Bai ma hei qi

The acting, (overacting) directing, and almost impossible to understand English dubbing, make this movie very difficult to watch.

By the time this was made, Bolo already had done dozens of the 100+ acting gigs on his resume. In this debut as director, he seemingly lost his way. Incoherent plot, with transitions so wrenching at least some of the discordance must have come from edits for Western markets. Many movements (especially a lot of arms flailing in random directions, nearly a zip code away from any opponent) during the fights that were usually the main appeal of these flicks were just plain bizarre, even for chopsocky comedies of that era.

Bolo only had one more directing credit. This shows why he belonged IN FRONT of the camera (where he was an absolute Rock Star), and NOT behind it. Look elsewhere for your Bolo fix.

I have reviewed quite a few martial arts films over the last few years, so my hating this film isn't because I don't like the genre. Also, I have a very high tolerance for "bad" martial arts films, so this one had to be really, really bad for me to give up on and and not even finish the film (something I rarely ever do). Understand that I have watched such films to its conclusion as one with guys in gorilla costumes doing kung fu and their masters using their three foot tongues as weapons--yet I just couldn't finish BOLO.

So why did I hate this film so much? Well, it was the worst of all possible worlds. First, the print from EPI/Gotham City was just terrible and the film only came in the cheesy dubbed version. Second, the film was too often played for very broad and dumb laughs. Googly eyes, silly grins, dumb cartoon-like sound effects and an annoying over-the-top gay character all were painfully unfunny. Third, even with bad dubbing and dumb comedy(?), the film could have been decent if the martial arts action had been better--which it wasn't. Instead of hitting each other or doing what looks like real martial arts, it was too choreographed and looked quite fake. Midway through the film, I was fantasizing about Sonny Chiba stomping onto the set and kicking everyone's butt--that's how much I disliked the film.

Yuck.

Everything is wrong about this film. I was curious because of the relatively high (6,2) rating and some good user reviews. I like old school kung fu movies. This one unfortunately falls apart. Poor acting. Poor sound effects. Jokes are not even funny. The story is weak too... Don't waste your time watching this one.

This kung fu comedy from 1977 seems to be taking a page from jackie chan's book but without so much a thought given to anything as quaint as a plot. Lots and lots and lots of excellently choreographed fights which seem to happen for no particularly connected reasons. There's something about bolo becoming a sheriff but past that i couldn't tell why anything that was happening on screen was happening. A bunch of fairly low brow humor abounds and that was decent, a few good laughs are in there. And in the strangest twist the soundtrack seems to consist mainly of an elevator muzak version of Blood, Sweat & Tears' song You've Made Me so Very Happy. Probably should have watched this high.