Battle Wizard Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Battle Wizard 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

Fans of the Shaw Brothers no doubt already know about The One-Armed Swordsman, The One- Armed Swordsman and/or Return of the One-Armed Swordsman, all part of Shawscope Volume Three, but what about a zero legged swordsman? In this case that appendage missing character is actually a villain known only as the Yellow Robed Warrior (Shi Chung-Tien) who is intent on revenge, though his villainy is at least somewhat understandable in that the film's opening shows his wife cavorting sexually with another man and announcing she's pregnant by him. The guy having the affair is a noble (?) king named Duan (also translitered Tuan in some of Arrow's booklet verbiage) Zheng-Ming (Wai Wang) who is able to shoot a magic beam from his finger that slices the legs off of the Yellow Robed Warrior.

While Duan is obviously shown to have a malfunctioning moral compass, he ends up having a son named Prince Duan Yu (Danny Lee), who becomes the focal character of the piece. The good prince doesn't want to have anything to do with fighting, but of course he finds out the pacifism isn't always an available strategy in a Shaw Brothers film. Duan's journeys out in the world bring him into contact with a rather wide variety of outlandish characters, both human and otherwise, as he attempts to wend his way through what might be called "karma" created by his father's bad behavior. Battle Wizard is unapologetically goofy a lot of the time, toeing a precarious line between action elements and comedy laden fantasy aspects.

Battle Wizard Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Battle Wizard 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.

Some nice outdoor locations benefit this production's visual blandishments, though there are of course the usual set bound scenes in abundance here (commentator Jonathan Clements takes issue with some of the production design choices). Detail levels on both natural items like foliage and the manmade efforts like sets and costumes is typically excellent. This is another really nicely suffused release, and once again reds in particular are especially vivid. Some of the kind of undeniably comic lo fi special effects can lead to momentary interstitial downgrades in image quality. Grain resolves without any issues. As with many of the films in this set, anamorphic oddities can abound, with some especially severe squeezing toward the edges of the frame at times (see screenshot 4). My score is 4.25.

Battle Wizard Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Battle Wizard features LPCM Mono tracks in Mandarin and English. Both tracks deliver the goods with no problem, but the Mandarin track is a bit louder and more full bodied. The Mandarin track here has less of the thin sound on the high end that's audible in some of the other tracks scattered throughout this set. That difference probably becomes most noticeable in some of the underscoring and effects sequences. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Battle Wizard Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by Jonathan Clements

Battle Wizard Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Unlike, say, Oily Maniac, whose humor may be unintended, Battle Wizard seems to know it's often winking at the audience, and that helps the film elide some narrative hiccups and arguably guffaw inducing "special effects". Technical merits are generally solid, and Jonathan Clements contributes an enjoyable, informative commentary, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.