Bullet Points: Bolo

If you only know Bolo Yeung from his work in the martial arts classics Enter the Dragon and Bloodsport, then you really don’t know Bolo.

Bolo Yeung was born Yang Sze in Canton, China. Yang Sze’s interest in bodybuilding and the martial arts began at an early age and pursuing those interests helped pave his way to an acting career in the early 1970’s. By the time he had his big break in Enter the Dragon, Yang Sze had appeared in nearly two dozen movies. But it was his Bolo character from Enter the Dragon that would forever become synonymous with Yang Sze and why he would eventually start being billed as Bolo Yeung.

But Yang Sze/Bolo Yeung was not just actor… he was also a director. And he made his directorial debut with the 1977 action comedy, Bolo…

• The Premise: Wu Yu, a village controlled by corrupt officials, is in need of a new sheriff after the incumbent peacekeeper was murdered. The decision is then made by a man simply known as Captain to select two inmates currently serving time in prison to go to Wu Yu village and become their new lawmen. The selection process is a rigorous one and by rigorous I mean a prison guard goes around and has all the inmates draw straws. Two men draw the winning straws… the simple brute known as Bolo (Bolo Yeung still being credited as Yang Sze) and the smooth conman Ma (Jason Pai Piao). Logic would say that convicts would not be the best choice for sheriff (you already know they won’t pass a background check) but maybe it is a case of Wu Yu not getting a sheriff they want, but instead one they deserve.

• Welcome to Wu Yu: Bolo and Ma’s journey to Wu Yu is not without incident and the audience and Ma get a look at how Bolo can handle himself in a fight even when the odds are stacked against him. You can almost see the wheels spinning inside Ma’s head realizing Bolo can be the brawn to his brains. After their time in the hoosegow, it probably should be no surprise one of the first stops for Ma and Bolo when they actually get to Wu Yu is the local brothel. Things do not exactly end up how you would think… Bolo ends up getting in a fight with the brothel’s madam whose chicken fighting style includes the strutting cock technique. After the brothel debacle, Bolo decides it is time to take care of business and he heads over to the mayor of Wu Yu, Mr. Pao. The crooked Pao tries to talk Bolo out of taking the job as sheriff (Pao wants to appoint his own hand picked thug, Shu Fu, for the job), but Bolo is there for a reason and dammit he’s the sheriff! The villagers have their doubts about Bolo’s abilities some even believing he will soon end up dead like the last sap who had the position.

• Lost in Translation: Mr. Pao does not like the fact that Bolo is taking his job so seriously, so he hatches a scheme to poison Bolo at a big dinner party honoring Wu Yu’s new sheriff. The events that transpire at this dinner party are a prime example of how Hong Kong produced movies always lose something in translation when they are dubbed in English.  After Ma covertly helps Bolo avoid death by poisoning, a female party goer stands up and challenges Mr. Ma to play “the hand game”. This portion of the movie is something I had seen back in the 90’s when a local independent UHF station presented Kung Fu Theater every Saturday. This portion of the movie is also something that has  been burned into my memory since that day because “the hand game” makes NO SENSE! How do you play it? What is the point? How do you determine who the winner is? I will now provide a transcript of the scene and maybe one of you out there can solve the decades old mystery of “the hand game”….
  • Female Party Goer: “Mr. Ma let’s play the hand game again shall we?”
  • Mr. Ma: “How many’s this?”
  • Female Party Goer: “You’ve got eight.”
  • Mr. Ma: “Number four. Number five.”
  • Female Party Goer: “How many do?”
  • Mr. Ma: “Number five.”
  • Female Party Goer: “How many? Tell me again.”
  • Mr. Ma: “Number four. Number six. Number seven. Number eight.”
  • Female Party Goer: “I’ll bet you’ve chosen eight again. Now how many have I got?”

• Pressing His Luck: After surviving the attempt on his life, Bolo really pisses off Mr. Pao when he busts Pao loyalist Shu Fu’s human trafficking operatin. Since Pao could not successfully kill Bolo, he does the next best thing and frames Bolo as a criminal and has him locked up. But luckily for Bolo, the master manipulator Ma has a plan to out bad the bad guys of Wu Yu and make himself and Bolo the richer for it.

For those who may be worried that the comedy overshadows the action, Bolo manages to balance both elements well. The pairing of Bolo Yeung and Jason Pai Piao had great chemistry and were like a chopsocky version of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Like just about everyone I had seen Bolo the villain, I had even seen Bolo play the hero in a handful of movies in the 1990’s… but I had never seen Bolo Yeung in an action comedy especially an action comedy with a glory hole scene until I saw Bolo! 

This is the point of the review where you should be on the look out for some Bonus Bullet Points…

• Worst Dressed: Mr. Pao’s son has an interesting sense of style that includes a vest, no shirt, plaid shorts held up by suspenders and a pearl necklace.
• If You Ever: …wanted to see Bolo get stabbed by a woman with a baby, then this is the movie for you.
• Overheard in the Brothel: “I’ve never seen a man as big as you before!”
• If You Ever: …wanted to see Bolo attempt to convert to Christianity, then this is the movie for you.
• U-G-L-Y: We find out that the reason Bolo was in prison was because he killed his wife. It was an arranged marriage and Bolo did not lay eyes on her until their wedding night and she apparently was one ugly woman. How ugly you ask? Well, Bolo said she was like the backend of a bus, fantastically ugly, one leg longer than the other, hunchback and no feathers!
• If You Ever: …wanted to see a masked Bolo rob a bank with a spear, then this is the movie for you.
• Overheard on the Street: “You’re wrong. Very wrong. Take off your trousers!”
• Happy Ending: Bolo ends up with quite an admirer by the end of the movie, a woman I can only describe as the tallest Asian woman I have ever seen in my life. She was like the female Yao Ming.