Wednesday, September 26, 2012

The Boxer's Omen aka Mo

-Reviewed by Skunkape-
aka Mo (1983) Directed by Chih-Hung Kuei
The Shaw Brothers have such a wide variety of films, where does one start? I started with the ever so popular 5 Deadly Venoms...BORING!!! So lets discuss Boxer's Omen, it delivers the goods on so many different levels. It's got gore, nudity, magic, and animal sacrifice. Don't worry though all the animals are just second rate looking muppets. This isn't an Italian production after all.
Poor Wally Gator!
 A Boxer goes to Thailand to defeat the newly named champion,a real jerk who cheated during his last match and in doing so crippled the our hero's brother. Meanwhile a monk also in Thailand is about to achieve immortality. He's poisoned by some spiders but these are no ordinary spiders, they're involved in black magic.
Web Head
The Boxer is then summoned to a Buddhist temple. The spider bitten monk tells him they are bound together because they were once twins in a former life and the monk's death will ultimately lead to the boxer's demise as well.
 Instead of a revenge film the way the first act was set up, the movie becomes more about the boxer turning monk so that he can stay alive by fighting evil forces.
A Romantic candlelight dinner.

Forget pillow pets, Skull pets!

Boxer's Omen provides great cinematography as well as non stop cheesy but always interesting special F/X.
All the religious temples, statues, and paintings make for some amazing eye candy. Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain even came to mind a few times. Another film that came to mind was Phantasm, listen closely and you can hear a sample from the movie, when the Tall Man says "BOOOOOY" and the window breaks. I heard it twice, weird huh?



some serious chanting going on

here's something you don't see every day













No comments:

Post a Comment