Overview: From the legendary Lau Kar-leung (The Spiritual Boxer; Eight Diagram Pole Fighter) comes one of his finest - and wildest - rides, following a pair of very special undertakers who transport dead bodies by magical means.

But their latest trip is proving tricky; it’s bad enough that a strong-willed young woman has invited herself along for the ride but, even more awkwardly, one of the corpses might not actually be dead.

Pretty much inventing the kung fu horror-comedy, and a huge influence on later films like Encounter of the Spooky Kind and Mr. Vampire, The Shadow Boxing stars Gordon Kill Bill Liu and features the sort of action only the great Lau could serve up.

88 Films are delighted to unleash this Hong Kong classic on Blu-ray.

Blu-ray Verdict: As it turns out, The Shadow Boxing (or The Spiritual Boxer Part II, which I actually haven’t seen the original of) is pretty light on horror. Well, ok, very light on horror. But that’s okay. The film is a lot of fun, and when I do these massive challenges like the 100 horror movies in 92 days one, you need a lot of variety to avoid burnout!

The plot: when a person dies while out of town, “corpse herders” are tasked to bring them back to their home village. But they are not dragging a coffin around like Django or anything. They use black magic spells to turn the corpses into “vampires” who hop around during the journey. But one corpse seems to be giving the corpse herders difficulties, not completely responding to the spells and seems to have its own agenda.

I’ve heard some people compare this film to Mr. Vampire, a film I also haven’t seen, so I’m not sure how the two films actual compare. But I found this one to be a fun mix of (again, very light) horror, comedy, and action. I’m usually not into comedies, so it is always nice for me to find one that I enjoy. I usually do have better luck with these Asian comedy/action hybrids. Something like The Iceman Cometh springs to mind as a film that was able to blend genres successfully for me; much as this one also does.

In closing, the entire cast was great here, leaving me with yet another solid viewing experience from the Shaw Brothers. Hopefully we can get some more of these hybrids out of the vault in the next few years as I am now rather looking forward to them.

Limited Edition Special Features:
LIMITED EDITION Slipcase with brand-new artwork by Mark Bell
LIMITED EDITION 4 x collectable artcards
HD Transfer From the Original Negative in 2.35:1 Aspect Ratio
High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray Presentation
2.0 Mandarin Mono with English Subtitles
Trailer
Stills Gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring original Hong Kong poster artwork

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