Oily ManiacYou've gotta be slick to fight crime and corruption! That's the basic idea behind the Hong Kong schlock "masterpiece" that is Oily Maniac. "Dripping" with B-movie charm, this unctuous yarn is about a disabled law clerk named Sheng Yung (Danny Lee), who attacks injustice--as he sees it--by transforming himself into a monster coated in grease and possessed of supernatural strength. But as Yung continues to exploit the power of an ancient Malay spell to fight evil, he loses sight on what he's fighting for, and chooses his targets without as much discretion or caution, leading to dire consequences.
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Directed by Ho Meng Hua, Oily Maniac decidedly belongs in the "so bad it's good" camp of B-Movies. It feels like a melodramatic cross between The Toxic Avenger and Darkman, although Yung inflicts his bizarre power upon himself. The movie begins with a prologue that states that the monster Yung becomes is derived from a Malaysian legend about a creature that was also super strong and coated in grease--the "Orang Minyak" myth. Coincidentally, the Oran Minyak story is really about a monster that goes around raping virgins after making a deal with the devil, so that (somehow) he can win back his love. As insane as this sounds, it isn't so far from the spirit of Oily Maniac and Yung's own motivations. Yung implements this spell after it was given to him off of the back tattoo of his uncle, Ah Ba (Ku Feng), who is to be executed minutes later. Yung does this so that he can protect his cousin, Xiao Yue (Ping Chen)--for whom Yung carries a torch--from a couple of rapists. (Wait...let me back up; that just sounds crazy.) Oily Maniac begins with Yung and Yue going to visit Ah Ba (who is also Yue's father), only to discover that Yung's employer, the ultra-sleazy lawyer Hu Ly Fa (Wang Hsieh), is in the midst of a deal going sour fast between a coconut oil plant owner, Chen Fu Sin (Wa Lun)--who is later revealed to be Yue's fiance--and a gangster named Yang Tin Choi (Chiang Yang), who tries (and later succeeds) at raping Yue! Even worse, Fu Sin is complicit in Yue's rape, because he and Choi made a deal over the factory, and she was a part of the terms. (Uh-oh, this still sounds like madness...couldn't be because the movie is totally nuts, could it?!) So...Mr. Hu has a pattern of brokering deals that screw over both his client and their opponents so he can capitalize on it himself--he pulls this multiple times in the movie--so he's scum, too. As the argument enters a full-on brawl with machetes flying and tables being smashed, Ah Ba stabs one of Choi's goons in self-defense, which apparently is a capital crime in Malaysia. (Additionally, justice must be lightning quick over there, because he's sentenced and executed seemingly within minutes.) And just before he is to die, he asks Yung to watch over his daughter, and imparts a baffling revelation to the law clerk in these final moments, that his back tattoo is really a magic spell. Never mind why Ah Ba has such a bizarre tattoo in the first place, nor his cryptic warning that Yung must only use the spell "for good", or something like that. This is a loaded gun--metaphorically speaking--that Ah Ba gives to his impetuous nephew, and he doesn't take the crucial step in helping him understand how to use it properly.
Ultimately, it's Yung's ignorance and muddied sense of justice that proves to be his own undoing, but it doesn't help that he and Yue live in a world that is positively rancid with corruption and evil. (Even one of Yung's colleagues berates him for being late to work on the day his uncle dies.) Yung resents his crippled leg--a side effect from polio in his youth--and he feels that it's keeping Yue from loving him because he can't defend her, such as in the initial attack at the coconut oil factory. When he does save her from a pair of rapists, he covers her naked body out of modesty before pursuing the survivor. Yung has a warped perception of what his relationship to Yue is. When he is about to confess his love to her, she reveals that she made dinner...but for Fu Sin, who shows up moments later and passionately kisses her. Even more callous, just after Yung leaves and is sulking out in the rain, he goes back to find that instead of eating, they have fallen into bed within a minute! Yue can't be that dense about how Yung feels, but Yung still feels entitled to her love, never mind that they're cousins. This episode colors his view of justice, and he even takes a somewhat misogynistic attitude toward those who exploit the law for profit. For example, the audience is clued in on much of Mr. Hu's dirty dealings, but all Yung observes in a rape case Hu is prosecuting is how fraudulent the plaintiff is! To elaborate, Hu has concocted a scheme to incriminate a young man (Wai Wang) who lives across the hall from an attractive dancer named Lam Yu Nian (Angela Yu Chien), who has accused him of raping her. Both give their testimonies, which are as wildly different as in Rashomon (a far better film). Despite nothing more than hearsay and inflammatory statements, with no evidence of said rape even happening, Hu wins the case, and gives Yu Nian twenty percent of the damages--her "cut". And even though Yung is present when they discuss dividing up their winnings, Yung holds Yu Nian to be the villain first and foremost, not Hu, who was really the mastermind of the scheme. Later, a woman comes in to Hu's office looking to sue an unlicensed plastic surgeon for a botched breast augmentation (Oily Maniac isn't above showing the plaintiff's bare chest in detail), and Hu plays both sides to make a killing. Yet Yung goes off and kills only the plastic surgeon (as the titular Oily Maniac), as he did with Yu Nian, holding these women accountable for their sins. Yung allows his deep-seated resentment over his rejection by Yue to foster a hatred toward women. Dark as it may be, this may also account for why he fails to arrive in time to save Yue from Choi and Fu Sin's unconscionable plot, and even worse, Yue's suicide out of the horror of discovering such a betrayal. Instead, Yung chases down (well, shambles after, really) some second-stringers in Choi's gang, rather than prioritize Yue over his own hot-blooded (hot-oiled?) vengeance.
