The Boxer’s Omen

If you’re seeking out the indescribably weird, The Boxer’s Omen is a must-see. An insane Hong Kong cocktail of disgusting Thailand black magic, Buddhist spirit-fu, and a bit of martial arts, movies just don’t come much weirder than this one.

When Phillip Ko's brother's is crippled in a kickboxing fight against none other than Bolo Yeung (the heavily muscled bad guy from Bloodsport), it's only natural that Ko swears revenge and challenges Bolo to fight again in 3 months.

You're probably thinking that this sounds like a very standard martial arts film setup, because it does. That's not at all how the film plays out, however, because Boxer's Omen is one of the strangest films you're likely to see. Instead of training in kickboxing or kung fu, the endlessly whining Ko ends up becoming a Buddhist monk and getting a crash course in spiritual warfare. And he'll need it to fight off some of the craziest black magic attacks around.

Bat puppets, crocodile skulls that attack like Hungry Hungry Hippos, maggots, vomit, more maggots, skeletal bat puppets, more maggots, flying heads with entrails, more vomit, human brain martinis, robot Buddha statutes with glowing neon spears and throwing stars… and a group of henchmen that revive their evil wizard leader with by stuffing his corpse into a dead crocodile filled with maggots (of course) and then feeding his corpse a load of vomit. Have I mentioned that this movie contains a lot of maggots and vomit? Bringing your dead wizards back via maggoty crocodile apparently has the side effect of changing their sex, too. Don’t ask me to explain this or anything else that happens in Boxer’s Omen.

Philip Ko, super monk, will still have to kickbox Bolo Yeung along the way. So you’ll get a little more Thai kickboxing/kung fu along with your flying heads, bat puppets, robo-Buddha, and all the other things that are liable to make your brain melt. Just don’t expect to see a lot of Bolo or martial arts, as the emphasis is placed firmly on the bizarre and magical.

For its sheer madness, Boxer’s Omen is recommended to anyone who has read this review and thought “Wow, that sounds like something I’d like to see!” You know who you are. Everyone else will probably want to steer clear of a movie that spent a large chunk of its budget on maggots and things to regurgitate.