Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema rewind. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb and I have to tell you. For the
Speaker 1: rest of the month, we're playing a little ketchup. We're
Speaker 1: airing some older rewind episodes. Most of these are from
Speaker 1: the first year of Weird House Cinema, so you know,
Speaker 1: they might be a little rougher than what you're used to,
Speaker 1: but maybe we were still figuring out exactly what we
Speaker 1: were doing with this movie series. It's now several years running.
Speaker 1: This is going to be an episode that originally aired
Speaker 1: one twenty two, twenty twenty one. It seems an impossibly
Speaker 1: long time ago. Now, this is the nineteen seventy six
Speaker 1: Shop Brothers horror film The Oily Maniac. It's a little slazy,
Speaker 1: it's very oily, has a pretty cool monster in it.
Speaker 2: Let's have it.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: I'm Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And today we are looking at Weird House Cinema's first
Speaker 1: Chinese selection nineteen seventy six. Is Yu Guzi or It's
Speaker 1: just it's known elsewhere at the oily maniac, though I
Speaker 1: believe a more accurate translation of the original title would
Speaker 1: be the oil devil. You is oily er greasy and
Speaker 1: a guzi is devil, often used as a pejorative in Mandarin.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is this is our first Chinese film
Speaker 1: that we're covering here. It is a Shaw Brothers picture,
Speaker 1: but it is a horror movie, not a kung fu movie,
Speaker 1: though there's bound to be a little kung fu in there. Anyway.
Speaker 1: It's manufactured in a facility that also processes martial arts.
Speaker 2: This one was very so how did you come across
Speaker 2: this one?
Speaker 1: I think this one I got. I was turned onto
Speaker 1: by scrolling through the Amazon Prime Films, you know, which
Speaker 1: is Amazon Prime, which they're not paying for this promotion,
Speaker 1: but they are generally my go to for streaming weird
Speaker 1: and older movies because you know, there's some of these
Speaker 1: other channels they're just focused on the whatever the new
Speaker 1: thing is, you know, I want like the old, forgotten stuff,
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that's like maybe public domain and
Speaker 1: has like three different listings within the app. So I
Speaker 1: ran across this thumbnail for this like crazy looking monster,
Speaker 1: which we'll describe here in a bit, and with glowing
Speaker 1: eyes and it was called the Oily Maniac. And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm You've got my attention. I'm in and I flagged
Speaker 1: it for later.
Speaker 2: What an oily maniac it is? This is a great monster. Now,
Speaker 2: this movie has something I guess we should address right
Speaker 2: at the top. Let's somebody be tempted to dive in
Speaker 2: and watch this themselves. I will say this movie has
Speaker 2: an excellent schlock monster that I'm excited to talk about
Speaker 2: in some Shaw Brothers energy, which is very good. But
Speaker 2: this is one where I personally don't think I can
Speaker 2: actually recommend anybody watch the movie in full because and
Speaker 2: this is an experience that's worth talking about on this
Speaker 2: show because it happens a good bit when you are
Speaker 2: digging through weird, lesser known movies, especially genre films from
Speaker 2: the seventies and eighties. Well, you know that feeling when
Speaker 2: you get excited to watch a movie because you see
Speaker 2: it's got some great, odd looking monster or something like that,
Speaker 2: But then you get a ways into it and you realize,
Speaker 2: oh no, it's one of those Yeah, and this movie
Speaker 2: was kind of like that for me. We're not going
Speaker 2: to dwell on this aspect of the film in the podcast,
Speaker 2: but be warned that this film has various kinds of
Speaker 2: extreme sexual grossness and misogyny of different sorts that make
Speaker 2: it an unpleasant watch in many parts of the movie.
Speaker 2: So this might be one that if you're actually interested
Speaker 2: in checking it out, I might recommend seeking out a
Speaker 2: clip compilation of the monster scenes instead of watching the
Speaker 2: whole thing, because the monster scenes are an absolute delight.
Speaker 2: I wish the entire rest of the film could match them.
Speaker 2: It's such a shame when what could have otherwise been
Speaker 2: a purely delightful, lipid monster romp is ruined by that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, because again, the monster is great. This
Speaker 1: is a revenge horror film, and so the monster is
Speaker 1: the vehicle of vengeance. So the monster scenes in the
Speaker 1: film are wonderful. They're just like you said, These are
Speaker 1: just the monster wailing on the various villains and also
Speaker 1: some innocent bystanders in the film. But the things that
Speaker 1: he's avenging are sometimes sexual assault, which are depicted in
Speaker 1: the film. So that's the main stumbling point to really
Speaker 1: fully enjoying this film and being able to fully recommend
Speaker 1: it to everyone out there.
Speaker 2: But in some ways that it is somewhat thematically appropriate
Speaker 2: because this movie, i'm to understand, sort of loosely ties
Speaker 2: into some folklore from Malaysia about a folk monster belief.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it certainly does, and we'll get back to that
Speaker 1: towards the end of the film. But yeah, it's tied
Speaker 1: into some folklore that is inherently linked to sexual violence. So,
Speaker 1: you know, on one hand, I guess it's once you
Speaker 1: have all the cards on the table, it's perhaps unavoidable
Speaker 1: those elements would be in a film like this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but of course the movie doesn't. It's not like
Speaker 2: the movie is a serious exploration of those themes or something.
Speaker 2: It's more in the exploitation vein it. I mean, the
Speaker 2: really sad part of it is that it like it
Speaker 2: trivializes that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I'm playing armshair quarterback a bit here.
Speaker 1: But I feel like the film would have been great
Speaker 1: if they had just had him avenging just straight up crimes,
Speaker 1: like wailing on some bank robbers, wailing on you know,
Speaker 1: some just stereotypical gangsters and so forth. It really wasn't necessary,
Speaker 1: but it's there in the film.
Speaker 2: Well. I like that he goes after corrupt lawyers. But yeah,
Speaker 2: so if you had just like been the batman, like
Speaker 2: a like a lipid soaked back man of corrupt lawyers
Speaker 2: who were who were helping the rich steal from the poor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's basically the elevator pitch here. When corruption
Speaker 1: and violence run rampant in late nineteen seventies Malaysia, one
Speaker 1: man sees no alternative but to turn to black magic
Speaker 1: and become a rampaging, oily monster.
Speaker 2: Maybe we should hit that trailer audio.
Speaker 1: Let's listen to it, Lisa.
Speaker 2: He's been a coup since I wash shine. He said
Speaker 2: it this way. We're so.
Speaker 1: All right. So, as you might have guessed from that
Speaker 1: trailer audio, this is a film that is entirely in Mandarin,
Speaker 1: and I do not believe a dubbed version exists. Maybe
Speaker 1: it does, but I could I didn't run across it.
