A Japanese corruption of the word ‘Siam’, shamo is the name for a category of fowl that originated in the country now known as Thailand but which has been bred for years for Japanese cockfights. Since 1998, it also has been the name of a 19-volume Japanese action manga series about Ryo Narushima, a schoolboy who killed his parents and turned into a vicious fighter while serving out time in a pretty hardcore prison.

In Soi Cheang’s Shamo, Shawn Yue plays a teenager named Ryo Narushima convicted for the murder of his parents who emerges from his relatively short – because he was a juvenile at the time of the crime – spell in the slammer as a feral fighting machine. Fans of the manga should be aware, however, that the predominantly Cantonese language film which looks to have been filmed for the most part in Thailand is not an entirely faithful adaptation of the Japanese comic book(s); one major plot twist in the movie turning things so much on their head it is likely to leave those familiar with the original story seriously slack-jawed. However, those who only know the cinematic version are likely to be unsurprised by the supposedly revelatory development late in the Hong Kong-Japan co-production.

Moreover, although the opening images of a demonic-looking Ryo (complete with one blood-red eye) appear promising enough, much has been compromised for a Category IIB (rather than III) rating. To be sure, there’s no denying that Shamo’s protagonist is treated abominably while in prison by the head warden (Ryo Ishibashi) and a few of the inmates who apparently pride themselves on being better than an accused parent-killer. Nevertheless, there is a constant feeling that the film’s makers are pulling their punches and, in the process, making certain atrocities seem not quite as atrocious as they truly are.

One consequence of this decision to include but visually tame down certain incidents and images is that it actually is hard to feel much sympathy for the anti-hero who turns into a veritable angry animal after being put through a version of hell on earth. All the more so since, after he is taught karate by Kenji Kurokawa (Francis Ng – the coolest person by far in the whole movie), a martial arts master put in jail for assassinating the prime minister, Ryo himself inflicts quite a bit of harm on other people, some of whom are among the more innocent members of Shamo’s dark alternate universe.

All this is not to say, however, that Shamo is an entirely subdued affair. Far from it – its story strongly implies gang rape and forced sodomy as well as includes more than one murder and various ‘Lethal Fight’ tournament bouts modelled on the Japanese K-1 tournaments. But when it is stated outright that, contrary to its name, a Lethal Fight is not supposed to be lethal, the lengthy climactic battle in the ring ends up feeling less outright exciting than interminably long and lame. And this even though it involves real-life K-1 fighter Masato (playing Lethal Fight champion Naoto Sugawara). So much so that I found my mind drifting and thinking for much of it that the substantial screen time it took up really should have been used for much-needed plot and character development instead.

Yvonne Teh

Still images