Color, 1981, 82 mins. 45 secs.
Directed by Chih-Hung Kwei
Starring Ni Tien, Jung Wang, Tsui-Ling Yu, Siu-Kwan Lau, Erik Ka-Kei Chan, Tat-Wah Tso, Wei-Tu Lin, Ching-Ho Wang
Vinegar Syndrome
(UHD & Blu-ray) (US R0/RA 4K/HD)
, Image Entertainment (DVD) (US R1 NTSC), Intercontinental (DVD) (Hong Kong R3 NTSC) / WS (1.85:1) (16:9)


It's safe to say that Corpse Maniathe history of Shaw Brothers would be different and a lot tamer without the involvement of Chih-Hung Kwei, a Corpse ManiaChinese-born director who cut his teeth in Taiwan and Japan with the studio's backing. After making fairly respectable but exploitation-laced films like The Delinquent, he unleashed a torrent of outrageous films in the 1970s (Killer Snakes, The Bamboo House of Dolls, Spirit of the Raped, Ghost Eyes, some of the marvelous The Criminals films) and then ramped into feverish overdrive in the '80s with spectacles that pushed the extremes of both sensory overload and transgressive imagery like The Boxer's Omen, Killer Constable, Hex, and Bewitched. Smack in the middle of that latter period is Corpse Mania, an atmosphere-drenched horror mystery heavily influenced by European Gothic horror films and gialli with a grotesque sensibility of its own.

Strange things are afoot at the busy brothel of Madame Lan (Ni Tien), who's annoyed that one of her most in-demand girls is too sick to entertain clients. However, the oddball Li (Erik Ka-Kei Chan) is eager to buy her for his own -- because he realizes she's bound to die soon and can become the object of his necrophiliac obsessions. Committed to an asylum, he eventually gets out and seems to be up to his old tricks when murders start occurring around town, all committed by a masked guy who looks like him wielding a really huge butcher knife. Inspector Chang (Jung Wang) heads the investigation which seems to be a manhunt for Li, but things might be more complicated than they Corpse Maniaappear.

Getting a handle on Corpse Mania can be tricky at the beginning as it juggles a foggy, moody crime procedural with seedy hooker antics that build to a memorable, shocking sequence involving a bleached dead body and tons of maggots. After that it turns into Corpse Maniaa sort of proto-slasher / giallo-style shocker including a magnificent murder sequence in a car late at night, which is topped by a wild climax featuring one of the coolest beheading gags of the era. The director ladles on the style here as usual including some flashy star filter effects on the main murder weapon and evocative use of lamps to illuminate the spooky settings, while the killer himself is an imposing, memorable figure.

During the home video tidal wave renaissance of Shaw Brothers titles from Celestial in the mid-'00s, Corpse Mania got a handful of releases including a VCD and eventual DVD release in Hong Kong and a U.S. DVD in 2008. All of those featured English subtitles, and like the other titles from the studio at the time, they were taken from PAL masters intended to yield higher resolution but also causing visible conversion issues when ported over to NTSC (and some major interlacing). The film garnered a modest fan following at the time, but it went out of circulation fairly quickly until its surprising revival as a combo UHD and Blu-ray release from Corpse ManiaVinegar Syndrome. Who would've ever expected that this would be the first 4K Shaw Brothers catalog title to hit American shores? The HDR-augmented UHD looks especially gorgeous with the fresh scan looking fresh out of the lab and shining even Corpse Maniain the darkest scenes, with those beautiful lantern shots in particular looking great (not to mention the sparse but startling splashes of stage blood). The DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono Cantonese track presents the original language option in fine quality here (no surprise, it's all dubbed and created in post-production), with improved optional English subtitles. The director's son, producer Ming Beaver Kwei, appears here for an audio commentary (in conversation with filmmaker Alan Chu) and a video interview (18m40s) covering his memories of his dad, his own career as a producer, and growing up in show business surrounded by familiar actors, directors, and crew members from the Shaw Brothers stable. A second commentary with Samm Deighan is up to her usual enthusiastic level of Shaw Brothers tracks, with particular focus on the filmmaker and his more memorable moments at the studio as well as the issues of grappling with subgenre here, the unique example of necrophilia as a red herring, and the peculiar morality underlying some of the character motivations. The brief "Statistics with the Producer" (3m10s) delivers exactly what you'd think as producer Lawrence Wong rattles off a survey of the 36-day shoot and the film's box office reception, while a video interview with cinematographer Lee San Yip (7m) is about the extensive use of the fake cobblestone set (made of fiberglass), the creation of the film's atmosphere with elements like oil lamps, and his career at the studio starting in 1971. Finally in "Chih-Hung Kwei: Shaw Brothers’ Master of Horror" (17m2s), writer Grady Hendrix delivers a giddy, very entertaining overview of the director's three phases at Shaw Brothers covering enough highlight films to fill up your watch list for the next month.

Vinegar Syndrome (Blu-ray)

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Image Entertainment (DVD)

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Reviewed on January 15, 2025