Chih-Hung Kuei’s 1983 flick, The Boxer’s Omen, is an awe-inducing visual treat for viewers to devour. Its diegesis revolves around a Hong Kong citizen named Chan Hung, a gangster who is supporting his brother Chan Wing as he takes on a notorious Thailand boxer named Bu Bo in the ring. While this may seem like a rather bland premise at first, it eventually serves as a macguffin for one of the most unexpected rides I’ve ever rode on in a horror film. I could do nothing but watch in disbelief, as I witnessed a film go from a cliche story about macho men booping each other to one that evolves into our main character not only morphing into a Buddhist monk, but also being randomly administered the responsibility of saving the entire universe from terror.
If there’s any reason you should spend 1 hour and 45 minutes consuming this movie, it’s certainly the astronomical mise-en-scene witnessed throughout. Words can hardly put to justice the eye-popping visuals incorporated into this film, but here is a list of just a few of the things you will be exposed to while watching. Flying heads attacking people with their detached neck arteries, a human body being mummified inside of a crocodile’s body as part of a ritual, people barfing bats out of their mouth, and plenty more. This is arguably the film’s only legitimate selling point, but my god does Kuei Chih-Hung nail it when it comes to this weirding out of the viewer. Earlier this year, I watched the movie Braindead (1992) in my horror film course, and as of right now, this is the closest any movie has ever gotten to matching/topping Peter Jackson’s own masterclass of film insanity and unpredictability.
Around 38:00, my favorite scene where this eccentricness takes place is when Chan Hung and a few other monks are conducting a Buddhist prayer session. For most of the scene, I was put into a hypnosis state by the diegetic sound of their ritualistic chant. As the chant progresses, the room starts to become engulfed in this dream-like and ominous red color that my eyes found quite satisfying to gaze at. Eventually, an apocalyptic droning sound kicks in as the power induced from the religious ritual crescendos. To close off the scene, we get one of the most incredible visuals of the entire film: words of religious text start to scroll across Chan Hung’s body as he is sitting in a now bright-red vase in the center of the room. After describing this scene, I can safely say that my words will never do this gorgeous moment of the film enough justice. It sort-of reminded me of the end of The Matrix (1999) when all of the people and walls surrounding Neo disintegrate into strings of words and coding, except I found this film’s moment to be even more awe-inducing.
Shifting our focus to pet-peeves, one complaint that I (and others) have is that this film tends to immensely drag at various points. While some of the less frenzied portions of the runtime do add additional depth to the diegesis, I still personally believe that the film could have gotten to the guts and gore at a quicker pace. In particular, one portion of the film where this blemish stands out is when Chan Hung has just arrived in Nepal, and we are forced to sit through an extremely tedious tourist trip of various parts of the country he has just landed in. While quite a few of the shots during this sequence are fruitful, it ultimately does not add any meaningful information to the plot whatsoever, and instead made me battle to stay awake while watching from my bedroom lounging chair.
The plot is also certainly not going to leave a mark on most, as it appears to just be a cliche “good vs. evil” type of story (similarly to my first blog film, Curse of the Demon). The main character’s struggle between his sinful side and his newly appointed monk persona was mildly fascinating to witness, but wasn’t enough to immerse me deeply into the film’s diegesis. In fact, I would go as far as say that there ultimately isn’t much of a message to be pulled out of this film at all. With more masterful plot development, I strongly believe this film could have been brought from a 7-8/10 showing to a 10/10 film. The pure unhinged insanity of the diegesis is fortunately well more than enough to carry this movie into its deserved cult status, so I wouldn’t harp too much on this criticism.
If you are looking for a film that will take you on a psychedelic trip like no other, then you absolutely must make it a point to watch The Boxer’s Omen. This is certainly not a film you should go into expecting a meaningful Pixar lesson to be taught to you. However, this does not diminish the value of this flick one bit. Go in with an open-mind and just let Kuei Chih-Hung drag your brain through his wacky universe of colors and abject, and you will not be disappointed. Absolutely nothing about this film makes sense, and that’s exactly why I enjoyed the hell out of it!
Nicholas DeBello – Blogger: Nicholas is a Senior at Lewis University who is currently working towards a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. After he graduates, he will likely pursue a Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Lewis University. He spends countless hours of his leisure time consuming YouTube videos and online forum posts of others reviewing/discussing music albums, films, and TV shows, which has inspired him to take his own stab at the art of media critique himself. Nicholas also enjoys going for nature walks, daydreaming, film-watching, and listening to his vinyl/CD collection in his free time as well. Some of Nicholas’ favorite films are The Silence of The Lambs, Parasite, The Truman Show, and The Thing (1982). He is also an avid fan of the television series Bojack Horseman.