King Boxer

Remastered from the original negatives, King Boxer looks amazing. There’s not a hint of grain and the colours stand out brilliantly, with the blood red particularly stunning. Disappointingly, the two sound options are both in mono, but all the dialogue, punches and sound effects are crystal clear. The dubbed version isn’t as awful as some other dubbed films, but is a bit redundant unless you’re one of those people who really can’t stand to read subtitles. If you are one of those people, there’s no talking in the action scenes anyway, so you should probably get over it. Cinephiles are just going to look down on you otherwise.

Commentaries are usually better on older films, as you’re spared the rather tedious on-set anecdotes, and this is no exception. The talk track from Quentin Tarantino with film scholars David Chute and Elvis Mitchell is a treat. Whatever you think about Tarantino’s movies, he undeniably knows his stuff and is always an entertaining talker. With no dead air, the commentary is a must for anyone interested in the film or Hong Kong cinema in general.

Unfortunately, the interview with director Jeong Chang-hwa is a lot less interesting, offering no information at all. It only seems to exist to say “look how boring this man is, aren’t you glad we didn’t get him for a commentary?” Luckily, it’s only four minutes long. The interview with action director Lau Kar Wing is a bit more interesting, although far too long when the main gist of how they achieved the stunts boils down to “we just did it”. It does, however, provide some illuminating history about the relationship between the director and action director. The interview with critics Andy Klein and David Chute is the most interesting, although it doesn’t offer anything that isn’t in the superior commentary.

Also on the disc are a couple of trailers for the film, one of them made recently, another an original for the US dubbed release, complete with narrator demanding we “hail before the forbidden iron palm technique.” A picture gallery and biographies of the commentary participants round off the package.