The Oily Maniac

Shaw Brothers movies aren't really known for being chill, but The Oily Maniac was particularly lacking in it. It's very silly, which is good, but it's also one that goes a bit far with the sleaze and assaults against women. I get that you get some of that in movies of this kind, but it's a short movie and there were at least three scenes featuring the latter, and at that point, it makes me start wanting to ask uncomfortable questions about the director's motivation for making this film.

Still, when you get the Oily Maniac doing his thing, it's goofy, funny, and probably will prove memorable. His appearance and the sounds he makes always proved amusing. He can turn into oil, or he can be a hulking humanoid covered in oil. He also has to immerse himself in oil to use these powers, which leads to some funny stuff. At its best, it feels like a goofy and more hardcore update to the sorts of tragic anti-hero monsters found in the old Universal Horror movies of the 1930s and '40s... kind of.

So the film follows him as he uses his powers to get back at people who've wronged him while also being something of a vigilante. It's basic, stupid, perverted (not the good kind of perverted, and probably too frequently perverted, too), but if you think you're the kind of person who'd enjoy a Shaw Brothers movie called The Oily Maniac, then you will enjoy the Shaw Brothers' The Oily Maniac.

Nowadays you are a monster if you spill old-fashioned polluting fossil fuels, or even promote their use, but in 1976 it was a wonderful product that made you a superhero! By obtaining an ancient Malaysian formula, the pathetic, crippled, and insignificant lawyer assistant Shen Yuan discovers that he can turn into a powerful warrior as soon as he comes into contact with oil or an oil product. Sure, he may look like a walking pile of petrified feces, but he's super strong, can jump incredibly high, and even liquefy himself to move faster. Which member of The Avengers can do that; I ask you?

To be honest, I'm not too familiar with the work of the infamous Shaw Brothers, and I expected "The Oily Maniac" to be different. The fighting/martial arts sequences are well-choreographed, like I assumed, but was hoping for trashier & smuttier B-horror instead of all the nudity and rape scenes. Every girl in the cast is forced to go topless, and many of them don't look too comfortable. There also isn't much of a plot. Shen Yuan transforms whenever he witnesses injustice, kills a few bad people, and carries on. The police are quite useless, as they literally state: we suspect everyone except for the cripple guy. There are a few pulpy highlights, like when the superhero-creature beats someone to death with his own bicycle, but the film certainly isn't a must-see.

I watched this bad boy last night and I simply loved it!

If you are looking for usual Shaw Brothers' martial arts extravaganza you better to skip this one. There's only couple fighting scenes and they ain't nothing special. Oil Monster likes more to stomp, pound and strangle peoples to death than bust some kick-ass kung fu moves.

But if you are B-movie fanatic like me and you like flicks with monsters in the bad costumes, you will love this movie too! Story is based on the old Chinese folk tale.. Crippled man learns magic spell from his uncle who is sentenced to be executed The spell turns him into a Oil Monster and it's payback time! Monster starts to kill bad guys like there's no tomorrow..excellent!

'You gui zi a.k.a Oily Maniac' ain't horror, I would categorize it as a cheesy superhero tragedy. Yeah, that's right..

Monster itself is like when Superman meets Mr. Hyde and Swamp Thing. This Chinese Toxic Avenger is really cheap looking in bad costume with shining yellow eyes and heart stuck to the chest. Special effects are hilariously poor, especially when Oil Monster turns pool of oil and starts to move around.

'Oily Maniac' has lots of nudity and lots of sexual violence. Every Female character shows their boobs, except Lily Li. Don't show this film to your feminist girlfriend because there's plenty of rape scenes that she couldn't handle.

This movie could be more entertaining with more gore. There's couple of smashed skulls, but nothing more. This might be filmed at same time with Black Magic (by same director Meng Hua Ho), as many of the locations looks pretty similar. The plot is entertaining and acting isn't bad, actually pretty decent. Danny Lee shines in this as usually.

In overall, if you want to see piece of Chinese b-movie cult cinema you need to check this one out.

I also recommend Meng Hua Ho's King Kong -rip off 'The Mighty Peking Man'.

I give 'You Gui Zi' a.k.a 'The Oily Maniac' 7 1/2 oil-stained corpses out of 10

This is a great alternative to the crazy "Toxic Avenger", best acted with better actors and also makes you laugh more without all that nonsense vulgarity.

Shaw Brothers are a guarantee if you want to spend an hour and a half having fun in front of a good, completely recreational audiovisual product and above all without getting bored for a second.

Very well written, well acted, great photography, the monster is a bit of a cardboard, but it creates its mystical atmosphere all the same.

Undoubtedly best of all the various Troma, Jess Franco and other pieces of junk that today are acclaimed by fans for no reason.

This would probably amuse a young adolescent male, what with the rampaging oil covered monster interrupting fairly explicit sexual goings and other non consensual abuses. Just about of interest too as an example of the myths and legends out of Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, where some of this is filmed. For the general viewer, this is problematic, not due to any lack of cinematic skills, the Shaw brothers tend to know their audience and be able to cater for it but their is a distinct lack of focus. The oily maniac is pretty well done as far as the effects department go and whether it is the life size monster or the mere puddle that can slide under doors all is fairly satisfactory (especially helped by Jaws like rip off music to accompany each rampage) but there is no consistency as to his actions and those around him. Whilst all the girls who have their tops torn off are lovely the support acting is generally poor and with so much running about without anyone (us included) knowing why, those eyelids begin to drop. Fun in places and fantastic having a 1976 Hong Kong exploitation movie look so good but here even 84 minutes seems a long time.