Speaker 1: A lot of those Shaw Brothers films were dubbed into
Speaker 1: English and released internationally, but I didn't across this one
Speaker 1: is certainly the copy that you'll find streaming everywhere and
Speaker 1: on DVD and Blu ray. It seems to be in
Speaker 1: Mandarin with subtitles, which is an interesting proposition for some
Speaker 1: of the films we watch here because a lot of
Speaker 1: the films that we watch for a weird house, you
Speaker 1: you can sort of think about other things, you can
Speaker 1: sort of multitask. But I don't know. When I'm watching
Speaker 1: a film with subtitles, I do have to focus more
Speaker 1: on it because I need to read as well as watch.
Speaker 1: So that's one of the reasons, you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: even think about doing any kind of like prime watch
Speaker 1: party for this one, because everybody needs to be reading
Speaker 1: the text on the screen, not texting other people.
Speaker 2: Now, I would say the biggest thing as far as
Speaker 2: connections go here is that this is a Shaw Brothers film,
Speaker 2: and the Shaw Brothers studio, of course, is very historically important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to say, I love it when when
Speaker 1: you watch a Shaw Brothers film and you're hit with
Speaker 1: that logo. They have a tremendous logo. It's like this
Speaker 1: glittering rainbow mirror backdrop and there's the SB on the
Speaker 1: shield with.
Speaker 2: The it's kind of like a dimpled frosted glass. I
Speaker 2: don't know exactly what you call that, and then yeah,
Speaker 2: the various different colors behind it. It really is a
Speaker 2: gorgeous title card.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's what I get excited about a nice title
Speaker 1: card and this one definitely does it for me.
Speaker 2: So yeah.
Speaker 1: Shaw Brothers Studio Film. This studio operated in one name
Speaker 1: or another from nineteen twenty five through twenty eleven. It
Speaker 1: was one of It was the largest film production company
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong, making it a significant giving it a
Speaker 1: significant impact not only on Chinese cinema, but international cinema
Speaker 1: as well. The Shaws were Chinese film entrepreneurs. Three of
Speaker 1: the four Shaw brothers, Runji, run Me and Rundi, founded
Speaker 1: a film distribution company in nineteen twenty five, operating out
Speaker 1: of Shanghai and Singapore, and then run Me and their
Speaker 1: youngest brother, run Run Shaw operated the Singapore Base, which
Speaker 1: would then become the Shaw Organization, before taking over the
Speaker 1: Hong Kong based sister company Shaw and Sons Limited, and
Speaker 1: then in nineteen fifty eight a new company, Shaw Brothers
Speaker 1: was born. Now run Me lived at nineteen one through
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five and run Run Shaw lived nineteen oh
Speaker 1: seven through twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: And the Shaw Brothers Studio put out different kinds of films.
Speaker 2: I would say the ones that I'm most familiar with
Speaker 2: tend to be like crime thrillers and kung fu movies,
Speaker 2: but there are different kinds they did as well, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this is a prime example because this is
Speaker 1: not a martial arts film, though there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of kicking in there. It's not a crime film, though
Speaker 1: there's certainly crime in there. This is primarily a horror film.
Speaker 1: And even specifically we'll get into the ins and outs
Speaker 1: of this later. It is a black magic horror film
Speaker 1: that's sort.
Speaker 2: Of like a type of movie. It's like a genre
Speaker 2: in Hong Kong cinema.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, apparently so so run run Shaw has the
Speaker 1: sole production credit on The Oily Maniac, one of three
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty four production credits listed on IMDb, including
Speaker 1: such notable films as The thirty sixth Chamber of Shaolin
Speaker 1: from seventy eight, which is heavily sampled in the first
Speaker 1: Wu Tang Clan album, which I imagine a lot of
Speaker 1: you are familiar with. And he shares co executive producer
Speaker 1: credits on on a little nineteen eighty two film that
Speaker 1: some of you may have heard of called Blade Runner.
Speaker 1: I believe that was part of a last minute funding
Speaker 1: shift that required them to reach out to other investors,
Speaker 1: and so Shaw kicked in seven point five million and
Speaker 1: took international distribution rights for Blade Runner.
Speaker 2: Oh, I bet that panned out nicely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one would think one would think, Actually.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I have a question. So Blade Runner
Speaker 2: is a critical hit, was it? Was it a commercial
Speaker 2: success or did it bomb?
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's a great question. It's one of
Speaker 1: those films that that I was just assumed that it was,
Speaker 1: you know, critical and commercial success, but certainly it was
Speaker 1: more of a critical and cold hit in the way
Speaker 1: that I interact with it. I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: looked up the numbers on Blade Runner. What do you
Speaker 1: have that out in front of you.
Speaker 2: No, Now, I got to take a step even further
Speaker 2: back even know if it was a critical success upon
Speaker 2: initial release, did that change over time? Let's see here, Well,
Speaker 2: the critical consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reads misunderstood when it
Speaker 2: first hit theaters. The influence of Italy Scott's mysterious neo
Speaker 2: noir Blade Runner has deepened with time. That sounds to
Speaker 2: me like like they're trying to summarize that exact dynamic
Speaker 2: of people not really getting it at first.
Speaker 1: So who knows run run Shaw might have bought into
Speaker 1: a lemon there, at least initially. Well, let's talk about
Speaker 1: the director of this film. Meanhaho, who lived nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: three through two thousand and nine, directed fifty seven films,
Speaker 1: mostly in the sixties and seventies, including the movie The
Speaker 1: Flying Guillotine from seventy five. Now that's not to be
Speaker 1: confused with Master of the Flying Guillotine, which came out
Speaker 1: in seventy six, so Hoe directed the film that seemed
Speaker 1: to it, if at least, kicked off a lot of
Speaker 1: the bizarre weapons popularity, though I'm not sure his film
Speaker 1: originated the use of the weapon on screen e because
Speaker 1: I think there's also a nineteen seventy three non Shop
Speaker 1: Brothers film that featured that flying guillotine weapon, that sort
Speaker 1: of strange basket hat contraption on a chain that a
Speaker 1: martial arts character will throw. It'll go over the individual's head,
Speaker 1: slice the head off, and then you can retrieve it.
Speaker 2: I've actually never seen the original Flying Guillotine movie. I've
Speaker 2: only seen Master.
Speaker 1: Of Yeah, I watched one of them. No, I think
Speaker 1: I watched both of them, So I think I've seen
Speaker 1: The Flying Guillotine, but I don't remember. I get the
Speaker 1: too confused, like one of them is like the origin
Speaker 1: story of the Flying Guillotine and the other ones like
Speaker 1: an international street fighter like tournament.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's Master of the Flying Guillotine. It's a street
Speaker 2: fighter tournament. It's the hero of the movie is the
Speaker 2: one armed boxer and the Master of the Flying Guillotine
Speaker 2: is the villain, and he I don't remember exactly what
Speaker 2: the plot is, but he's trying to, I don't know,
Speaker 2: do something bad with the tournament, and our hero has
Speaker 2: to fend off not only the Master of the Flying
Speaker 2: Guillotine himself, but various fighters from other countries around the world.
