the history of Shaw Brothers would be different and a lot tamer without the involvement of Chih-Hung Kwei, a 
Chinese-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. 
appear.
a 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. 
Vinegar 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 
in 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)
Image Entertainment (DVD)
