Shen Yuan (Danny Lee) is crippled, sad and soon to be lonely forever. The girl he loves has been given to another man to marry as he is unable to make a future. When his uncle is badly beaten in a feud over some land, he offers Shen the chance to change his life. A power to take on all these people that are putting him down and beating him up. So he digs a hole and sets about chanting his way to the new power. What he finds however is a transforming puddle of black tar and a demonic power to avenge.

The primal attraction of revenge is a glorious thing. It presents a personal fantasy and expels deep desires. Oily Maniac does the bulk of its revenge delights in its first half. It fills up the car to the max and then unleashes the second half. This half is a fair side different. Simple put it is a series of brilliantly violent and morbid love sequences mesh. It merges these with some of those cranky effects and outrageous plot devices.

Outside of this, Oily Maniac is a very good slice of cult film and genre fare. It is the sort of film  that defines what makes film from around the world so good. It is robust enough to stand up to other film industries but maintains uniqueness in content. It is what the Shaw brothers at their height did the best. Quality exploitation and populist cinema but at a reasonable price. 88 Films give us a gleaning new HD copy of the film. It look great on my TV and as such hopefully might look good to you and good on yours. The doc on the film is worthy of note just for Dr W informed commentary.

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