Reviewed by: mrblue Date: 10/26/2005 This is another in the long line of movies based on Chinese folk hero Fong Sai Yuk, with Meng Fei portraying the fighter this time out. Sai Yuk's father is killed by a pair of evil kung fu masters, and when he tries to get revenge, his poor skills lead to humilation. Retreating to the countryside, Sai Yuk begins training with his mother (Maggie Lee) until he is good enough to exact revenge. A lot of people have called this film a classic, but it didn't really flip my switch. Maybe it was due to the poor dubbing in the version I watched, but I really didn't care at all for Meng Fei. He comes off as too whiny to be a hero, and frankly he's so scrawny, I didn't buy him as someone able to beat a lot of ass either. But I will give credit where it's due -- the fights in here are very good for the most part, especially the finale, which leads to inventive and bloody ends for the villains. It's good stuff, but not that great as to forget the crud along the way. Prodigal Boxer is recommended for old school fans -- but don't hurt yourself running to the video store to get it. [review from www.hkfilm.net]

Reviewed by: Gaijin84 Date: 08/05/2005 Summary: A dreadful waste of time... The Shaolin Boxer Collection starts off with Prodigal Boxer, a standard revenge plot kung-fu movie that does not bode well for this collection of 6 movies from Crash Cinema. Meng Fei once again stars, this time as the ever popular Fong Sai Yuk, a young home trained martial artist who constantly is getting into fights. After he accidentally kills a student from a local martial arts school, the two brothers that run the school come looking for him. One of the brothers is an expert in punches, the other in kicks, and when they can't track down Sai Yuk, they kill his father and beat his mother. Predictably, he sets out to find the killers, gets badly beaten, recovers, trains some more and returns to finish off the masters. There's not much to be said for this movie. It's your standard kung-fu flick with extraordinarily bad acting, sub-par dubbing and awful fight choreography. Interestingly enough, the cast is almost exactly as the same for The Young Tiger, with no improvement in their performances. I'm not sure why Meng Fei is used as the main actor in these movies, as he's an awful actor and a mediocre martial artist at best. Don't waste your time with this one. 2/10 Reviewer Score: 2

Reviewed by: MrBooth Date: 11/10/2001 Summary: Boring and bad fights PRODIGAL BOXER - Bored the pants off me. Awful attempts at kung fu from people with minimal skill. Reviewer Score: 1