Even though Yung commits highly visible assaults and murders, he is being tracked by a woefully incompetent detective named Inspector Shih (Tung Lin)--who disputes such a creature even exists, and at one point claims that the culprit covered himself in oil to make a quick getaway (really!). Yung keeps his alter ego under wraps for the most part, and races home after each attack to rehydrate and collapse on a straw mat covering a hole he dug in his home as a part of the initial ritual to become the Oily Maniac. However, one of Yung's colleagues, a smart young woman named Xiao Ly (Lily Li), eventually figures out what Yung has been up to after visiting him and discovering assorted oil slicks on his walkway and his gate. Ly's interest in Yung isn't just professional, as she appears to have a bit of a crush on the impassioned law clerk. Yet Yung is so single-minded in his obsessive desire for Yue that he is completely oblivious to her kindly attempts at courtship. In one scene, the dense Yung shows up two hours late for a homecooked meal by Ly, and comments that he "already ate at Yue's" who made him this delicious curry chicken he says is "better than anyone else's"...as a plate of (now cold) curry chicken Ly made sits in front of Yung. Reminiscent of nurse Alex Price in An American Werewolf in London, Ly is just about the only sensible character in the whole movie, and the only one who seems interested in saving an incompetent man from destroying himself--unfortunately, she has just about as much luck as Alex did at that.
Oily Maniac is unquestionably a bad film; it is pure "MST3K" fodder, and expectations should be set deservedly low. It is an exploitation flick in the Troma vein--almost every pretty woman eventually has her breasts exposed, and situations of said pretty women being put into sexually suggestive scenes happens about every ten minutes. The movie is too casual with its treatment of rape, and even goes so far as to undermine actual rape cases through the character of Yu Nian, suggesting that sometimes these accusations are nothing more than a plot to trap men for profit. That the protagonist is derived from a legend about a monster/rapist also raises some uncomfortable questions about whether the creators of Oily Maniac are treating the subject seriously. Today, things are different, so you might have to view this movie through the lens of yesteryear with its different attitudes about the treatment of rape, not to mention the audience for which this movie was made in the first place. Despite being an absurd movie with an absurd title and an absurd concept, the predominance of rape in it makes viewing Oily Maniac more awkward than, say, watching other less lascivious camp classics. Forgive this groanworthy closing statement, but the film's treatment of sexual assault leaves an ugly "stain" behind that keeps Oily Maniac from being fully uplifted as an unintentional comedy.
Recommended for: Fans of cheesy monster flicks with a decidedly "grindhouse" edge to them. Although there is rarely any objectionable language, there are moments of violence and lots of leering nudity and scenes of women in sexually compromised positions, making Oily Maniac best suited for adults who can view it objectively as the unabashed ultra-low budget movie that it is.
