomposed and Chan Hung would already be dead because the same thing would happen to him that happens to the abbot. But the body is not decomposed and Chan Hung is still alive. And the abbot explains this is because of his practice of Buddhism. He says, I almost achieved immortality, but because I was hit with the poison spell, I couldn't succeed. But by the time my body decomposes, it will be your time of death. You can't avoid it.

So that's the setup. These two are magically linked as twins from a past life. The abbot can no longer fight this battle because he is dead, and only Chan Hung can save them both. If Chan Hung can defeat the evil magic, his life will be saved and the abbot will be able to achieve immortality. Otherwise, it's curtains for them both.

Yeah, yeah. And don't really worry about the kickboxing revenge anymore. It's less important at this point.

Yeah. Chan Hong doesn't want to hear this, of course. He cusses out the monk and he leaves. But that night in the hotel room, he has some eel vomiting issues. He vomits up a live eel in the sink. He doesn't like that. Great sequence.

Would be the most memorable scene in many other movies. Here, it can become a little lost in the shuffle. Yeah. Yeah.

So next day he's like, okay, I don't want to do that again. So he goes back to the temple and he says, I will help you fight. But then the next shoe drops. In order to have the magical abilities he's going to need in order to fight this battle, he has to become a monk. And that means shaving his head, giving up his life of crime, giving up sin and earthly pleasures. Oh no, but he does it.

And we see a ceremony where he is led into the temple complex riding on the back of an elephant with dancers marching all around. He makes an offering and he bows before the Buddha and he begins his practice. And this part of the movie is kind of like a long Buddhist monk magic warrior training montage. He goes through the rituals, he humbles himself, and even receives a new name that the monks at the temple call him Kaidibaluhu.

The training has several different things. One is enduring leeches in a river. He has to get in a river where he gets covered in leeches. And his master is like, you stay there.

This is played for laughs, by the way.

Yes, hilarious. And then there's also a scene which was so strange, but I wonder if this is based on anything real. Where he gets inside of a giant clay pot that starts to glow. The pot is covered with sacred writing. And then Chan Hung is on the inside and his hands are wrapped in ropes and the ropes go out of the pot and are held by monks all around him who are chanting. And then he is absorbed in a scripture tornado where the sacred writing on the pot spins all around him and becomes a funnel.

And then the lines of scripture flow down his arms and into his blood.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Great use of animation here. And I really think it's a great element of the film here. Yeah, with the black magic is consistently like gross and over the top and just completely mind-rending. But also the good guy magic is also so visually impressive here.

Yeah, that's right. And there is a strong, I mean, even aesthetically, the two different schools of magic really emphasize themes of like order versus chaos. Like the sorcerers are doing chaos magic. And there is something that feels very traditional and ordered and structured about the magic practiced by the monks here.

Yeah, and it's centered around language, you know? I mean, it's so orderly. I think this is a great point.

Another thing that comes is the vows. So this is an important plot point. In order to maintain purity, he must keep his vows as a monk. So he swears to follow the Buddha and do a bunch of stuff. He has to abstain from prohibited activities such as gambling, murder, sex, and drinking alcohol.

But he's up for it. He's like, let's do it. Okay.

And then the head monk after that says, so you've succeeded. You are now ready to defeat evil. It feels like it comes on so fast, but they're wasting no time at all. We cut straight to an amazing wizard battle. I'm not going to narrate this one with as much detail as the last one. Well, the last one wasn't a battle, I guess, but the last ritual scene. But I do want to mention at least some of the incredible sites and developments throughout. First of all, do you know, Rob, where this takes place? Is it in another plane of existence?

It feels like it's kind of in the middle of a void world.

Yeah, a Place becomes less important here, doesn't it? Because it's just like two magical forces doing battle with each other. It could be like basically the way it's presented here visually is one practitioner seated on one end and the other practitioner seated on the other. And magical effects are kind of going to war between the two of them.

