Comparison between the Taiwan Version released by Scholar Video and the Honk Kong VCDs released by Celestial.

Before Celestial addressed themselves to the movie and released them in a remastered version it was very hard to get a copy of"The Boxer's Omen". So far, only Scholar Video released the movie on VHS (its master should probably also be the one used to produce many bootlegs). The Taiwan Tape however is strongly cut and has a gruesome image quality.
By now, the movie was rereleased (first in Honkong by IVL on VCDs and now in the USA by Image Entertainment on DVD) over the course of the Shaw Brothers collection in a longer version an with a way better image and sound quality. But even this release suffers from one problem: as usual for Celestial, material that was hard to restore was cut out of the movie, resulting in countless frameskips (adding up these scenes comes to a total of several minutes). Furthermore, the Taiwan version's first sex scene is about 10 seconds longer (which is marked red in the report).
To sum up, I can say that there is no ideal release, but since there probably won't be any new releases of the movie I can only recommend the Celestial version.

The frameskips won't be mentioned any further in this report.

The first running time refers to the Hong Kong VCDs, the second one to the Taiwan version.Running time:

HK-VCD: 99:15 min.
Taiwan version: 94:48 min.

The HK-VCDs are 10:09 min. longer.

[00:06:19][00:07:01]

There's a missing cut to the breasts of the Thai Boxer's girlfriend.

5 sec.


[00:07:18][00:07:58]

The sex scene is a little longer in the Taiwan version. (New take!)

10 sec.


[00:17:18][00:18:43]

The scene where the evil magician eats the rat was cut out; then follows a cut to the bat's skeleton.

5 sec.


[00:17:26][00:18:46]

The scene where the skeleton fidgets arount is missing; after that, the evil magician takes another bite out of the rat.

9 sec.


[00:20:41][00:22:02]

The evil magician takes a jar containing a human head from the shelf.

He puts the head into a bowl and beats it with a bone. The head opens and you can see the brain.

The evil magician asks the evil forces for their assistance.

After that he pours a liquid into the opened head and stirs it up with a bone.

1:02 min.


[00:41:26][00:42:35]

You see the chicken's decapitated head. After that you see the evil magician with the fidgeting torso in his hands.

5 sec.


[00:45:27][00:46:42]

The evil magician walks to the the chicken's torso (by now it's very decayed) and eat's its guts. He throws up and eats the vomit. In between there's a cut to Chan Hung who tries to get up.

32 sec.


[00:46:18][00:47:02]

A pink liquid and black lumps pour out of the pot.

Magician: "I have my magic weapon. Check this out. Come out."

The liquid moulds into a ball.

Magician: "Come out. Follow my order, come out..."

47 sec.


[00:48:48][00:48:49]

After the evil magician threw the bowl on the floor, the scene where he smears a white paste on his neck was cut out of the Taiwan version.

After that he sticks 2 long needles in his neck.

His head separates from his torso and flies to Chan Hung.

He attacks Chan Hung with veins drangling from his neck. The sun rises, resulting in Chan Hung being able to free himself from the head.

The Taiwan version continues when Chan Hung holds on to the pillar and the head melts.

1:34 min.


[00:51:03][00:49:33]

After the speech in the temple there's a missing cut to Chan Hung (could be a film tear).

1 sec.


[00:00:00][00:49:52]

A slightly different image section durgin the shower scene. In the Taiwan scene you can see a little more.

No difference in time.


[00:00:06][00:49:57]

The shower scene is a little longer.

7 sec.


[00:00:45][00:50:30]

Again, the shower scene is a little longer. You can see Chan Hung's girlfriend's privat parts.

2 sec.


[00:00:53][00:50:36]

Again, the image section was altered. The HK-VCD seems to be zoomed.

No difference in time.


[00:04:41][00:54:42]

After the crocodile was sliced, the three wizards disembowel it.

The Taiwan version continues when the eggs are broken.

18 sec.


[00:07:13][00:57:03]

After the crocodile was opened there's a missing tracking shot along the mummy (seized with worms).

The three wizards take the mummy out of the crocodiles stomach and put it on the table.

19 sec.


[00:07:40][00:57:12]

There's another shot of the mummy being spilled with the liquid.

6 sec.


[00:08:31][00:58:01]

The wizard wearing a blue shirt eats some flesh of a (rotten?) chicken.

8 sec.


[00:08:48][00:58:10]

After the wizard wearing the blue shirt spit on the plate he passes it to the next one who eats from it.

7 sec.


[00:09:07][00:58:22]

Again, after he spit on the plate he passes it to the next one who eats what has been spit out.

The wizard wearing the read shirt takes a chicken, cuts it's rump off with a knife and eats it. After chewing a little he spits it on a plate.

The three wizards bring the plate to the woman lying on the table.

54 sec.


[00:10:26][00:58:44]

The woman is covered a little earlier. The scene was shortened because you can see her private parts.

2 sec.


[00:11:10][00:59:28]

The woman gets up and is led to a statue.

40 sec.


[00:22:57][1:11:23]

Chan Hung warrants his lie about his abstinence.

15 sec.


[00:23:33][01:11:47]

The convent's leader tries to hinder Chan Hung from leaving. Chan leaves the room anyway.

10 sec.


[00:31:52][01:20:35]

The scene where Chan Hung cuts his arm open is missing.

14 sec.


[00:32:22][01:20:51]

The scene where the wound is sutured was cut out as well.

21 sec.


[00:38:36][01:27:21]

A longer shot of the maggots on Chan Hungs body; you also see the claws on his hands.

A maggot creeps in his ear, another one in his nose.

39 sec.


[00:42:40][01:31:08]

The three warlock's hatching was completely cut out.

One grabs a knife and cuts his belly open. He falls on his back.

The other two cut their ateries and soak the warlock lying on the floor with ther blood. Then they also slip to the ground.

The Taiwan version continues when the small creatures hatch.

1:17 min.