Black Magic Part 2 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Black Magic Part 2 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 mentioned in the Black Magic Blu-ray review, that film and this follow up may have been slightly desperate efforts on the part of Shaw Brothers, with an emphasis on nudity and horror that saw the studio obviously trying to reach out to audiences perhaps bored out of their minds with martial arts extravaganzas. The first Black Magic was an at times unabashedly silly exploration of love potions and passions out of control. This second film perhaps just as comically adopts a more "scientific" tone, as actual medical practitioners attempt to figure out if, well, black magic may be behind weird outbreaks of odd symptoms. A "Mulder" named Shi Zhen-Sheng (Lin Wei-Tu) calls in two "Scully" types, married doctors Qi Zhong-Ping (Ti Lung) and Cui Ling (Tanny Tien Ni), who of course scoff that anything paranormal might be involved.

There is of course an evil magician named Kang Zhong (Lo Lieh) behind it all, including a sudden prevalence of zombie like folks who suddenly may just start marauding (slooowwly) once summoned or directed by their master. Unfortunately for the good Dr. Shi, Kang Zhong has eyes for Shi's lovely wife Margaret (Lili Li Li-Li). Things actually take a somewhat unexpected turn at this point, as a still disbelieving Qi and Cui get a little "edumacation" from Shi in conjunction with Kang Zhong.

This film and its progenitor are unabashedly lo fi entertainments, and they suffice perfectly well in that regard, but these are a far cry from Shaw Brothers' stock in trade which helped build their brand.

Black Magic Part 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Black Magic Part 2 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.44:1. 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 transfer's aspect ratio may indicate something odd happened during the workflow, since as soon as I watched it I thought that at least parts of it seemed weirdly anamorphically stretched. Kind of interestingly, parts of the presentation as in screenshot 2, look relatively normal, whereas other moments feature somewhat odd looking heads in particular, especially toward the edges of the frame. This also shows signs of what I've called "parallelogram syndrome", where the rectangle of the frame looks like it's been "twisted", so that imagery inside is skewed. All of though passing issues aside, the palette in this outing, while often relatively vibrant (as in the opening alligator scene), are a bit less consistently suffused than in the first Black Magic.

Black Magic Part 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Black Magic Part 2 features LPCM Mono tracks in Mandarin and English. There's not a substantial difference between the two this time around, though the Mandarin track struck me as marginally more energetic, with a fuller sounding midrange in particular. In this particular instance, however, the differences between the two languages I'd rate as pretty minimal. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Black Magic Part 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by Samm Deighan


• Alternate US Credits (HD; 1:59) are sourced from a pretty shoddy looking tape that is almost comically anamorphically squeezed.

Black Magic Part 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The truth is out there, as the saying goes, though so are alligators, which end up having little to do with the plot. Yes, this is another patently silly outing for the Shaw Brothers, filled with nudity and gore and the occasional hypnotized zombie. Video quality has some odd anomalies, but audio is fine and the commentary track very enjoyable, for anyone who is considering making a purchase.