THE KING BOXER is a very low budget and traditional period fu piece that offers a starring role for the eternally youthful and usually likeable Chin Kar Lok. He plays the usual vibrant young man who becomes involved in a battle for supremacy between rival kung fu schools and ends up being the one to save the day from a mega villain. The usual kind of story, then, and this one seems to hark back to the old Jackie Chan films of yesteryear; there's even a competition to climb a bamboo scaffold tower which I remember from an old Jackie movie.
KING BOXER is something of an anomaly too, if I'm honest. Whereas at the turn of the century the rest of Hong Kong seemed to be preoccupied with bright, handsome young stars in YOUNG & DANGEROUS and GEN-X COPS, or alternatively modern technology and the millennium bug in 2000 A.D., this seems to be a throwback to the old days. Maybe the 1997 changeover had something to do with that, perhaps tapping into a perceived yearning for tradition.
In any case, this is too cheap to work very well, with repetitive music sapping energy from the fight scenes and lame comedy that's among the worst you'll see in a Hong Kong movie. A lot of it feels inspired by DRUNKEN MASTER II, itself a throwback from the era, but a million times better. Chin Kar Lok does his best, but that dyed hair job does him no favours and his character is too irritating to work. There's better acting from Eddy Ko and in particular Billy Chow as the big villain; Chow hasn't aged at all since his 1980s heyday and kicks major backside throughout. A shame that the rest of the film is so sub standard, then...
KING BOXER is something of an anomaly too, if I'm honest. Whereas at the turn of the century the rest of Hong Kong seemed to be preoccupied with bright, handsome young stars in YOUNG & DANGEROUS and GEN-X COPS, or alternatively modern technology and the millennium bug in 2000 A.D., this seems to be a throwback to the old days. Maybe the 1997 changeover had something to do with that, perhaps tapping into a perceived yearning for tradition.
In any case, this is too cheap to work very well, with repetitive music sapping energy from the fight scenes and lame comedy that's among the worst you'll see in a Hong Kong movie. A lot of it feels inspired by DRUNKEN MASTER II, itself a throwback from the era, but a million times better. Chin Kar Lok does his best, but that dyed hair job does him no favours and his character is too irritating to work. There's better acting from Eddy Ko and in particular Billy Chow as the big villain; Chow hasn't aged at all since his 1980s heyday and kicks major backside throughout. A shame that the rest of the film is so sub standard, then...
