Those expecting a kung fu epic – an expectation fuelled by the presence of martial arts supreme Yuen Biao – should look elsewhere, as PEACOCK KING is a plot-driven story centring on an epic battle between holy men and demons. Although Yuen Biao takes centre stage as the fighter/wizard monk, his kung fu is in short supply and his battles against other men limited to one scene only. Instead, this is a film where Biao performs flying kicks on evil demons, spins in the air, and uses all manner of magic spells to do his dirty work. The film is based on a Manga animation, so it has some of the same kind of rubbery feel to it as THE STORY OF RICKY – and it's no surprise that director Ngai Kai Lam also helmed that other film. While Lam isn't much when it comes to the fight scenes – the one kung fu battle here is poorly shot, bring back Sammo Hung – his taste for the eccentric and the gory comes to the fore when the demons arrive.The film is chock-full of special effects and they're surprisingly decent for a '80s movie. There's a ton of back projection – most impressive of all is a massive rising "fortress of hell" which grows out of the ground for over three FULL minutes – and all kinds of fireballs and lightning strikes which look great. The demons themselves – ranging from tiny to massive – are achieved mostly through stop motion, a dated type of effect which I nevertheless enjoy whenever I see it put on screen. The effects are entertaining in a similar way to the effects used in the first two EVIL DEAD films.The storyline is in the typical adventure mould, although a little more confusing than most. Biao teams up with with a Japanese rival monk (Hiroshi Mikami, having no fun in the 'straight man' role) and the pair travel Asia battling all manner of monsters. Also lurking around are some familiar Hong Kong actors – Eddy Ko, Philip Kwok, Pauline Wong – and a delicate Gloria Yip, then only 15 years old, as the spectral Hell Virgin (yes, I don't know what that is either, but it doesn't matter). Better still is Gordon Liu as a typically tough bald fighter; his battle with Biao, although not perfectly shot, is one of the movie's highlights.The film's tone ranges wildly from offbeat comedy and general weirdness (Yuen Biao battling a reanimated dinosaur, JURASSIC PARK eat your heart out!) to drama, even a little romance. Imagine an Asian version of GHOSTBUSTERS but with faces ripped off and people impaled and torn to pieces or crushed and you'll be close. Things culminate in a genuinely spectacular showdown in the fortress of Hell, where our heroes battle the massive King of Hell, a huge humanoid chap who steps on people and breathes ice. He reminded me of Talos in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, and he's a very good effect! Back projection is used here and it's perhaps the most convincing I've ever seen it done. All in all a great climax to what is an uneven but generally good movie.

This is a rather fun little action fantasy film from Hong Kong and Japan, about two monk brothers, Kôngquè (Biao Yuen) and Kujaku (Hiroshi Mikami), separated at birth and later reunited to fight the King of Hell.The pacing is not really fast, but there are some engaging and entertaining scenes where Kongque and Kujaku try to blend in the modern days in Hong Kong and fight off the evil witch Raga (Siu-Fung Wong) and save their friend, Ashura (Gloria Yip). Ashura is unwittingly the apprentice of Raga and is the daughter of the King of Hell.There are plenty of mythical elements and magical action, though the special effects were pretty average to me. A nice good vs. evil story line nonetheless, and some decent martial arts action.Grade B-