So you could certainly interpret this as happening like within the astral plane or within the mental realm that exists between their shared minds. Or, yeah, did they go to some sort of neutral zone where it's like, okay, we have to go to the battle chamber where the wizards do get out? I guess I lean more towards the idea that it's in some sort of a zone in their head, but I don't know. You go either direction here.

So it begins when the evil wizard flies in through the night in his bat mask costume, and then he says, show me what you got. And then, by the way, the evil wizard has... ultimate warrior face paint on. It's awesome. And like purple satin suit. He's surrounded by an army of crocodile skulls, which are animated by chicken blood.

He throws chicken blood. Yeah, makes them clack and crawl around and eventually chase after a chicken carcass.

Oh, and warning to people in this scene, there is what appears to me to be probably an unsimulated beheading of a chicken. I'm not positive about that, but it looks to me like it's real, so. I don't know. You get that with some of these older movies.

Yeah. Most of the animal violence in this picture does appear to be quite simulated.

All of the other stuff seems to be fake.

Yeah, but this chicken and maybe another chicken scene are a little questionable. Well, to be clear, the other chicken is definitely dead, but also very gross. So, yeah, this is a gross movie, just to drive that home once more.

So anyway, you've got blooming red eyes out of these crocodile skulls. You've got bats in the eye holes. And then the wizard is saying, get up, attack the monk. So the bats fly at him, but he kind of surrounds himself with a magical force field that becomes a glowing hot glue trap for bats. They get stuck to it, and then it incinerates them. And then we get the evil rice. The wizard starts... throwing out handfuls of rice over the crocodile heads and saying, dark Lord grant ultimate power to this rice. And then Chan hung is attacked by a score, a swarm of animated crocodile skulls, which are chomping like wind up teeth.

Yeah. And he dispatches these by like throwing a little Buddhist ambulance into all their mouths. Yeah. So yeah, basically like each wizard is a general commanding these different magical effects against each other.

That's right. So the bad wizard is, He starts eating rotten guts and vomiting them and eating them and saying, I'm full of power now. And then there's pink vomit from a giant pot that's bubbling and becoming a green Martian head with this giant cranium and pointy ears. And this like rises up out of the pot. Where does this green Martian come from?

Words cannot describe how bizarre this point in an already just completely crazy sequence is. Like this is such an ultimate WTF moment in this film. And just my jaw literally drops at this point in the movie. And then it just keeps happening. Yeah.

And then it becomes scanners because the monk uses his scanners powers to make the green Martian head explode The wizard then pokes himself in the neck with needles and then severs his own head. And his severed head flies away from his body with arteries dangling out of the ragged neck and then attacks the monk by strangling him with the arteries. And then the monk fights back and makes the wizard's head melt with the power of a red sun.

Yeah. And then this is the finish to the match. This wizard is now for real dead.

That's right. That part is over. So Chan Hung is like after the battle, he's talking to the head monk who tells him evil is defeated. The abbot can achieve immortality and you can go back to Hong Kong. So again, it's pretty, it's like, wow, that was sudden. But as soon as he gets home to Hong Kong, Chan Hung, he like comes in through the door. He sees his girlfriend in the shower and he is overcome with lust.

And at this point, I think he was wondering, wait, do I still have to keep all those vows I made to the Buddha? Unclear. Don't know if I'm still bound by that.

I think, yeah, I mean, it's my understanding, especially in Thai Buddhism, like, you know, you can enter the priesthood and become a monk for a certain period of time, such as, like, before you become married and so forth, or perhaps later on if you're changing something up in your life, that sort of thing. So, We can't really apply some of the same thinking that we would apply to, say, Western Christian monastic traditions. So my understanding here is it's kind of like he's in the clear, right? He did the monk thing. He fought evil. He defeated evil. They told him he could go home. He is totally in the clear here to get naked with his already naked girlfriend.

Yeah. So lust wins out. He gets in the shower with her. Uh, and, uh, also there's some funny dialogue in the scene, but she, she's basically like, did you cheat on me a lot in Thailand? And he says, I was a monk for three months. And she goes, it's about time.