Speaker 1: Well, now, the screenwriter on this one is mildly interesting
Speaker 1: as well. It's this guy who wrote it as Ssiland,
Speaker 1: but his name was Lamb Chua and he's This is
Speaker 1: one of only two screenwriting credits for this guy. But
Speaker 1: he went on to be a producer and produced some
Speaker 1: Jackie Chan films, such as nineteen ninety seven's Mister Nice Guy,
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six's Armor of God, and in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one he was one of the producers on legendary
Speaker 1: martial arts gore picture Ricky Oh. The Story of Ricky Ah.
Speaker 2: Now that's another movie that sort of combines elements of
Speaker 2: different genres in the same way this movie does. In
Speaker 2: the same way that this is horror but also a
Speaker 2: little bit martial arts and a little bit like I
Speaker 2: don't know, seventies exploitation sleeves, Ricky Oh, is it's like,
Speaker 2: got the gore of a horror movie, but it's a
Speaker 2: martial arts movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It is the bloodiest, gooriest martial arts movie you
Speaker 1: could ask for, with amazing gore effects that are also
Speaker 1: at least when I watched. It's been a while since
Speaker 1: I've watched it, but I found it just so over
Speaker 1: the top that it wasn't It doesn't make you cringe
Speaker 1: or you know, it doesn't affect you in the way
Speaker 1: that violence in some films do because it's just so
Speaker 1: ridiculously bloody and squishy. It's like it's really itchy and
Speaker 1: scratchy level of violence.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that's a very good comparison. Yeah, ricky Oh,
Speaker 2: it's itchy and scratchy live action.
Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, let's talk about our lead in the
Speaker 1: Oily Maniac. That is Danny Lee playing Shun Yawn, And
Speaker 1: yeah he was. He's a Hong Kong actor film producer, screenwriter,
Speaker 1: director who apparently made it kind of a career playing
Speaker 1: you know, like police officer type characters. I think that
Speaker 1: was like a common role for him.
Speaker 2: He's in The Killer. I don't think if he's in
Speaker 2: other John wu movies, but he's definitely in The Killer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, Yeah, he has twelve directing credits. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: in this he plays shin on our hero anti hero
Speaker 1: who becomes the titular Oily Maniac. And he does a
Speaker 1: pretty solid job here with kind of there's kind of
Speaker 1: a Doctor Jekyl sort of intensity to him. You know,
Speaker 1: he's he's a tormented character. First, he's tormented by the
Speaker 1: fact that he is his handicapped. What he suffered from
Speaker 1: illness earlier in life that the character did. Is it
Speaker 1: supposed to be polio?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he uses crutches, and I think it's implied that
Speaker 2: it's from a childhood polio infection.
Speaker 1: Okay, So he has a lot of emotions about this,
Speaker 1: and then as a number of hardships occur in his life,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into, becomes even more tormented by all
Speaker 1: of this. And then of course he learns the secret
Speaker 1: of the Oily Maniac, which brings In this Doctor Jekyl
Speaker 1: and mister hide quality to everything, which essentially leads him
Speaker 1: on a disastrous road to doom.
Speaker 2: I really like the guy who plays Uncle Ba, who
Speaker 2: sort of sets the motion of the film in action.
Speaker 2: He's the person who introduces black magic into the film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this guy really jumped out at me as well.
Speaker 1: This character is played by Finn Ku and he yeah,
Speaker 1: he's an interest. Guy was born in nineteen thirty and
Speaker 1: he's apparently still out there acting. He had a film
Speaker 1: come out in twenty twenty. He's known for such movies
Speaker 1: as Tiger Killer, Deathkick, The Five Deadly Venoms and he
Speaker 1: seems to have played a lot of commanders, heavies, and
Speaker 1: wizards in his career. And yeah, I thought he had
Speaker 1: a nice haunting scene in this film is he as
Speaker 1: a condemned prisoner relates the secrets of the oil to Shinyong.
Speaker 1: But the rest of the cast is full of people
Speaker 1: who were also just longtime players in Hong Kong cinema,
Speaker 1: including some other actors that went on to have successful
Speaker 1: directing careers, such as Corey Yun, who plays a very
Speaker 1: bit part in this as a road worker who's scared
Speaker 1: away by the Monsters, but jun Co directed The Transporter
Speaker 1: for Western audiences as well as two thousand and six
Speaker 1: is doa Dead or Alive the video game movie. But
Speaker 1: he also did some really big Chinese films. In fact,
Speaker 1: luck would have it, we had a listener named William
Speaker 1: write in on the Stuff to Blow your Mind discussion
Speaker 1: module on Facebook and say, quote, I have a good
Speaker 1: suggestion for a Hiroki Sonata film. I think it's the
Speaker 1: best martial arts film of its time and there isn't
Speaker 1: a close second, honestly, incredibly underrated and unknown for how
Speaker 1: good it is. It is streaming on multiple resources now.
Speaker 1: And he's talking about Ninja in the Dragon's Den, which
Speaker 1: is a nineteen eighty two film directed by Corey Yun.
Speaker 2: I've never seen it.
Speaker 1: No, I mean either, but it sounds interesting. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so even in just the backgrounds in the bit players
Speaker 1: in this you have some people who went on to
Speaker 1: have quite a career.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, should we get into an overview of at
Speaker 2: least some of what happens in the film, Yes, okay, Well,
Speaker 2: the first thing we see in this movie is there's
Speaker 2: an opening text, and it's in translation the subtitles in
Speaker 2: the version I saw said, The text reads, this story
Speaker 2: is a rewrite of a nan Yang tall tale. It
Speaker 2: bears the moral that justice does prevail. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if it bears that moral. But then it says the
Speaker 2: film is extensively shot in Malaysia, and our story begins
Speaker 2: in a coconut oil garden, and then all the while,
Speaker 2: in the background, while this text is on the screen,
Speaker 2: there is boiling slime and tortured screaming.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I didn't know what to make of this
Speaker 1: text at first, because I thought, well, maybe they're just
Speaker 1: doing a Texas chainsaw massacre or Fargo type thing where
Speaker 1: they're just trying to add at fristy to it. But
Speaker 1: it turns out this is basically true, and interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: it does remind me of the stories in Pusong Ling
Speaker 1: strange Stories from a Chinese studio, because a lot of
Speaker 1: those stories open up with just like a kind of
Speaker 1: a disclaimer like this, saying this is a true story
Speaker 1: that such and such person told me. So possible connection
Speaker 1: there to the tradition of stuff telling strange stories in
Speaker 1: Chinese culture.
