Bat Without Wings Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

Bat Without Wings Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 18, 2025

Note: This version of this film is available on Blu-ray as part of the Shawscope Volume Four collection from Arrow Video.

Things seem to have calmed down a little from the gauntlet I experienced toward the end of 2024 where it seemed I was getting a Shaw Brothers title (or several) in my review queue virtually daily. Arrow has been curating its immense Shawscope collections for a few years now, and they're helping to alleviate any perceived deficit in high definition presentations of the venerable studio's output with this fourth volume which aggregates sixteen more films from the Shaw Brothers canon (some of them previously released in other territories, though Arrow advertises new 2025 restorations for all of the films in the set). Arrow has packaged all of these volumes consistently, and this latest volume shares the same basic dimensions as its shelf mates (if you even have shelf space for such large boxes), and it also includes the wealth of bonus material that the previous releases from Arrow have offered.

For "rabid completists" who may want to peruse the immense prior volumes in this series from Arrow, please click on the following links:

Shawscope Volume One Blu-ray review

Shawscope Volume Two Blu-ray review

Shawscope Volume Three Blu-ray review

It's probably instructive to note that it takes getting to this perceived ninth film in Arrow's fourth Shawscope set for something approaching a "traditional" wuxia entry to make its entrance. Understandably given this volume's time frame of roughly 1975 to 1983 there are numerous examples of the Shaw Brothers kind of desperately trying to get away from wuxia offerings to see if anything else might hit the box office jackpot. The Shaw Brothers' penchant toward quasi-exploitation fare during this period might be hinted at by the fact that the titular villain, portrayed memorably by Tang Ching, is not just a murderer but a rapist.

The film's most distinctive element probably is the title character, replete with what even Ian Jane in his film notes states is obviously modeled on Kiss' Gene Simmons, but Tang Ching's completely over the top performance also arguably provides the most consistent energy in what is otherwise a pretty rote tale of wrongly accused Xiao Qi* (Derek Yee Tung-Sing) attempting to clear his name and encountering a crazy onslaught of other characters and adventures where even the Bat's identity comes into question.

This will in a way be a rather nice palette cleanser for anyone tackling this fourth volume of Shaw Brothers efforts, since as "minor league" as it may be, it harks back to the heyday of the studio and it certainly has some winningly gonzo fight choreography going for it.

*This is another film where what I assume are differences in transliteration from Cantonese or Mandarin lead to widely variant spellings for character names in cast lists, synopses and film notes in Arrow's insert booklet. I'm using the character name as it's spelled in the cast list.

Bat Without Wings Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bat Without Wings is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Arrow's almost overwhelming insert booklet lumps all the films together on its informational page about the transfers, as follows:

All sixteen films in this boxset are presented in their original aspect ratios (all 2.35:1 except for Bewitched, Hex After Hex and Seeding of a Ghost in 1.85:1) with their original Mandarin and/or Cantonese and/or English monaural soundtracks. Every effort has been made to present these films in their original and complete versions using the best materials available.

All sixteen films have been newly restored by Arrow Films in 2025, in collaboration with L'Immagine Ritrovata, Hong Kong Film Archive and Celestial Pictures. The original 35mm negatives for these films were scanned at L'Immagine Ritrovata Asia and restored in 2K resolution at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. Super Inframan, Oily Maniac, Battle Wizard, Black Magic, Black Magic Part 2, Hex, Hex Vs. Witchcraft, Hex After Hex and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star were graded at R3store Studios, London. Bewitched, Bat Without Wings, Bloody Parrot, The Fake Ghost Catchers, Demon of the Lute, Seeding of a Ghost and Portrait in Crystal were restored at Dragon DI, Wales. These restorations have used the entire film negative without resorting to the practice of "frame-cutting" resulting in the loss of film frames at each negative splice point.

The mono mixes were remastered from the original sound negatives at L'Immagine Ritrovata. Additional sound remastering was completed by Þorsteinn Gíslason. The audio synch will often seem loose against the picture, due to the fact that the dialogue and sound effects were recorded entirely during post-production, as per the production standards of the period.

All film materials supplied for these restorations were made available from the Hong Kong Film Archive via Celestial Pictures.

The American cut of Super Inframan, titled Infra-Man, is remastered using a composite of the newly restored Hong Kong version and selected excerpts from a 35mm US exhibition print. This print also featured a rare quadrophonic sound mix ("Stereo-Infra-Sound") that is featured here, for the first time on home video. The print, as well as 16mm TV spots and a 7" record with two radio spots, was scanned by Film-Tech Cinema Systems in Richardson, Texas. Special thanks to Lee Demarbre for granting us access to the 35mm print, and to Jarrod Varney for supplying the TV and radio spots.

The original camera negative for Bewitched is conformed to a censored version missing select scenes in the first two reels. When the film was originally remastered in high-definition by Celestial Pictures in 2007, these additional scenes were scanned from a lower-quality element as the negatives for them could not be located. When preparing for this new restoration, this element could not be located anymore either, so the scenes have been incorporated from the earlier HD master instead.

The original trailers were restored by Arrow Films from the original 35mm materials held at the Hong Kong Film Archive. Special thanks to King-Wei Chu and Denis-Carl Robidaux for donating and scanning additional trailers for Bat Without Wings and Bloody Parrot.

This is a film virtually awash in purples and yellows, as can be made out in some of the screenshots accompanying this review, and the palette throughout is typically quite vivid and well saturated. Detail levels are a bit variable at times, and occasionally wider framings can lack clarity. As usual, there can be occasional anamorphic oddities toward the edges of the frame. This is another film where some effects like mist can add a very slightly noisy look to grain at times, but on the whole grain resolves without any real issues.

Bat Without Wings Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Unlike many of the films in this set, Bat Without Wings sports only a single LPCM Mono track in Mandarin. This has a bit of the same brightness on the high end I mention in several other reviews of films in this set, but overall it's a rather nicely full bodied track, and one which is especially impressive with regard to a rather interesting if occasionally goofy score culled from an almost hilarious variety of sources. Sound effects are almost nonstop throughout this enterprise, and have that traditional wacky Shaw Brothers approach. Some high frequency effects can have a bit of quasi-sibilance or slightly silver sound. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles.

Bat Without Wings Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by Samm Deighan

Bat Without Wings Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Bat Without Wings frankly probably pales when stacked up against true classic Shaw Brothers wuxia outings, but in this "location" in this particular volume it's actually kind of refreshing. Technical merits are generally solid and Samm Deighan provides an interesting commentary, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.