“Goose Boxer” Theatrical Poster
Director: Tai Si-Fu
Cast: Charles Heung Wah-Keung, Lee Hoi-Sang, Phillip Ko Fei, Tin Ching, Addy Sung Gam-Loi, Chan Lap-Ban, Lee Chun-Wa, Wong Mei, Cheung Sin-Ming
Running Time: 90 min.
By Paul Bramhall
This year marks the 10th anniversary of my relationship with Goose Boxer, which I confess has been a fairly one-sided affair. Purchased as part of a 9-movie DVD set called Brooklyn Zu Volume 1, I picked up the set in 2014 during a trip to the US on the strength of it containing Tiger Over Wall and Fistful of Talons, a pair of movies which at the time I didn’t own. Spurred on by the thinking that, if both productions were indicative of the other title’s quality in the set, then the rest must be worth watching as well. Skip forward to 2024, and I’ve attempted to watch Goose Boxer at least 3 times. Every time ends up the same – as soon as the credits kick in, which feature Charles Heung lifting up a goose from behind only for it to squirt projectile faeces all over his face, set to an obnoxiously grating soundtrack of “waaah wah wah waaah wah”, I find myself turning it off barely a minute in.
But with some old-school kung-fu movies persistence is the key, and the now decade old peer pressure of trusted kung-fu cinema fans insisting it gets better eventually caught up with me. I’ve now watched Goose Boxer. Made in that seminal year for old-school kung-fu, 1978, Goose Boxer had tough competition with the likes of Warriors Two and Drunken Master as its contemporaries, and came with the added pressure of being financed by Heung’s fledging production house, Super Win Films.
Goose Boxer and Mysterious Footworks of Kung Fu (also from ’78) heralded the arrival of Super Win Films, however both failed miserably to launch Heung as a Jackie Chan-esque kung-fu clown, and subsequently bombed at the box office. Heung closed up shop soon after, and after spending much of the 70’s as a fixture in bashers, apart from a few minor roles would only appear in front of camera in a memorable role again when he’d play Chow Yun Fat’s bodyguard in God of Gamblers over 10 years later. It would be remiss not to mention that Super Win Films was reborn as Win’s Entertainment during the early 90’s to much success, of which it’s still debated how much was due to Heung and his families deep rooted triad connections (after Jet Li’s agent was murdered by triads he worked exclusively for Heung from 1995 through to his departure to try his hand in Hollywood).
The question as to why Goose Boxer bombed is definitely not a mystery. I mean, any movie which opens with the aforementioned faeces scene is clearly setting itself up for a hard sell. The comedy doesn’t improve a whole lot once the credits sequence finish either. It’s noisy, puerile stuff that makes some of Elton Chong’s most grating efforts seem like comedic masterpieces in comparison. Expect pants to be pulled down, crotch blows aplenty, characters getting hit in the face with eggs, a dwarf, and plenty of moles and buck teeth to gawp at. I was constantly reminded of the struggle I had watching 1980’s Master Killers, another comedy heavy kung-fu flick that would test the patience of even the most ardent kung-fu cinema fan. Thankfully Master Killers had the benefit of featuring Phillip Ko Fei, the undoubted shapes master of kung-fu cinema’s golden era (or any era for that matter), and as it happens, so does Goose Boxer.
Like many an old-school kung-fu flick, the plot here is barely worth a mention, but basically it involves a dastardly villain in the form of the legendary Lee Hoi-Sang (Shaolin Mantis, Dirty Tiger, Crazy Frog!), clocking in one of his 18 appearances during 1978. In one of the odder master-student relationships committed to film, Hoi-Sang essentially kidnaps Heung’s goose herder, and trains him in the art of the Fire Crane style. Of course it’s for nefarious purposes that Hoi-Sang keeps for himself, but it’s a non-spoiler to say the reason behind the forced training regime is so that he can get Heung up to a level where he can defeat Ko-Fei, a character whom Hoi-Sang shares a history with.
As is to be expected with any movie that introduces a pair of the era’s greatest screen fighters into the mix, Goose Boxer does indeed become more tolerable for those that make it past the halfway mark, I daresay it even becomes enjoyable. Directed by Tai Si-Fu, which translates roughly to ‘Big Master’, and is literally the only credit to his name, it’s probably safe to say that it’s an alias for whoever the real director was, perhaps concerned that they’d forever be associated with making Charles Heung voluntarily receive a face full of goose faeces. On fight choreography duty is Tommy Lee (who’d make his own directorial debut the following year, making a case that perhaps he’s the man behind the Tai Si-Fu moniker). As a choreographer Lee was on fire in the late 70’s, choreographing 20 productions spanning 1977 – 1979, many of which he also appeared in front of the camera, such as Along Comes a Tiger and Kung Fu of Seven Steps.
Once Goose Boxer turns itself over to the tried and tested formula of gruelling training sequences and fight scenes, things improve considerably. While Heung rarely gets mentioned in the context of being a kung-fu leading man, some of the contraptions he’s forced to endure here prove that, however minor his contribution was, he’s certainly worthy of a tip of the hat. The star of the show really though is the fight action. There’s a top shelf one on one between Heung and Ko Fei that is not only outstanding for the shapes work that’s on display, but also for the underlying philosophy of why they’re fighting, that has Ko Fei studying Heung’s movements in real time so that he can figure out a way to defeat them. While this type of fight scene has been done before in the likes of 1971’s The Ghost Hill and after in 2011’s Wu Xia, having a performer like Ko Fei involved makes it all the more thrilling to watch.
Ko Fei and Hoi-Sang also get to go at it in a fight which doesn’t disappoint, a reminder of a bygone era when it wasn’t an exaggeration to say some of the choreography is like poetry in motion playing out on the screen. Perhaps most alarmingly, is that one of the main comedic plot devices that gets introduced in the latter half of Goose Boxer is genuinely hilarious. Looking to acquire what’s believed to be his friends fathers kung-fu manual from the pawn shop it was sold too, it turns out to actually be a manual of different sex positions, and with Heung being too innocent to know any different, he proceeds to start training in them for the ultimate showdown against Hoi-Sang. The fight is hysterical, with Heung belting out the Fire Crane style, interspersed with him aggressively humping Hoi-Sang’s leg and pushing him around like a wheelbarrow.
I also enjoyed the fact that Heung’s self-made Goose Style, which basically sees him dordelling around with his butt sticking out, is considered to be completely useless, and literally only gets introduced into the final fight when an increasingly desperate Heung has tried everything he can to defeat Hoi-Sang. Unfortunately the fight makes a grievous error of descending back into the realm of grating comedy for its closing moments, with the introduction of go-to kung-fu movie dwarf actor Cheung Sin-Ming (Kung Fu Master Named Drunk Cat, The Phantom Killer), and all of the good will feels like it’s instantly lost the moment he bites Hoi-Sang between the legs. Painful, but not really in the way I’d been hoping the fight would end.
So is Goose Boxer worth your time? In short, it really depends on how much value you place in it. Despite watching these movies for more than 20 years, I still can’t bring myself to “just skip to the fights” – if I’m going to watch a movie, I’ll watch the whole thing no matter how much it may make my brain feel like its imploding. I got that feeling several times while watching Goose Boxer, however any movie which comes with a promise of seeing the likes of Philip Ko Fei and Lee Hoi-Sang bust out the moves in their prime will be enough to secure a viewing from most kung-fu fans, even if it takes them 10 years.
Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 5.5/10