Speaker 2: Well, like several moments in this movie, there is some
Speaker 2: hilariously sudden cutting to happy music, so you get the
Speaker 2: opening text and the screaming and the boiling oil, and
Speaker 2: then ah in the background, and then immediately cut to
Speaker 2: how the best I could describe it as like it's
Speaker 2: mid century cruising music. It's the soundtrack to a scene
Speaker 2: of driving along the Pacific Coast Highway in an early
Speaker 2: sixties film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we go from this monstrous boiling scene, which I
Speaker 1: guess is kind of like saying, hey, we better show
Speaker 1: in the monster early. It's gonna be seventeen minutes before
Speaker 1: they see anything else like this, and then we cut
Speaker 1: to what those early stages of the film. It looks
Speaker 1: like a nineteen seventies tourist tourist video, you know, promotional
Speaker 1: video for Malaysia. You're just like, oh, this place looks great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we go to this coconut farm and actually,
Speaker 2: one of the most interesting things I thought of the
Speaker 2: movie was right at the very beginning, when it shows
Speaker 2: coconut farm workers making the use of tree climbing monkeys
Speaker 2: to help them with the harvest of coconuts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was cool.
Speaker 2: Is that a real thing? I assume it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, and I know I've read about it before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had no idea. Well, that was interesting to me.
Speaker 2: But so the conflict starts almost immediately we meet some characters.
Speaker 2: We meet Shin Yon played by Danny Lee, who, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's this thoughtful, sensitive young lawyer. And then we meet
Speaker 2: Chung Yue and we meet Len Young Ba and again
Speaker 2: Ba is Danny Lee's uncle who works here at the
Speaker 2: Coconut oil garden. And immediately there's this tense legal dispute.
Speaker 2: I think the family that owns the coconut oil garden
Speaker 2: is in debt to some bad dudes, and the bad
Speaker 2: dudes have come to collect and a fight breaks out
Speaker 2: when they say they can't pay the debt they owe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is one of the when the fights
Speaker 1: break out in this movie, you definitely see the Hong
Speaker 1: Kong action cinema come out. Like every male character in
Speaker 1: this film has like at least a sixteen dexterity because
Speaker 1: when they pop into action, Yeah, it's pretty intense.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Uncle Back gets dragged into the fight and
Speaker 2: he kills one of the goons from the bad guys
Speaker 2: in self defense, and then we see him getting captured
Speaker 2: by the police. For some reason, he does not seem
Speaker 2: to be able to deploy a self defense explanation to
Speaker 2: this crime. It seems like they were sort of trying
Speaker 2: to explain that in the movie, but I think it
Speaker 2: went over my head, something about how like Danny Lee
Speaker 2: couldn't be a witness at the trial for some reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I missed that as well. It just seems like
Speaker 1: it's on one second he's being arrested and the next
Speaker 1: it's like he's on death row.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just immediately he's about to be executed. And
Speaker 2: so Shinyuan is visiting Uncle Bah in prison and it's
Speaker 2: like their last meeting before the uncle's going to go
Speaker 2: off to get executed. And how to describe this scene.
Speaker 2: There is a scene involving a magical back tattoo where
Speaker 2: Uncle Bos says, you know, before I go, I have
Speaker 2: to explain something to you. And he says, your father
Speaker 2: was a shaman, a sort of exorcist. He got an
Speaker 2: incurable disease, and so he gave me the spell before
Speaker 2: he passed away. He copied it down for me, hurry up,
Speaker 2: write it down. But the place where he copied it
Speaker 2: down was apparently a tattoo on his brother's back, and
Speaker 2: so we have a back tracing scene.
Speaker 1: Yes, I don't know why I put tattooed it like,
Speaker 1: couldn't have a lot of questions come up regarding that
Speaker 1: as a way to pass it on, because then how
Speaker 1: do you read it. You gotta have a mirror, you
Speaker 1: gotta have two mirrors or a friend to trace it
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's literally to make it more difficult to use,
Speaker 2: because we know that this magic is dangerous. With great
Speaker 2: power comes great responsibility. Here because Uncle Bob tells Danny Lee,
Speaker 2: he says, please remember one thing. This can only be
Speaker 2: used to help the less fortunate. You can't use it
Speaker 2: with a wrong intent, or you'll die. You'll die in
Speaker 2: a very very bad way. Of course, with the caveat
Speaker 2: that this is all in the English subtitles, something maybe
Speaker 2: getting lost there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't help but wonder if that the actual
Speaker 1: lines and Mandarin or relate more to like a shameful
Speaker 1: death or you know, dishonor or something, because because that's
Speaker 1: that's ultimately the direction things go in. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: love this setup. This is a great setup for the
Speaker 1: black magic to come and it you know, ultimately it
Speaker 1: deserves a better movie.
Speaker 2: Yes, So, so Danny Lee takes this information back home.
Speaker 2: He's copied out the spell from from his uncle's back
Speaker 2: and he goes home. He gets frustrated. I think he
Speaker 2: feels like he is he is sort of a he's
Speaker 2: got unrequited love for you a And he gets frustrated
Speaker 2: in his house and then just gets out a pickaxe,
Speaker 2: digs a hole in the floor in the middle of
Speaker 2: his house, takes his shirt off, starts chanting, give me
Speaker 2: peace and power, and then crude oil or some kind
Speaker 2: of gray sudsy dishwater type liquid, it bubbles up from
Speaker 2: the ground. This is one of many sequences in the
Speaker 2: film that just have like gray sudsy oil coming up
Speaker 2: out of something and it covers him, and then we
Speaker 2: get the transformation for the first monster sequence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, now I have to drive home. He digs
Speaker 1: that hole and then he climbs into the hole. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then it fills up with the oily mess. And
Speaker 1: I think this is very fitting because on one hand,
Speaker 1: you have like the earthly origins of oil. It's like
Speaker 1: he's communing with spirits of the ground. And then also
Speaker 1: he is about to embark on the profession of revenge,
Speaker 1: you know, and so he's kind of digging his own
Speaker 1: grave here to begin, which is a fitting symbol for
Speaker 1: what he's about to try and achieve.
Speaker 2: Right, so we get a monster transformation. It is not
Speaker 2: quite American werewolf in London level. He's just sort of
Speaker 2: suddenly this monster and how to describe the creature. It
Speaker 2: is basically human shaped but very bulky, like a person
Speaker 2: in a firefighter's suit. And the exterior texture of his
Speaker 2: body is kind of it's so it's oily and it's wrinkly,
Speaker 2: and it's wet and it's it looks like a sort
Speaker 2: of a black garbage bag covered in slime and water.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but but well done for the most part. I mean,
Speaker 1: it depends how it's shot. Like some sometimes it looks
Speaker 1: better than other times in the film. But for the
Speaker 1: most part, it's an impressive monster suit with a lot
Speaker 1: of bizarre details.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we should be clear impressive in the
Speaker 2: schlock sense and that it's fun to look at. It's not.
