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. (**)

I sat down here in 2021 to watch the 1988 movie "The Peacock King" (aka "Hung cheuk wong ji") without ever having heard about the movie, much less knowing about its existence. But a chance presented itself for me to watch it, so of course I took the opportunity, especially with this being a Hong Kong movie.

Plus, the movie also had Biao Yuen on the cast list, so I thought that I would at least be sitting down to watch something adequately entertaining.

Turns out that "The Peacock King" wasn't particularly entertaining. Sure, it was watchable, but it was hardly an alluring movie, nor was it a particularly enjoyable movie.

The movie faltered with a less than mediocre storyline and having characters that were particularly bland - if not downright pointless at times. So it was hard to submerge myself fully into the story and enjoy it.

It should be said that the pacing of the movie was fair enough, but the storyline just didn't really bring enough contents to the table to make it full-out appealing and interesting.

If enjoy Hong Kong movie, then "The Peacock King" is not the best that the Hong Kong cinema has to offer. And taking the movie's age into consideration, then there are far more enjoyable movies from the late 1980s available.

My rating of "The Peacock King" lands on a less than mediocre four out of ten stars.

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.