88 Films: The Owl vs. Bumbo (1984) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of 88 Films

Actor, producer, director and choreographer Sammo Hung was well into his filmography as a martial artist, stuntman and actor as far back as the early 1960s before making his directorial debut in 1977 with The Iron Fisted Monk.  After directing films like Warriors Two and Encounters of the Spooky Kind, Sammo Hung began veering closer to the action buddy cop comedy film and in 1984 he teamed up with George Lam for an unusual twist on the buddy comedy by making the two leads criminals running from their pasts.  

While ostensibly trained on the two leads, The Owl vs. Bumbo is perhaps better remembered as being the screen debut of Academy Award winning actress Michelle Yeoh.  88 Films have been steadily working over most of Sammo Hung’s filmography with this and Where’s Officer Tuba? on the roster and The Owl vs. Bumbo restored in 2K for 88 Films winds up being something of a school teaching dramedy involving coaching reform school juvenile delinquents.

 
Chan (Sammo Hung) and Wong (George Lam) are the titular Bumbo and The Owl, two bank robbers who managed to steal money from gangsters and the fraudster Au (James Tien) while Inspector Fung (Stanley Fung) tries to arrest all three men before being thwarted by his superior who is secretly in cahoots with Au.  Three years later, following his resignation, Fung threatens to blackmail both Chan and Wong for their prior misdeeds under one condition, that they sign up as teachers at a reform school.

Hastily agreeing to the plan, they’re paired up with superintendent Joyce Leung (Deanie Ip) and schoolteacher Yeung (Michelle Yeoh) who can barely contain her misbehaving students.  As Chan and Wong attempt to break through to the students who have their rebellious guard up, Fung posing as a deaf mute janitor in the school gradually begins turning up the heat in an effort to lure Au out of hiding and prepare his arrest.  The trouble is Au has an axe to grind with Wong having lost money to him three years prior and unveils a kidnapping plot that will draw both former criminals, the cops and the schoolkids together in one final battle.

 
A hilarious and heartfelt ensemble dramedy with an unlikely redemptive arc where two former bad guys are tasked with doing good to draw out another criminal, Sammo Hung’s The Owl vs. Bumbo is a standard Hong Kong programmer with genuine moments that will tug at the heartstrings and tear ducts.  Take for instance a devastating sequence in which Michelle Yeoh is chided by a female student for having no understanding of the plight of being sexually abused and beaten as a youth and having to prostitute herself to survive.  On the one hand its insubordination in the classroom but on the other hand the youth makes a strong heavy point about lecturing versus life experience.  

There’s also room for some musical comedy with Sammo Hung having a tapdancing tango with Deanie Ip that’s straight out of a Golden Age of Hollywood musical.  And then there’s an ambush on the bad guys involving BMX bikes that’ll put a smile on faces.  Sammo Hung and George Lam play off of each other wonderfully while Deanie Ip and Michelle Yeoh play off of the ex-con duo with equal confidence and charm. 

 
Featuring handsome cinematography by future Knock Off cameraman Arthur Wong and an appropriately rousing and energetic score by award winning composer Chris Babida, The Owl vs. Bumbo comes to Blu-ray disc in a new 2K restored collector’s edition US port shortly after the 88 Films UK variant of the same.  Housed in a limited slipcover with reversible sleeve art and a double-sided poster reprint, the disc also comes with an audio commentary by David West as well as a video essay by Ricky Baker on the film and an original theatrical trailer.  

The 2.0 Cantonese mono soundtrack is mostly fine but won’t give your home theater a workout necessarily.  For those keen on seeing where Michelle Yeoh got her start and if you’re in the mood for a clever and unexpected riff on the buddy comedy film, The Owl vs. Bumbo should give you a good night in Hong Kong at the movies.

--Andrew Kotwicki