Speaker 2: I would not say this is an especially beautifully designed suit.
Speaker 2: But yes, for as for like schlock monster, it's up there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's an element, there's kind of a sense of
Speaker 1: swamp thing to it. Yeah, there's a there's kind of
Speaker 1: a sense of just like oily mess gollum to it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if this think it came and running at me,
Speaker 1: I'd be terrified.
Speaker 2: So it's got glowing fossilized amber for eyes. They don't
Speaker 2: say that that's what it looks like. This this kind
Speaker 2: of yellow, glassy or plasticky material that lights behind it.
Speaker 2: You kind of get the feeling that if you leaned
Speaker 2: in close and looked in the eyes, you might see
Speaker 2: a mosquito, like in mister Hammond's cane. And then it's
Speaker 2: got a toothy red mouth that is permanently cocked up
Speaker 2: to one side as if smirking.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then the weirdest feature. I don't think they ever
Speaker 2: explained this in the movie, or if they did, I
Speaker 2: missed it.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 2: It has an exposed red beating heart that pokes out
Speaker 2: from the rest of the oily exterior. It looks like
Speaker 2: a sort of red heart that's beating but trapped behind plastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks It looks really cool, and it it
Speaker 1: looks like such a bull's eye that you assume that
Speaker 1: it's going to somehow factor into the plot or into
Speaker 1: the way that the monster eventually dies.
Speaker 2: Right, but it does stay through the heart or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it does, And it just looks cool.
Speaker 2: What would be what would be the best way? So
Speaker 2: I really feel like they could have played with better
Speaker 2: ways to defeat the oil Monster in this movie, like
Speaker 2: using soap or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they could have. They could have been a
Speaker 1: little more chemically aware, I guess h As it turns out,
Speaker 1: they just stick with fire. Yeah, petroleum consuming microbes. That
Speaker 1: would be like a modern version. I guess that would
Speaker 1: be good.
Speaker 2: But so everything else on this exterior, yes, just these
Speaker 2: oily you know, black garbage bag mud tentacles. And he
Speaker 2: screams with rage. The monster often screams with rage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some sort of like reverb added to the
Speaker 1: rage scream too that makes it feel like nice and otherworldly,
Speaker 1: because again, he's not a he's not a product of
Speaker 1: mad science. He's a product of black magic.
Speaker 2: Right, And so from here on out the film is
Speaker 2: mostly greasy violence. The the oil Monster hunts and pummels
Speaker 2: and kills people. I think we're to understand that most
Speaker 2: the people he kills are like bad dudes who deserve it.
Speaker 2: But then the sort of like the bad sexual politics
Speaker 2: come through. Like one of the people he attacks is
Speaker 2: a woman who is portrayed as like a scheming woman
Speaker 2: who falsely accuses men of sexual assault.
Speaker 1: Right, And then there's another scene where he wreaks vengeance
Speaker 1: on a crooked plastic surgeon. But then there's a patient
Speaker 1: in the room when he goes on his rampage and
Speaker 1: he just like throws her up against the wall too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So it's like he's very indiscriminate in his vengeance and
Speaker 1: rage here. Sometimes the first thing he'll do when he
Speaker 1: comes into a room full of people to exact vengeance
Speaker 1: is just smash all the glass items.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, which is a.
Speaker 1: Solid monster costume move. I feel like that from the
Speaker 1: Blood Waters of Doctor ze or Za did much the
Speaker 1: same thing, and it was a very similar costume in
Speaker 1: some ways bulky probably very difficult to see out of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we should mention that one of my favorite
Speaker 2: I would say, actually my single favorite thing about this
Speaker 2: movie is when the oil Monster is chasing after someone,
Speaker 2: because we get an animated oil slick that slithers along
Speaker 2: the floor while the Jaws music plays, just straight up
Speaker 2: the Jaws music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he melts down into a gleaming puddle that's obviously
Speaker 1: animated and then zooms after I mean zooms like you
Speaker 1: be able to chase a speeding automobile.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the grease So other general characteristics of
Speaker 2: the of the lipid monster attacks. The Greaseman sometimes runs
Speaker 2: flailing his arms in a helicopter pattern, which doesn't make
Speaker 2: him look as menacing as I think it's supposed to.
Speaker 1: Well I was menaced, but yeah, it is kind of cartoonish.
Speaker 1: He's also a really good jumper, Let's not forget that.
Speaker 2: Well. He has a special kind of superpower, which is
Speaker 2: reverse footage leaping abilities. So sometimes even as a dummy,
Speaker 2: there are great scenes where he jumps up, you know,
Speaker 2: three stories at once and looks oddly kind of like
Speaker 2: flaccid and inanimate. And I think it's just because they're
Speaker 2: like dropping a stuffed suit and then reversing the footage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very good now, but a lot of his particular
Speaker 1: moves during it, and he has the helicopter spin. Generally,
Speaker 1: he's doing what I think of is just sort of
Speaker 1: pro wrestling clubren on folks, Like he's just wailing on
Speaker 1: him with his arms. Sometimes he looks like he's even
Speaker 1: doing like a double axe handle thing. He's stomping. He'll
Speaker 1: stop people in the ribs. He'll apply an oily choke,
Speaker 1: but with one notable exception. Those are his keys, his
Speaker 1: key moves that he pulls out in his fights.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so there is. The plot of the movie
Speaker 2: includes that there's like this furor generated about the Oily
Speaker 2: Maniac attacks, Like there is a scene where he's supposedly
Speaker 2: going around punishing evildoers. There's one scene where he kills
Speaker 2: a rapist, and then it cuts to newspaper headlines and
Speaker 2: it says Tin Kin Young was killed by the Oily Maniac.
Speaker 2: That's the translation we get of the newspaper head line,
Speaker 2: and then another one says the oil Maniac slays Tin Kinyong.
Speaker 2: And again I'm wondering if something is lost in translation,
Speaker 2: because that would imply that the reader already knows who
Speaker 2: the culprit in, who the culprit is by name, and
Speaker 2: would know who or what the oil Maniac is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, on one hand, I can
Speaker 1: imagine that the Oily Maniac it might be eluded, like
Speaker 1: his name being in the headlines might be alluding to
Speaker 1: the fact that, okay, this is an established bit of folklore.
Speaker 1: And also there's kind of a cryptid aspect to this
Speaker 1: as well in real life that occasionally you'll see headline.
Speaker 1: Think in twenty twelve, it even made headlines internationally when
Speaker 1: there was a little edge sighting of an oil man
Speaker 1: somewhere in Malaysia or Singapore, I can't remember which.
Speaker 2: Okay, So this could be tying into the actual folklore
Speaker 2: basis of the premise of this film.
