The Boxer

The film identified as the closest match is 'The Boxer' (also known as 'Xiao quan wang' or 'The King of Boxers'), a Hong Kong production released in late 1971 and distributed in the US by Ganga Distributors in 1972. Because this is a foreign-produced film from the 1964–1977 era, its US copyright status is governed by the presence of a valid US copyright notice on the initial US release and potential URAA restoration. No US copyright registration for this film was found in the Library of Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries (CCE) or the online Copyright Office database. Under the 1909 Act (which governed US distributions at the time), foreign works required a US copyright notice upon publication; if it was distributed in the US without such notice, it entered the public domain. However, under the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA), copyright for foreign works was restored if they were still under copyright in their source country on January 1, 1996. While Hong Kong works are eligible for restoration, there is no evidence of a 'Notice of Intent to Enforce' (NIE) filed with the US Copyright Office for this specific title, and the film is frequently distributed by budget public domain labels such as Video Asia, which commonly target titles with defective or missing notices. Due to the lack of a primary registration record and the murky nature of its US distribution history, the status is remained as uncertain.