Comparison between the German Blu-ray from filmArt (= Celestial HD master) and the German DVD from Starlight (= Celestial SD master) with the uncut British Blu-ray from Arrow Video

- 4 relevant cuts
- Duration: 10.4 sec

Several other master errors/“framecuts” with a duration of less than 1 sec each were not listed in the report.

Here we are again: After there were were many reports on Shawscope Vol. 3 at the end of 2024, Vol. 4 of the box set will now be available from December 8, 2025 (UK, or December 9 in the US). Once again, the collector's label Arrow Video offers new restorations of 16 films from the legendary Hong Kong film studios, which were notorious for years for their “framecut” versions of Celestial: countless moments roughly shortened at splice points and any kind of damage on the film material.

Two, or on closer inspection even three titles are included in several versions within the box set. For Super Inframan, you also get the different US version, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is also available with an additional scene exclusive to the Mandarin version. With Bloody Parrot, there was once again the typical British situation, without any prior announcement, that scenes involving animal cruelty are critical for the BBFC, which is why the uncut version is available on the same disc with code A (intended for America), but a slightly censored version is served up with code B (UK / Europe).

Disc 1 features Super Inframan, Shaw's answer to the enormous success of the Japanese Kamen raidâ, essentially the wilder precursors to the Power Rangers. Unfortunately, shortly before the theatrical release in Hong Kong, there was a fatal accident in which children were reenacting the Japanese original on a roof, so the box office results fell far short of expectations. The release with its own adaptations on the US market was quite successful, but in the end it wasn't enough for a sequel.

• Old Celestial SD master: 84:40 min on the German DVD at PAL speed (equivalent to 88:17 min at NTSC/Blu-ray speed)
• Celestial HD master: 87:35 min on the German Blu-ray from filmArt / Media Target
• 2025 restoration by Arrow Video: 90:39 min

Minus Celestial notes and at the same running speed, the new Arrow version is 2:22 min longer than the SD master and even 3:27 min longer than the HD master from Celestial. That's right: there were two different “stages” in which Celestial tampered with the film back then. Even in the DVD era, around two minutes were missing that were previously on VHS (in Germany, once more, with the restriction that other parts were heavily cut) and are now finally back in full on Arrow Video. For the first HD release, Celestial made further changes on this basis, adding up to another whole minute of frame cuts throughout the film. Both versions were released in Germany by Starlight (DVD) and filmArt (Blu-ray), respectively, and we compared them here.

Only one shot was completely missing from the old Celestial master, but otherwise there are three places where quite a lot is missing at once, which is really noticeable (because they are significantly longer than the usual 0.5 seconds). Due to the even larger number of frame cuts, especially in the old HD master, many shots are super short. The film is already very fast-paced and here it is virtually sped up even more. However, the missing sections are basically negligible, and because the quality of the German Blu-ray was already relatively good, one can still be satisfied with it. Either way, it's nice that there are no more frame cuts to complain about in the recommended Arrow set, and the new restoration is a bit fresher and (not really noticeable in our small screenshot size) offers an improvement in sharpness, for example.

Running times are listed according to the following scheme
German Blu-ray in 23.976 fps / German DVD in 25 fps / British Blu-ray in 23.976 fps