Speaker 1: Right, but certainly for most Western viewers if you're watching this,
Speaker 1: that's going to be lost on you.
Speaker 2: There is so But anyway, so the police are investigating
Speaker 2: the oil maniac attacks. There's one part I really liked
Speaker 2: where a detective is like, I deduce that the culprit
Speaker 2: covers himself in oil to get away faster.
Speaker 1: That's a great line.
Speaker 2: I don't know if he's thought that through. I don't
Speaker 2: know how well that would work.
Speaker 1: Now, speaking of covering and oil, though, one of the
Speaker 1: cool things is that when Danny Lee initially transforms into
Speaker 1: the oil monster, or if you want to calm something
Speaker 1: like hip or I would say you could refer to
Speaker 1: him as the crude dude. When he makes this initial transformation,
Speaker 1: there's the whole ritual in the pit. But later apparently
Speaker 1: all he has to do is just get some oil
Speaker 1: on him in order to transform Like there's a scene
Speaker 1: at a roadside construction site where there's just an open
Speaker 1: barrel of like seemingly boiling oil and he just goes
Speaker 1: up and starts putting it on himself and then jumps in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's another one where he just walks up to
Speaker 2: a gas takes out the diesel pump, sprays it all
Speaker 2: over himself, and transforms. And the stuff that comes out
Speaker 2: of the diesel pump is it's I guess supposed to
Speaker 2: be crude oil. It's like this dark liquid, but again
Speaker 2: it's kind of gray and sudsy, like like old dishwater,
Speaker 2: and I just don't think that's what diesel fuel looks like.
Speaker 2: So one scene in this movie that is not a
Speaker 2: monster attack scene and is also not revolting but it's
Speaker 2: just fun is the Curry disappointment scene. Can you explain this?
Speaker 1: Okay, so there are this is not really a movie
Speaker 1: for great female characters, but no, he essentially has two
Speaker 1: potential love interests. One is the you know, the the
Speaker 1: the poor woman who's it was her father right or
Speaker 1: that that died right, that was executed. No, trying to
Speaker 1: remember what her relationship is to any other character.
Speaker 2: I think she works with Danny and she just works
Speaker 2: with him stuff.
Speaker 1: She no, no, no, there's the law. There's basically there's
Speaker 1: work love interest, and then there's the other love interest.
Speaker 1: There's UA and yeah, so there's u A and then
Speaker 1: there's work lady. Okay, okay, so's he's totally smitten with
Speaker 1: u A, but he's he keeps getting help from this
Speaker 1: lady at work. He comes over to her apartment and
Speaker 1: of course he's just sort of saying, oh, everything's the worst,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm having all these problems. And she's like,
Speaker 1: what do you do You like curry? And he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I love curry, but I only love her curry. Anything
Speaker 1: else just disgust me. And then we sort of pan
Speaker 1: out and she's like, but I made curry. And there's
Speaker 1: like this full table set with this luscious looking curry
Speaker 1: dish and.
Speaker 2: The passion in this scene the remorse after he disappoints
Speaker 2: her about the curry that plays remorse music. It's like
Speaker 2: the remorse theme from The Oily Maniac.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the curry disappointment scene is great. I recommend it.
Speaker 1: Another interesting scene that occurs that doesn't involve monsters or
Speaker 1: anything is this. I was impressed by the speed with
Speaker 1: which the police tap all the office phones, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't help but wonder, Okay, is this just movie logic
Speaker 1: or is this an actual, like accurate representation of phone
Speaker 1: tapping by law enforcement in Malaysia or Hong Kong at
Speaker 1: the time, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder. Well, anyway, it all builds up to
Speaker 2: a final confrontation between the Oily Maniac and the many
Speaker 2: forces of evil and corruption in this movie, which are
Speaker 2: a loosely affiliated group of I don't know, criminals and gangsters.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's a massive battle with like all the
Speaker 1: oily special effects they can muster, and it's pretty fabulous.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, if you're if you're tempted to see part
Speaker 2: of this movie, it might be and you just want
Speaker 2: to check out one scene, it might be best to
Speaker 2: just skip skip to the end and watch this ending
Speaker 2: battle scene.
Speaker 1: Though I will say there is an excellent kill in
Speaker 1: the film before that, where the evil lawyer and his
Speaker 1: mistress are you know, have sped away and they've gone
Speaker 1: to like a makeout place and they're like gonna make
Speaker 1: out in the car, and then the oily Maniac attacks
Speaker 1: and it's a great scene where he starts dripping down
Speaker 1: all the windows. You know, it's very blob asque, and
Speaker 1: then suddenly he's in the back seat and then he
Speaker 1: grabs the lawyer's head and crushes it like a coconut,
Speaker 1: And we don't see much of it, which actually kind
Speaker 1: of helps make it work more. But yeah, there is
Speaker 1: a head burst scene, and that's probably the most violent,
Speaker 1: physically violent thing we see the monster do to anybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Otherwise it's mostly just beat downs's traditional beatdowns, martial
Speaker 2: arts film style style beatdowns. Though the Oil Monster does
Speaker 2: have tricks other than just like kicking and punching that
Speaker 2: we've already said. He's got the reverse footage jump, but
Speaker 2: he also has a trick he reveals, i think only
Speaker 2: in that final battle, which is that he can spray
Speaker 2: oil out of his mouth. And this is kind of
Speaker 2: like the James Bond car trick where it shoots out
Speaker 2: the oil slicks so the other cars behind skid all
Speaker 2: over the place, but in this case, he just vomits
Speaker 2: oil all over the faces of his attackers.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also an R two D two trick by the way.
Speaker 2: Oh I forgot about that. Yeah, but he's got but
Speaker 2: he's got powers that make him very too difficult to defeat.
Speaker 2: So the enemies hack him with machetes and stuff or
Speaker 2: swords and like they can lop his arm off, but
Speaker 2: then it just regenerates because he's got the oil magic right.
Speaker 1: And there are a couple of times where they shoot
Speaker 1: him full of bullets and then he'll melt down into
Speaker 1: a puddle and then he'll like regenerate back up to
Speaker 1: full strength. They're really proud of that effect because he's
Speaker 1: they rolled out about twice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But in the end, the Oily Maniac is defeated
Speaker 2: by who would a thunk it fire?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because he goes too far, Like he has the
Speaker 1: police and he's about to crush their heads in a
Speaker 1: double headlock sort of situation, and she's like, no, you
Speaker 1: have to stop, you have to leave them alone. He
Speaker 1: won't do it, so he gets torched.