This was amongst the reasons why growing up in the 80s was cool, with Hong Kong cinema at its heydays and with just about every genre that's covered. And for a kid growing up during the era, Peacock King, in my memory, was one hell of a special effects extravaganza and showing off, at the time, what the East could do with special effects that the West have already accomplished, with fantasy monsters coming to life with stop motion rubber suits and the likes, similar to films such as Ghostbusters or Clash of the Titans, which if viewed today looks dated, but still contains a lot of charm.Alas, The Peacock King somehow didn't withstand the test of time. A kid would have found the premise very interesting, dealing with hell's gates and a hell virgin who held the key to the destruction of mankind once she heralds the return of the hell king, and it is up to two monks to stop every conceivable devil in his or her tracks. Conveniently, given that this is a Hong Kong-Japan co-production, the location of the hell's gates happen to be in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and in Tibet, where the monks Peacock (Yuen Biao) and Lucky Fruit (Migami Hiroshi) meet by chance when they're sent by their masters Ku Fong (Eddy Ko) and Ji Ku (Ken Ogata) respectively, to stop hell virgin Ashura (Gloria Yip in her debut) chaperoned by the evil witch Raga (Pauline Wong Siu Fung) to fulfill the former's destiny.However the storyline if viewed today, as an adult, consists of plenty of unnecessary sub plots and loopholes, and characters who don't really serve a purpose. For instance, there's the retail store's Okada (Yasuda Narumi) who's in this film just to balance the female quotient, being more than a bother since she hangs around the monks and in my opinion seems more like a liability with her non-powers as well as potential to trip things up. Moreover, her character also presents an unlikely romance with Lucky Fruit, so there isn't really a point to get her over to Hong Kong or Tibet once the Tokyo story arc is over.Then there's the waste of Gordon Liu's character Kubira, a warrior sent on an assassination attempt on our heroes, if only to allow for a backstory to tell of how the two lead characters are linked together in a twist of fate, and to provide for more credible fight sequences using bona fide kung fu, balancing out the over-reliance of special effects here. But Kubira's introduction gives additional time to Ken Ogata as the latter comes to the aid of his disciple during the final act, in addition to brining a lot more unnamed characters into the fray for that increase in body count.Director Lam Ngai Kai may be questioned for his choice of inserting random English language music to make this truly a one of a kind international production, but really the soundtrack stuck out like a sore thumb. Some filler scenes could also be done without, since they pose a lot more unnecessary questions - an airplane shot means the heroes travel by air, but how would they pass customs with their weapons, and the bringing of a Hell Virgin as a passenger? Hmm. But I suppose such is the charm when watching it as a kid as you rarely question these points and take things at face value, in it for the many special effects shots that pepper the movie.And in all honesty, for that time, they were well done, with grotesque looking monsters given some air time to up the eerie quotient. Some are done for the sake of, such as Peacock's exorcising of a few critters on the streets of Tokyo, while others look really rubberized, such as the dinosaurs in the shopping centre arcade. Raga's transformation was perhaps the highlight, showing off the creativity of the filmmakers in making something really functionally ugly, while the design of the Hell King was kept quite simple - that of a giant, bald man.One would have expected the role of Peacock to provide a lot more visibility to Yuen Biao, but sadly this wasn't really the case. He shares screen time with Lucky Fruit's Migami Hiroshi to contrast the opposites of both men - one the relaxed joker while the other a little bit more uptight, to have to learn to cooperate with each other given an adversarial introduction, in order to combine their strengths to save mankind. Gloria Yip as the Hell Virgin also didn't have much to do here, other than to act cute when away from Raga and happen to be frolicking the Ocean Park theme park with Peacock, for him to be convinced that she's nothing but an innocent child who's ruined by Fate to do the inevitable. There's not much of a character development in any character here other than the perfunctory scenes, given that much of the 80 minutes got dedicated to battles, mostly CG enhanced rather than to showcase real moves, which is a pity.Revisiting Peacock King somehow marred that wonderful film that I had in my mind no doubt created by being awed as a kid. Watching it today made me realize it's quite a weak film with only dated special effects to boast about. and I wonder since some older classics have been remade by Hong Kong filmmakers, whether anyone had thought about this manga inspired movie to be given an update as well. One can only hope.

Yuen Biao is a great, underrated martial artist, and personally I prefer to see him fighting against human opponents with his body (which he does ONLY ONCE, after a full hour, in this film) rather than weird stop-motion animated creatures with supernatural fireballs (which he does a lot more often here). The ambitious, large-scale special effects and sets of "The Peacock King" are worth seeing (even if they show their age sometimes, and they're not as good as those of the same director's "Seventh Curse"), and when the Hell King himself appears at the end, he looks pretty impressive. But the story, which has Biao as a sort of adventurer-exorcist-demon hunter who tries to prevent the end of the world with the help of his equally skilled brother, is just incomprehensible claptrap. (**)