In the end, right? They live happily ever after.

Oh, you would think so. Uh, no, uh, they live happily for a bit. Uh, but then there is more wickedness to come. So we get a funeral for a bad wizard. I think this is supposed to be the evil wizard's body burning on a big funeral pyre.

Right, has no head.

Who's burning it? Uh-oh, we see three more wizards of the Black Magic School looking on. Are they supposed to be colleagues or apprentices of the main wizard? Maybe like underlings?

They could have even been enemies, but hey, once a holy monk takes out one of your own, that's a uniting principle. They are clearly hell-bent now on seeking vengeance against those who took out this dark wizard.

And then they're going to ratchet up the craziness. So these three, they go to a spooky house in the woods with owls hooting outside. And then from under the house, they retrieve a mummy, you know, from the mummy storage cellar. It's a wet mummy, by the way, wrapped in vines.

Yeah, it's like a bog mummy, a swamp mummy, nasty swamp corpse.

Yeah, I don't know. Do you describe what happens from here?

All right, so yeah, they really get to cooking, basically. So they don't do a lot of describing, so we just have to sort of follow along. But what they're going to try and do, apparently, is either create a body for an evil spirit to inhabit, or they're going to resurrect an older, powerful sorceress. And so what they're going to need for this, whichever route we're taking here, is they have to get that dead body from the swamp, And then they need to steal or acquire a crocodile.

And then they're going to get that crocodile corpse. They're going to put the dead human body inside the crocodile corpse, sew it up, and then all manner of depravity.

Like a crocodile Wellington.

Yes, yes. And then all manner of depravities have to be committed in order to complete the spell. Like, I mean, there are flayed human heads just hanging around, watching on... meanwhile, I guess the body is kind of like cooking inside of the dead crocodile while the three wizards conduct foul rituals and prepare quote-unquote food for the soon-to-be-revived body of the demon sorceress.

Which involves a lot of chewing up and eating disgusting, gross stuff and then either spitting or vomiting it out and then maybe another one of them eating it and chewing it up again.

Yep, in the same shot. You can't suspend disbelief on that. So it's like Yeah, they're chewing up pieces of chicken, entrails, durian fruit. I'm assuming like rotten durian fruit because new durian fruit in and of itself is perfectly tasty, if not a little fragrant. But so for these guys, normal durian fruit clearly is not going to work. This is probably something that's rotted a little bit.

So, yeah, just madness. Gross madness. Amazing. And then we see the effects of their evil work in two different intercut scenes. First of all, we've got the monks at the temple. They are preparing the abbot's body for immortality. They're covering it with gold and chanting all around it. Meanwhile, Chan Hung is, remember the kickboxing grudge match?

Oh, yeah.

It's happening. Now it's happening. He's fighting the Thai boxer for revenge. So while these things are happening, the demoness awakes. And they give her Freddy Krueger fingers, by the way. And she wakes up and they guide her over to, I guess it's supposed to be a statue of the abbot. And she pokes the eyes of the statue with her claws.

And then, oh no, that inflicts simultaneous curses. First of all, the gold falls from the abbot's corpse and seems to signal, uh-oh, he's not incorruptible anymore. He's going to decompose. And then in the middle of his kickboxing match, Chan Hung loses his sight and not only loses his sight, but acquires maggot vision.

This is so glorious because, yeah, suddenly he goes blind during the match. You know, he's having to blind punch and kick while Bolo pummels him. And you might wonder, then, as a viewer, well, what does he see? And, yeah, we get the POV shot, and it's just maggots. It's like a visor shape on the screen, and it's just maggots rolling around there. And then later on, he's going to get a backstage, like, mirror vision where he sees maggots just falling out of his eye sockets. So, yeah, there are a lot of gross worms in this movie. Yeah.

So Chan-Hung is beaten badly.

But he pulls out the victory, though.

Oh, he does? I forgot about that.

Yeah, he somehow kicks Bolo over the top rope. Bolo goes through a table.

Okay, okay.

