Oily Maniac Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.0

Oily Maniac 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

Newcomers to this particular film may sense a certain tether to the infamous Troma production The Toxic Avenger, though it's salient to note this film preceded the Lloyd Kaufman enterprise by almost a decade, and is in fact evidently based on a longstanding folk tale about a slimy monster who has a thing for young women. The "adaptation" of that tale in this version posits a hapless disabled legal assistant named Shen Yuan (Danny Lee) who is constantly bullied and dismissed even as he attempts to seek justice for a relative in trouble.

Shen's discovery of a "family tradition" of sorts allows him to morph into something Hulk adjacent, and for a while it seems that much like Bruce Banner's alter ego, Shen is going to use his powers for good. The transformations evidently also make Shen a bit power mad as the story goes on, making his ostensible "heroism" a bit less tenable. This is a frankly kind of silly tale that is played more or less straight, very unlike the camptastic Troma enterprise, but that straightness may in fact engender a few stifled guffaws from audience members, especially when the titular character starts his (its) marauding rampages.

Oily Maniac Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Oily Maniac is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. 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 another generally great looking transfer, though it's a bit softer than some of the other films in this set. That can lead to slight deficits in fine detail, especially in some wider framings, where pretty severe anamorphic squeezing at the edges of the frame can also come into play (the film has a number of rather "arty" framings, as can be seen in screenshot 2). The palette is undeniably one of the strengths of this presentation, and reds in particular pop extremely well throughout. Some of the nighttime material, especially some featuring the monster, is pretty hazy looking, perhaps intentionally to mask the frankly silly makeup. Grain can be quite heavy in some of these darker moments in particular, but resolves without any issues. My score is 4.25. a bit blurry, not quite the same levels of clarity as Infra-Man

Oily Maniac Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

This is one of the films in this set with only one audio track, a Mandarin LPCM Mono offering that is quite propulsive in delivering the goofy sound effects, but which still shows just a bit of thinness at the high end, leading to a somewhat "silver" quality in some of the high frequency effects and scoring choices in particular. Midrange and low end are more full bodied, and there's no actual real damage to report. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Oily Maniac Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by Ian Jane

Oily Maniac Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ian Jane's commentary provides some grist for the "reassessment" mill, but this is still an undeniably wacky entry in the Shaw Brothers canon which despite its seemingly serious tone can't help but be goofy enough to engender some laughter. Technical merits are generally solid and Jane's commentary informative and entertaining, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.