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ReviewGolden Boy movie review: Louis Cheung anchors hot-blooded yet generic boxing drama
Cheung’s eye-catching central performance is the highlight of Joe Chan’s mildly entertaining drama co-starring Leander Lau and Eric Tsang
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3/5 stars
It has been a bizarre few years for Hong Kong cinema, with the Covid-19 pandemic warping its film release schedule and causing long-announced projects to re-emerge like tectonic artefacts from an alternate timeline. Golden Boy is the latest case in point.
The film, a mildly entertaining boxing drama anchored by an eye-catching central performance, was first earmarked to kick-start the then-stuttering career of Louis Cheung Kai-chung years earlier. As it happens, the singer-actor proves more impressive for his physical transformation than his acting prowess here.
As in most respectable boxing films that the city has recently produced – think One Second Champion (2021) and Unbeatable (2013) – Golden Boy features a past-his-prime boxer who finds redemption in the ring against much younger opponents, partly for the child that somehow ends up in his care.
Cheung plays Cheung Lek, a professional boxer released after a decade in prison for manslaughter. The film chronicles his efforts to rebuild his life after discovering that he has a 10-year-old son he has never met, and an inheritance to be claimed from his late girlfriend if he agrees to care for the boy.
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