Bai ma hei qi

This movie opens with the premise that if a new sheriff is needed you select two prisoners and give them the job with a reminder not to run off. Captain Obvious says "Realism will not be necessary". They steal a blind guys wagon but in the next scene they are attacked while walking separately. Next they arrive at a brothel and meet Eric Tsang in drag. Bolo wants the ugliest woman in the brothel.

At about this point I gave up trying to summarize what was happening. The scenes were so incoherent it would take longer to describe what was happening than it would take to watch and in either case you still wouldn't understand it.

The fights were also impossible to describe. They were not fighting but what was that? I just can't explain the arms flapping around and the legs moving.

There is no story to the point where whatever is happening at any moment turns into something unrelated in the next minute. Yet still I kept watching because they were still in a brothel and girls and perhaps bare breasts. Since spoilers are forbidden I cannot say what I saw.

Since I cannot explain nor summarize this movie I also cannot review this movie nor rate it nor recommend it.

What seems to be a light hearted comedic kung fu movie is actually a tight psychological thriller with each character reflecting a facet of the psyche of the viewer. Bolo himself represents our hulking innocence. The most innocent and simple tasks become confusing and threatening in Bolo's world. Almost as though Bolo is attempting to reveal our pitiful arrogance by showing us the world through the eyes of the severely mentally retarded and then hanging us with the realization that this is how the world actually is to all of us.

The protagonist comes under attack by increasingly ugly townsfolk thus holding a mirror up to our own culture of destruction as the suspendered representation of our cynicism mockingly sneers at him for denying the baser aspects of existence. And just as our own cynicism grows in reaction to continued exposure to blighted existence, so too does the well dressed man grow in power and influence.

The time period the movie occurs in is unclear as elements of period china, late seventies America, British controlled Hong Kong and Japanese occupation era china seamlessly coalesce giving the picture a very "Titus" sense of epic timelessness

As the movie progresses, allies suddenly attack each other for no reason and 40 seconds later they forget it thus demonstrating the Byzantine conflicts of urges within our own egos. Character development takes a backseat since each character is a timeless human archetype and the change in the movie's personality only occurs with the destruction of all other competing drives.

There is also very terse biblical symbolism throughout the maddeningly complex narrative. Bolo's love for the 7 foot tall stick woman mirroring St Peter's own struggles during the formative days of the Christian religion being only one of hundreds of examples.

Honestly though, this movie cannot be simply deconstructed in a beginner film class by a professor. Undertaking that task is a time consuming and painful spiritual journey to the very brink of oblivion as the movie doesn't shy away from inherent subconscious horrors that lurk in the viewer. To deconstruct the movie would require the entirety of the viewer's graduate study. Additionally the difficulties increase since the film actually manages to weave together an image of the viewer himself. No two people will have the same Bolo experience.

Two misfit convict (Yang Sze and Jason Pai Pao, who both also produced this film) gets out of prison only if they become a lawman in a town full of corruption. Several funny scene including a comical music video highlights this slightly diffrent kung-fu film. Sze, known for playing a Bruce Lee villian in ENTER THE DRAGON directs something diffrent here compare to most Kung-fu film. He also has a diffrent looks, as if he was trying to do a career change. Pao, who was last lead in THE BLACK DRAGON is also good. Recommended to Kung-fu fans.

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.