Speaker 2: Yep, and then we see his like body on the
Speaker 2: ground burning up and it sort of it burns like
Speaker 2: old newspaper. And then once again there is a really
Speaker 2: sudden and funny music transition where the Oily Maniac is
Speaker 2: blown away like burned newspaper, and then soft happy music
Speaker 2: just kicks right in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do like the old school monster movie ending
Speaker 1: of the monster is dead, the end. There's no there's
Speaker 1: no at all. Yeah, I do want to get back
Speaker 1: to the Malaysian roots here, the folkloric roots, because indeed,
Speaker 1: there is a creature in Malaysian folklore known as the
Speaker 1: Orang Mignac or oily man and according to the University
Speaker 1: of Southern California Digital Folklore Archives, yeah, the oily man
Speaker 1: is a creature of Malaysian folklore with appearances in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Speaker 1: and Singapore. And the main constant in the folk tradition
Speaker 1: is that we have an oily humanoid that assaults women
Speaker 1: at night, especially virgins, and the origins vary quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's said to be just a dark creature of
Speaker 1: the spirit world. Other times he's a human, a quote
Speaker 1: spurned lover that has powers due to his solicitation of
Speaker 1: either a bomo, a Malaysian witch doctor, or a contract
Speaker 1: with a creature from the spiritual world.
Speaker 2: So this makes it seem like maybe a lot of
Speaker 2: the creepy sexual associations of the oily maniac or not
Speaker 2: just in the movie, but they're also in the folk
Speaker 2: tales that the movie is based on.
Speaker 1: Yes, it would seem to be the case. Like it
Speaker 1: is a it is a like a folkl ort creature,
Speaker 1: sometimes again a cryptid even it's this dark, oily creature
Speaker 1: that creeps around in the night and attacks women, hard
Speaker 1: to see in the dark, slippery if you grab him.
Speaker 1: Also in some versions, apparently he likes to steal things,
Speaker 1: but I didn't find a lot of details on that.
Speaker 1: The other interesting thing is that this was not the
Speaker 1: first oily maniac film or oil man film. There was
Speaker 1: a series of these that were produced in sing Poor
Speaker 1: in the fifties and sixties, such as Curse of the
Speaker 1: Oily Man in fifty six and The Oily Man in
Speaker 1: fifty eight. So it was already an established movie monster
Speaker 1: before the Shaw Brothers came around and gave it not
Speaker 1: just an oily naked human appearance, but this awesome swamp
Speaker 1: thing asks treatment and apparently, yeah, there are still supernatural
Speaker 1: sightings of the Orong Mignac in contemporary Malaysia. I've ran
Speaker 1: across a twenty twelve I nine article about it, and
Speaker 1: there was even a live science article by Benjamin Radford
Speaker 1: about it, who made a special made special mention of
Speaker 1: cryptid enthusiasts getting in on the oily man legend and saying, well,
Speaker 1: we think it might be a sasquatch of some sort.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the old hidden primate theory.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, I don't think there's any reality to that.
Speaker 1: My opinion on the possible presence of oily primates.
Speaker 2: I would agree. And I think it's also interesting that
Speaker 2: you see this with some other types of cryptid legends,
Speaker 2: a connect between certain types of alleged cryptid sightings and
Speaker 2: taboo fixations, people who are having kind of scary thoughts
Speaker 2: at the boundaries of sex and violence.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now I want to get into this film's place
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong cinema for a few minutes as well,
Speaker 1: because yeah, I mean it's important to note, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a again, a black magic film, a Hong Kong
Speaker 1: black magic film, and granted, black magic has long been
Speaker 1: part of Chinese myths and legends, but then we see
Speaker 1: this film as part of a shift in how it's
Speaker 1: treated cinematically. Apparently, according to James Mudge of Easternkicks dot Com,
Speaker 1: in an article titled black Magic and Sleezy Spells, the
Speaker 1: Shaw Brothers Horror Films, the horror output of the Shops
Speaker 1: Shaw Brothers between the late fifties and the mid eighties
Speaker 1: was hugely influential on Hong Kong horror cinema, and it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be till Samo Hung's Spooky Encounters films of the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties that the style took a different turn. But
Speaker 1: even then, Mudge Rights Shaw inspired sleazy sorcery and grotesque
Speaker 1: black magic played a major role in the nineteen nineties
Speaker 1: boom in what are referred to as category three rated
Speaker 1: genre cinema. Category three is like the was the extreme
Speaker 1: exploitation rating, So again this was part of a movement
Speaker 1: of films that had a real impact of the oily
Speaker 1: maniac In particular, Mudge Rights quote the film is a
Speaker 1: wacky affair, dripping with sleeves and jarring shifts of tone,
Speaker 1: and though it makes little sense in both some hilariously
Speaker 1: cheap special effects, it has become a firm favorite of
Speaker 1: trash cinema fans. And then I also found an article
Speaker 1: by this was by Danny chen wing Kit from twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen published in Hong Kong Studies titled Spectralizing Southeast Asia
Speaker 1: Hong Kong Cinema of Black Magic, and in this wing
Speaker 1: Kit makes an interesting point about Oily Maniac's place in
Speaker 1: the history of Hong Kong black magic films. Films such
Speaker 1: as this and seventy five's Black Magic and seventy six
Speaker 1: is Black Magic Part Two, they dealt with black magic
Speaker 1: beyond the limits of Hong Kong and modern urban living
Speaker 1: quote a haunted community kept at bay from Hong Kong.
Speaker 1: But later films they write across the boundary, bringing the
Speaker 1: black magic into the city. And in this wing Kin
Speaker 1: Rights we see an example of cultural bias and prejudice
Speaker 1: towards Southeast Asian cultures, and this becomes even more key
Speaker 1: during the eighties as Hong Kong searches for its place
Speaker 1: in the world. Quote in Hong Kong's Black Magic Cinema,
Speaker 1: a spectralized Southeast Asia is one of the most sought
Speaker 1: after imaginaries of otherness for the city to compensate for
Speaker 1: its national ambiguity.
Speaker 2: Okay, So maybe the idea is that in some of
Speaker 2: these early sleazy Sorcery films, it was imagining non Chinese
Speaker 2: Southeast Asia as a place kind of like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: like the you know, the rural texas of the Texas,
Speaker 2: Chainsaw mass exactly like this dangerous, this dangerous other place
Speaker 2: where there are savage forces afoot. But then over time
Speaker 2: there is a shift in cinema where those forces are
Speaker 2: are sort of moved inward and migrated back into the
Speaker 2: home base.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sort of the Jason takes Hong Kong movement, it
Speaker 1: takes Manhattan.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I thought that was interesting. It's you know,
Speaker 1: looking at how this film is sort of like what
Speaker 1: role it plays in the history of Hong Kong horror films,
Speaker 1: and also what it may reveal, according to this one
Speaker 1: author anyway, about about Hong Kong and its culture and
Speaker 1: it's and how it viewed you know, the other parts
Speaker 1: of the world as well.