And then our hero runs backstage with his maggot eyes. And then, you know, he looks in the mirror and he sees maggots falling out.

I totally missed that he actually beat Bolo. Okay.

So I guess maybe.

Maybe that is the conclusion.

Maybe vengeance is acquired here. I could be. Oh, okay.

Now I feel bad. I feel like I was totally wrong about the fact that it doesn't tie up the kickboxing thing because I was under the misimpression that he lost in this match because of what happened to his eyes.

Well, he doesn't get to savor the victory. That's for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I was paying attention. I guess his victory is short enough that I looked away and look back and yeah.

It's, it's easy to lose sight of the, um, the mundane plot at this point because the, the crazy magic plot is just growing in size.

Anyway, he goes back to the temple to find out what went wrong. And the monk there is like, uh, you didn't break any of your vows, did you?

He's like, no, no, of course not.

Oh, he doesn't admit to it immediately, but they will eventually figure it out with the help of a supernatural fire-based lie detector test. Um, but, uh, anyway, uh, he, uh, first, uh, the monks, they think he has still been faithful and the head monk says, don't worry, I'll, I'll arrange another duel for you. Uh, but first they're going to do a power up scene.

That's right. That's right. They're going to need some sort of extra power. Uh, and so, uh, they, uh, they go out to search for the thousand year old Ganoderma. So again, it's easy to get caught up in all the hideous rituals of the dark wizards, uh, and so caught up in it that we can forget the sublime wonder and weirdness of the Buddhist magic scenes. So that's exactly what we have here with the quest for the thousand-year-old Ganoderma. That is presumably a reishi mushroom here. It is in the genus Ganoderma. So the reishi mushroom, if you're not familiar with it, it holds an important place in traditional Chinese medicine, various other Asian folk medicine traditions.

And also in general in the world of like alternative medicine and supplements and so forth. A few years back, my wife and I prepared a tea from some reishi mushrooms that we foraged. Oh, nice.

How was that?

Very bitter. Very bitter. But it enhanced my chi, eased my spirit, and, you know, probably promoted longevity. So these are some of the ideas that are held concerning the reishi. And, you know, it's still consumed all over the world. Paul Stamets is a big fan of the reishi mushrooms. But anyway, this is our magical take on it. This is a thousand year old mushroom they're seeking out. So our hero and the current abbot, they find this ancient mushroom in a chasm of a great Buddha's eye in an underground temple.

And I have to say, this is just a fantastic set. This is not a real temple location, just an incredible set. It has this like magic flaming tree growing out of the eye socket as well. And so they kind of like rope down to it and then they draw the magic out of the mushroom by applying honey to it. And this allows the magic goo to then clear goo to drip down from the mushroom into this little amulet container.

That way our hero can use it later on when he's fighting evil.

By doing self-surgery on himself.

Yes. Yeah. He's going to have to terminate his arm in a really gross scene. So even the good magic practitioners here do get into a little bit of body horror for sure.

But also, by the way, before the duel can be arranged, the monks figure out that Chan Hung broke his vows. So that's really bad.

Yeah, they're like, you lied to the Buddha. It's some serious business. It is.

They take it seriously and they're like, no, there's nothing you can do now. You're just, yeah, too bad. But Chan Hung doesn't accept it. So he goes to the abbot, to the abbot's body, and he's like, is there anything that can be done? At first, he doesn't get an answer. And then he's like, I'll trash your temple. And he starts like smashing everything up. And finally, the abbot's like, stop throwing a tantrum. And he tells him there is one way they can be saved now. It's the only way is by if Chan Hung retrieves a sacred Buddhist relic from a temple in Nepal. These would be the abbot's ashes from one of his past lives when he was a lama there. So let's go to Nepal. Chan Hung travels by plane, lands, he gets his bearings in Nepal,

and eventually he finds this temple where the ashes are stored, but they apparently only... show up during a special magic time of day. I think maybe it's a dawn.

Yeah, where the light's going to shine through into this underground temple, and it's going to illuminate the ashes. We learn this because he goes on a tour of the temple, and there is a tour guide that's informing him, as well as there's a Western tourist lady there as well. And we get the full rundown on this place.

