Bewitched Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Bewitched 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

As Ian Jane's informative film notes in the insert booklet get into, there's a perceived line leading from Black Magic, Black Magic Part 2 and Hex leading to a whole host of later Shaw Brothers entries, including this one. As Jane also overtly mentions, this film utilizes any number of well worn tropes within the Shaw Brothers horror cycle from this general time period, including a hapless guy traveling to an exotic foreign location (in this case Thailand) and maybe ending up wishing he had stayed home.

What's kind of interesting about this entry is that it's almost a procedural, after a horrifying discovery of a child's corpse is found during a picnic outing for a family. Rather interestingly, though, the film doesn't really waste any time offering up a "mystery" as to what happened, both with regard to the manner of death (incredibly gruesome and depicted rather graphically in a post mortem scene) or "whodunit". In that regard, the corpse's father Li Wei (Ai Fei) is soon being interrogated by inspector Bobbie Huang Chin-sang (Melvin Wong Gam-San), where we are offered an increasingly disturbing back story that soon involves, well, black magic and hexes. As with some of the earlier films in this same general vein, there are perceived (and in this case, actual) practitioners of white and black magic dueling with each other.

Bewitched Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Bewitched is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. 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.

Bewitched tends to pop the best in some of its interstitial outdoor material, with some of the interior scenes tending to look a bit murky at times and with what even Ian Jane mentions is almost a comical overabundance of lens flare (I've provided a couple of examples in the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review). Occasional establishing shots look like they were sourced either from stock footage or some other element with downgraded quality (see screenshot 7). That same screenshot is also an example of how variant grain can be at times, though on the whole grain resolves very tightly. There are some very minor signs of age related wear and tear that have made it through the restoration gauntlet.

Bewitched Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Bewitched features LPCM Mono tracks in either Cantonese or Mandarin. Once again these two Chinese tracks are largely interchangeable, though in this case the Mandarin track is arguably just a bit less forceful than the Cantonese. This also like its disc mate Hex features some interesting, kind of quasi-atavistic, music, which helps add to the spooky mood. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Bewitched Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by James Mudge

Bewitched Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

James Mudge is a pretty big fan of this film, but as much as I appreciated its over the top ambience, it just never spooked me as much as its disc mate Hex did. Technical merits are generally solid and the Mudge commentary very interesting, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.