Speaker 2: Now, one thing that's certainly worth mentioning here is the
Speaker 2: monster science parallel between the oily maniac and plenty of
Speaker 2: creatures in the real world which do sometimes cover themselves
Speaker 2: with different types of fluids, oils, lipids, slimes of various
Speaker 2: kinds in order to actually improve their survival odds.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And of these creatures, and there are many, the
Speaker 1: best example is probably always going to be the hagfish
Speaker 1: of class mixinny and the order Mixiniformis. And these are
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen these, you should look them up
Speaker 1: because they're they're bizarre. They're they're weird creatures. And you
Speaker 1: read the writings the Scientific journal writings of people who
Speaker 1: study them, and they totally agree. They're like, these creatures
Speaker 1: are weird. We still don't understand everything about that. They
Speaker 1: are strange because they are eel like, they are jawless,
Speaker 1: their marine fish that can produce vast quantities of slime
Speaker 1: when threatened, and then they can tie themselves in a
Speaker 1: traveling knot which they use to sort of slip free
Speaker 1: of their own slime, to sort of wring their own
Speaker 1: limbless bodies free of the slimy ooz that they've secreted.
Speaker 2: I think we should stop for a moment, though, and
Speaker 2: appreciate just how much slime a hagfish can produce. When
Speaker 2: I've read about this in the past, it was mind
Speaker 2: boggling and I just had to look it up again.
Speaker 2: There's a great article by Ed Young in The Atlantic
Speaker 2: about hagfish, and I want to read a quote here.
Speaker 2: He says, quote, Typically, a hagfish will release less than
Speaker 2: a teaspoon of gunk from the hundred or so slime
Speaker 2: glands that line its flanks, and in less than half
Speaker 2: a second that little amount will expand by ten thousand times,
Speaker 2: enough to fill a sizeable bucket. Reach in, and every
Speaker 2: move of your hand will drag the water with it.
Speaker 2: Wow and the knee, quotes a researcher named Douglas Fudge
Speaker 2: of Chapman University, who says it doesn't feel like much
Speaker 2: at first, as if a spider has built a web underwater,
Speaker 2: But then ed writ's quote. But try to lift your
Speaker 2: hand out, and it's as if the bucket's contents are
Speaker 2: now attached to you.
Speaker 1: Wow. That's incredible. Yeah, and yeah, that bucket's worth of
Speaker 1: content that's often going to potentially going to be the
Speaker 1: mouth of the creek the sea creature that tried to
Speaker 1: eat it. So the idea is they just clog up
Speaker 1: the creature that tried to consume them, and then they
Speaker 1: move away and then they're free. There are some hagfish
Speaker 1: that may use their slime offensively while hunting, apparently, but
Speaker 1: most hagfish thrive on the bottom of the ocean, feasting
Speaker 1: on rotten carcasses, and the slime is for when they
Speaker 1: are agitated by something.
Speaker 2: Now there's another parallel actually between the hagfish and the
Speaker 2: Oily Maniac and then they've got a weird heart, right.
Speaker 1: That's right. Hagfish are also notable for their quote unquote
Speaker 1: zombie hearts, which can keep beating for thirty six hours
Speaker 1: without any oxygen, allowing them to thrive in deep oxygen
Speaker 1: deprived environments. So yeah, I can't help but wonder if
Speaker 1: that is a zombie heart we see beating in the
Speaker 1: Oily Maniac's chest.
Speaker 2: Very nice? Okay, well, I guess that does it for
Speaker 2: the Oily Maniac again. I will say I can't really
Speaker 2: recommend watching the whole movie. It is a kind of
Speaker 2: it is a kind of disturbing and morally bad affair.
Speaker 2: But you should definitely check out those monster scenes, the
Speaker 2: monster fights or it's it's the best lipid mankung fu
Speaker 2: you will ever see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd love to again. I'd love to see this
Speaker 1: monster get a better treatment and a less sleazy film.
Speaker 1: I want. I want the film to be greasy but
Speaker 1: not sleazy.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I just want some good, clean greaseman fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, just have him wailing on bad guys the
Speaker 1: whole time. I have to say, in looking around on
Speaker 1: Google scholar for any like academic mention of him. I
Speaker 1: did run across a I think it was like a
Speaker 1: bachelor's degree thesis in game design where someone was making
Speaker 1: the argument. They were like, we need stealth games that
Speaker 1: feature the Oily Maniac. And I didn't read the whole thing,
Speaker 1: so I don't know how how pervasive that argument is
Speaker 1: this treatment, but they were like like, yeah, he's like
Speaker 1: a naturally skealthy he can you know, he can melt
Speaker 1: underdoors and all. So I don't know, maybe if that
Speaker 1: that potential game designer like feel strongly about it enough
Speaker 1: will eventually see an Oily Maniac stealth video game.
Speaker 2: That is a heck of a concept. Tap X to
Speaker 2: reverse footage.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, So where can you see this if
Speaker 1: you dare? Again, we've given you the the disclaimers that
Speaker 1: are necessary, I think, But if you want to watch
Speaker 1: the Oily Maniac or just skip to the key scenes
Speaker 1: we mentioned, you can stream this baby on Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1: You can buy it or rent it digitally other places
Speaker 1: as well. It's in Mandarin with English subtitles. DVDs and
Speaker 1: Blu rays are also available, though I can't make any
Speaker 1: promises about region and so forth. I also want to
Speaker 1: point out that when this film came out in Uzbekistan.
Speaker 1: According to IMDb, the video CD title was Zombie twelve
Speaker 1: The Insane Oily Free, which we've encountered Zombie with other films,
Speaker 1: generally with Italian films right where it's just anything that
Speaker 1: can remotely be tied into into the Zombie franchise, into
Speaker 1: Don of the Dead, and so this sequel. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it sounds like this was even more the case in
Speaker 1: Uzbekistan where someone's like, oh, we got another movie, as
Speaker 1: I've got a monster in it, Zombie twelve.
Speaker 2: Only way to see it is in the original loosebec.
Speaker 1: All right, well, we're gonna go ahead and close close
Speaker 1: the drum on this one, but obviously we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from anybody who has thoughts on this film or
Speaker 1: its place in Hong Kong cinematic history, et cetera. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you want to check out other episodes
Speaker 1: of Weird House Cinema, it publishes every Friday in the
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feeds, so you can
Speaker 1: find it by looking up the Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. We do
Speaker 1: ask the U rate, review and subscribe it's a great
Speaker 1: way to support the show. And also I have a
Speaker 1: personal website. It's some Muda music dot com Somemuda music
Speaker 1: like in Dune, and I just do some blog posts
Speaker 1: about these movies as we put them out, so if
Speaker 1: you're interested you can find that there.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 2: to suggest a topic for the future, just to say hello,
Speaker 2: you can email us at contact. That's Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: your Mind dot Com.
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