So he does the self-surgery. He puts the amulet inside his body. And he goes in during the off hours to collect the ashes, but he is not alone there. First of all, he deals with some magic, some magical security measures where there is like a statue at this big Buddhist shrine that starts yelling intruder alert, intruder alert, which is so good.

Yes. Yes. And then like the, the statue, the multi-armed statue comes alive. So we have like a Nepalese statue. buddhist automaton here that is going to do battle with him uh but he makes pretty short work of these i'm not sure how much of it is that you know he's just far above them at this point or maybe they didn't like the way the effects came together or we just we were running long on time here and we just needed to get to the final conflict right.

And then the evil wizard's demoness appears uh i don't know rob do you want to describe this how i don't even know how.

To begin I mean, skimpy outfit, high heels, like a crazy golden crown. She appears to have elongated arms at first glance, and I guess does, but her arms terminate in skeletal claw hands that are either extensions of her arms or being used as weapons. Anyway, a very glamorous, sexy, hellish entrance here for our final boss. Equal parts alluring and revolting all at once. And, of course, illuminated in all sorts of cool green and red gels.

Yeah, so I can't describe everything that happens in this conflict, but among other things, she shoots detachable alligator armor hands at our hero, and they grab Chan Hung's chest and grip his pectoral muscles and cut them.

Yeah. Later on, they're going to crawl around on the ground and then hold him in place. Yes. Yes.

She creates a giant crocodile that crawls on the floor and attacks him.

Yes.

He escapes the giant crocodile, but then she grabs his head with her legs. And then he is like pinned down on the ground by the hands. And then, oh God, I forget what happens after. Oh, she puts the caterpillars on him.

Yeah. So she kind of, she gives him like a thigh squeeze and like kind of shimmies around and then she stands over him. And she continues to shimmy and kind of do a little sexy dance, but then makes caterpillars rain down on him. And they crawl over his body. And then they begin to crawl into his nostrils and into his ears. So we get a little Wrath of Khan energy in this picture as well.

But then there is a kind of intervention, right, from the shrine itself because the light comes in. And it awakens the spirit of the llama. Did you understand it that way as well?

And then the llama kind of like rides down.

On like a tram, basically.

Yeah, like a laser palanquin. And interferes, like saves him from the demoness. And then the demoness battles the llama. And they have this kind of like super magical energy standoff. He wins, because she tries to wrap him up in her hair, and then he just pulls her hair and her skin off. And that causes her to then flail skinless, defleshed, and fall back onto the floor, where she begins to writhe in agony. But, oh, it is not over yet.

No, but there she looks like just one sniff of that fog, and you're inside out.

Yeah, she does look like that. She looks like she's inside out. A little bit like Slim Goodbody, too. Full body Slim Goodbody. just writhing on the floor. And she begins to leak purple slime everywhere, like purple slime falling out of her body.

And then gives birth to three plastic bags full of eyeballs, which walk around on the floor and then expand and turn into putty mummies that are going, and then they turn into the three wizards. That's where they were.

Okay.

But then they produce knives and stab themselves. One of them cuts open his belly. The other two cut off their own fingers and bleed on the guy's belly. And then that turns his body into little eyeball brontosauruses that attack on the floor.

Yes, little pink demons that look kind of like brontosauruses. I've also seen them described as poodle demons. And they begin to crawl toward the llama. And I mean, at this point, we're just in such crazy town. It's almost senseless to try and make any sense out of it. This is just like crazy wizard nonsense. But my interpretation is that in this final transformation on the part of the dark wizards, it's like a last ditch effort to assume a very particular specialized range spellcasting demon form, three of them, one for each of them, that might allow them to take out their enemies. So they begin blasting their eyeball bolts at the llama. And I don't know, maybe they've got a chance, maybe they don't. But that's

not how it goes down, because the llama then causes the statues in the temple to fling their vajras, these little Buddhist thunderbolts, artifacts at the pink demons, which then cause the pink demons to explode, killing them.