Ultimately, it's Yung's ignorance and muddied sense of justice that proves to be his own undoing, but it doesn't help that he and Yue live in a world that is positively rancid with corruption and evil. (Even one of Yung's colleagues berates him for being late to work on the day his uncle dies.) Yung resents his crippled leg--a side effect from polio in his youth--and he feels that it's keeping Yue from loving him because he can't defend her, such as in the initial attack at the coconut oil factory. When he does save her from a pair of rapists, he covers her naked body out of modesty before pursuing the survivor. Yung has a warped perception of what his relationship to Yue is. When he is about to confess his love to her, she reveals that she made dinner...but for Fu Sin, who shows up moments later and passionately kisses her. Even more callous, just after Yung leaves and is sulking out in the rain, he goes back to find that instead of eating, they have fallen into bed within a minute! Yue can't be that dense about how Yung feels, but Yung still feels entitled to her love, never mind that they're cousins. This episode colors his view of justice, and he even takes a somewhat misogynistic attitude toward those who exploit the law for profit. For example, the audience is clued in on much of Mr. Hu's dirty dealings, but all Yung observes in a rape case Hu is prosecuting is how fraudulent the plaintiff is! To elaborate, Hu has concocted a scheme to incriminate a young man (Wai Wang) who lives across the hall from an attractive dancer named Lam Yu Nian (Angela Yu Chien), who has accused him of raping her. Both give their testimonies, which are as wildly different as in Rashomon (a far better film). Despite nothing more than hearsay and inflammatory statements, with no evidence of said rape even happening, Hu wins the case, and gives Yu Nian twenty percent of the damages--her "cut". And even though Yung is present when they discuss dividing up their winnings, Yung holds Yu Nian to be the villain first and foremost, not Hu, who was really the mastermind of the scheme. Later, a woman comes in to Hu's office looking to sue an unlicensed plastic surgeon for a botched breast augmentation (Oily Maniac isn't above showing the plaintiff's bare chest in detail), and Hu plays both sides to make a killing. Yet Yung goes off and kills only the plastic surgeon (as the titular Oily Maniac), as he did with Yu Nian, holding these women accountable for their sins. Yung allows his deep-seated resentment over his rejection by Yue to foster a hatred toward women. Dark as it may be, this may also account for why he fails to arrive in time to save Yue from Choi and Fu Sin's unconscionable plot, and even worse, Yue's suicide out of the horror of discovering such a betrayal. Instead, Yung chases down (well, shambles after, really) some second-stringers in Choi's gang, rather than prioritize Yue over his own hot-blooded (hot-oiled?) vengeance.
Even though Yung commits highly visible assaults and murders, he is being tracked by a woefully incompetent detective named Inspector Shih (Tung Lin)--who disputes such a creature even exists, and at one point claims that the culprit covered himself in oil to make a quick getaway (really!). Yung keeps his alter ego under wraps for the most part, and races home after each attack to rehydrate and collapse on a straw mat covering a hole he dug in his home as a part of the initial ritual to become the Oily Maniac. However, one of Yung's colleagues, a smart young woman named Xiao Ly (Lily Li), eventually figures out what Yung has been up to after visiting him and discovering assorted oil slicks on his walkway and his gate. Ly's interest in Yung isn't just professional, as she appears to have a bit of a crush on the impassioned law clerk. Yet Yung is so single-minded in his obsessive desire for Yue that he is completely oblivious to her kindly attempts at courtship. In one scene, the dense Yung shows up two hours late for a homecooked meal by Ly, and comments that he "already ate at Yue's" who made him this delicious curry chicken he says is "better than anyone else's"...as a plate of (now cold) curry chicken Ly made sits in front of Yung. Reminiscent of nurse Alex Price in An American Werewolf in London, Ly is just about the only sensible character in the whole movie, and the only one who seems interested in saving an incompetent man from destroying himself--unfortunately, she has just about as much luck as Alex did at that.
Oily Maniac is unquestionably a bad film; it is pure "MST3K" fodder, and expectations should be set deservedly low. It is an exploitation flick in the Troma vein--almost every pretty woman eventually has her breasts exposed, and situations of said pretty women being put into sexually suggestive scenes happens about every ten minutes. The movie is too casual with its treatment of rape, and even goes so far as to undermine actual rape cases through the character of Yu Nian, suggesting that sometimes these accusations are nothing more than a plot to trap men for profit. That the protagonist is derived from a legend about a monster/rapist also raises some uncomfortable questions about whether the creators of Oily Maniac are treating the subject seriously. Today, things are different, so you might have to view this movie through the lens of yesteryear with its different attitudes about the treatment of rape, not to mention the audience for which this movie was made in the first place. Despite being an absurd movie with an absurd title and an absurd concept, the predominance of rape in it makes viewing Oily Maniac more awkward than, say, watching other less lascivious camp classics. Forgive this groanworthy closing statement, but the film's treatment of sexual assault leaves an ugly "stain" behind that keeps Oily Maniac from being fully uplifted as an unintentional comedy.
Recommended for: Fans of cheesy monster flicks with a decidedly "grindhouse" edge to them. Although there is rarely any objectionable language, there are moments of violence and lots of leering nudity and scenes of women in sexually compromised positions, making Oily Maniac best suited for adults who can view it objectively as the unabashed ultra-low budget movie that it is.