Spiritual Boxer
By Chris Hyde
November 8, 2004
From the seemingly bottomless R3 vault of the Shaw Brothers comes Liu Chia-Liang’s directorial debut, Spiritual Boxer.
Of the major filmmakers to have come out of the ranks of the Shaw Brothers studio, Liu Chia-Liang (aka Lau Kar Leung) is perhaps the most interesting of all. Though Chang Cheh’s masculine theatrics are somewhat better known (and certainly have their many charms), this director’s sense of pace and attention to feminine power mark him as a different sort of artist altogether. The son of a true kung fu master, Liu’s long career saw him move from early action choreography in the'60s for the Wong Fei Hung serial and Chang Cheh films to the directorial chair itself in the mid '70s. Once ensconced in this role, he would go on to make some of the greatest films to ever come out of the legendary studio—classics such as Executioners From Shaolin, Eight Diagram Pole Fighter, Shaolin Mantis and Dirty Ho.
Among Liu Chia-Liang’s trademarks is a care for dramatic elements that is all too rare in the martial arts cinema. Though his movies certainly aren’t shy on fights, in general they attempt to set any fisticuffs inside a well-told story that contextualizes the action. While the first hour of your typical film from this director is unlikely to be without a battle or two, it will surely also give you much more plotting and character development than your average chop socky outing. It’s clear that this is true from his very first works, as Spiritual Boxer — his debut effort — undoubtedly demonstrates that the filmmaker’s style of intimate storytelling was present just as soon as he became the man behind the camera.
As with many of Liu Chia-Liang’s movies, the tale of Spiritual Boxer begins by centering on a master/student relationship that quickly defines its central character. Following a lengthy and intense title sequence that seemingly shows the awesome martial arts power of those who practice spiritual boxing, we are introduced to a pair of wanderers who travel the countryside and make their living off their apparently mystic skills. Rather than possessing any higher power, however, these two are in fact little more than con men who use sly tricks to fool people into paying them for their act. When the old drunken head of the team is finally busted by the cops for this chicanery, the other member of the duo (a youthful Wang Yu, in a brilliant performance) is forced to go out and make it on his own.
As the story unfolds, it’s revealed that although Wang Yu’s character is a charlatan, he is at least also good-hearted enough to want to help those who are menaced by a local boss. Along the way he also encounters a young woman (Lin Chen-chi) who somewhat reluctantly takes on the student part in the spiritual swindle with which the main character makes his living. In typical Liu Chia-liang fashion, the actress is given a solid role wherein she ably demonstrates courage and intelligence, and though she is still a sidekick, she is far more than mere window dressing. For it’s obvious that as well as possessing an inner strength, this heroine also acts as conscience for Wang Yu’s at times duplicitous character; and it is her presence that grounds his actions and helps give the narrative its moral backdrop.
Spiritual Boxer’s pace is fairly slow through much of its first 70 minutes or so, before picking up the action for its fantastic finish. But this time is so well spent developing the characters and making them worth watching that the lack of action isn’t really a concern. What also makes this plot’s action fascinating is its mix of genre elements; for far from being a straight kung fu flick, this one instead mixes in comedy and ghost story characteristics to create a unique hybrid of a movie. While this sort of mixture would become relatively common in Hong Kong film following the 1975 release of Liu Chia-Liang’s work, this groundbreaking effort is one of the first martial arts films to so successfully combine the varying aspects of genre movie into a single entity.
Those already familiar with Celestial’s Region 3 reissuing of the Shaw’s back catalog will find little different about this release — there’s the usual pristine transfer and the by now standard batch of extras. As always, this includes some production stills and behind-the-scenes photos, a sketchy paragraph of synopsis that they dare to call “production notes”, the picture’s original marketing poster and some brief but useful biographical information on the movie’s main stars. There are also some trailers included on the disk, but unfortunately Celestial has once again only given us newly re-cut previews rather than including the version that would have preceded Spiritual Boxer’s actual release. It’s a shame that the company has dropped its prior practice of giving fans the historic trailer along with the updated type on its DVD releases; to this viewer, even in badly damaged form the style of the old previews is preferred to these twenty first century assaults of quick cutting and out of place music.
But hey, at least this one came out on a DVD and not just in the inferior VCD format as the company has sadly chosen to do with some of their other lower-profile releases of late. Still, there’s really no sense dwelling on the few bad choices that Celestial has made with their product recently as the immense good that’s come from all of their archival work far outweighs any small missteps that they might make. (And at least the dreaded twittering bird audio add-ins that plagued some of their earlier disks seem to have been scaled back some). Perhaps Spiritual Boxer isn’t quite good enough to be considered among Liu Chia-Liang’s greatest films, but it is easily enjoyable enough to make it a worthwhile hour and 40 minutes of entertainment. Additionally, this film’s importance as historical artifact — both as the initial project for its Hall of Fame director and as a pioneering mix of genre movies — combine to make this one of the 2004 martial arts disks that should reside in every true aficionado’s collection.
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