And that is our final victory over evil here.

And to be clear, the pink demons very much wind up toys, getting into that wind up toy energy that we keep experiencing throughout the picture.

I don't want to, because I have to be clear, I'm not an expert in this in any way. So I don't want to oversell the cultural authenticity of the magic depicted here, but I am struck by, by how much more specifically Buddhist in flavor the magic and the magical conflict in this movie is when compared to the magic you'd see in a lot of other movies. That is often, I don't know, a lot of the specific real-world religious imagery or connections feels de-emphasized in favor of a kind of generic appeal. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I know what you mean. This is something we enjoy to a lesser extent in the Indian horror movie Paranamandir, in which they're using very Hindu iconography to overcome spirits of evil. So it is nice to get supernatural horror outside of the sort of traditional Western Christian motifs.

Yeah, that has some cultural specifics actually in it.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like with these Vajra artifacts serving as holy hand grenades to blow up the pink demons. Yes. But with this, I believe, and the movie seems to believe, the evil wizards are now completely defeated. Wizard number one, dead. Wizard number two, dead. Wizards three, four, and five, dead.

Demoness slash sorceress from beyond the grave also returned to being full dead. Yeah.

And the Abbott can at least attain immortality in which case, I don't know, maybe he could help again if more, more wizards appear. Yeah.

Yeah. We see the eyes open on the, uh, the Abbott's body. Uh, and then we, the eyes of our hero are also cured and he's able to, we actually get a nice little scene there at the end where, uh, the monks are coming in to pray in front of the Abbott's body and he gets up and he walks out the door.

Actually before the, We see him, there's like happy music playing like, oh, we finally did it as our hero is pulling needles out of his eyes.

Very long needles like, oh, yeah, supernatural needles being, you know, I don't think he's necessarily pulling them. He's kind of like magically excreting them straight through his eyelids.

Yeah.

So just a little last bit of holy body art.

Made me think of those tear-drinking moths we talked about last week for poking their proboscis into the eyeball. Okay, well, that is The Boxer's Omen.

Absolutely, yes. Sights and sounds well beyond anything you've tested. Highly recommend this one for anyone out there. Though, if you've listened to it all the way here, I think at this point either you are pretty clear this is not a film you want to see or this is a film you absolutely have to see Or I think in many cases you have seen the film, you love it, and you just wanted to hear our thoughts on all of the sheer insanity that occurs in this movie.

Overflowing with ritual madness. I wonder if I would like recommendations from listeners for movies that show not just the use of magic, you know, like people casting spells and power emanating from them that show not just the magical effects, but spend as much attention on the process of acquiring magic power or of like the recipes for spells as this movie does.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd be hard pressed to think of one. I, I mean, I'm more readily think of examples of the opposite where wizards and witches just do things and you don't really know much about the preparation that goes into them. There's probably too much of that. Whereas, I mean, really this gets down to the sort of the Shakespearean roots, right?

where you know everything that's going into the witch's cauldron.

Yeah, that's right. Actually, yeah, Boxer's Omen, in the tradition of Macbeth.

Yeah. You could also think of this as a black magic procedural. Very obsessed with all the steps that go into casting your dark, dank magics. So indeed, if you have suggestions for other examples of this, or counterexamples, write in. We would love to hear from you. We're going to close out this episode. Yeah, would love to hear from everyone out there. If you have thoughts on The Boxer's Omen, other films by this filmmaker, or just other great recommendations from Hong Kong cinema in general, write in. A reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

But on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. If you are on Letterboxd.com, find us. We are Weird House on Letterboxd. And we have a nice list there of all the movies we've covered over the years and sometimes a peek ahead at what's coming up next. Again, you can always find Weird House Cinema in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. But we also have a playlist that is just Weird House Cinema. So you can also look up Weird House Cinema wherever you get your podcasts and follow us that way as well.

Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, J.J. Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, To suggest a topic for the future or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com.

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Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: The Boxer's Omen

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