Vashirdfel
Simply A Masterpiece
Beanbioca
As Good As It Gets
Ariella Broughton
It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
londonscot2003
Shaw Brothers Movie Studios director, Chang Cheh's 1978 tour-de-force Kung Fu extravaganza. This film set the stage for nearly 20+ more movies starring the 'Venoms' to follow in an attempt to quench the world-wide thirst of fans of this, the first 'Venoms' movie. Long out of print and only found in the possession of private Kung-Fu film collectors, the current commercially available VHS of 'The 5 Deadly Venoms' by EPI, is struck from a good quality master print, and is uncut and formatted in LBX (letterbox), which is a real treat to Kung Fu movie fans. The story centers around the last student of the dying master of 'The Poison Clan', who is sent out to find the last 5 secret members of the clan, all of whom have trained in a special 'Poison' technique. Some of the clan members have gone bad, and the student must locate and destroy them with the help of good members, if he can find them! The script, acting, choreography, costumes, and sets are fantastic. This film combines bare-chested Kung-Fu supermen back-flipping through the air while wielding exotic Chinese weapons and performing unbelievable feats of physical strength, skill, and speed, with a twisting plot of deceit, revenge, and corruption; all against a fantastic & deadly 14th century background. The 5 Deadly Venoms stars Kuo Chui (Lizard), Sun Chien (Scorpion), Lo Meng (Toad), Wei Pai (Snake), Lu Feng (Centipede), and Chiang Sheng as 'Yan Tieh', the last disciple of the Poison Clan master. A 'Must Have' for any Kung Fu movie fan as The 5 Deadly Venoms is truly an all time classic.
andressolf
This movie stars most of the same cast of The Crippled Avengers. It suffers from the same problems too. This movie has an interesting premise but it falls apart because the fighting choreography is more flips and ridiculous spinning low kicks than genuine gungu fu. It makes me think the one who choreographed these fights was a circus perfomer or gymnist/opera type person and not a genuine martial artist at all- if he was he must be real low class and must have been kicked out of his school or quick because none of the fights in this movie show a skilled practitioner in the martial arts yet there are supposed to be martial art heroes in this movie- martial artists that can do the impossible- and what do they do? Break chains? Do flips? Big whoop- Conan the Barbarian can do that. Nothing in this movie is special or representative of the true martial arts way or kung fu- there are so many stupid things about this movie besides the poorly staged fights. For example: They are all trying to steal a fortune. One of them is rich already so why is he involved and trying to get the money? It's never explained so technically he doesn't have a motive and yet goes after the money anyhow. Does that make sense to you? Then there is another guy who GETS the money/treasure and yet thinks he has to kill the rest too. Why? And then why doesn't he just do it? He could have skipped town when he got the treasure and yet he stayed like a fool- and more importantly he didn't kill all the members when theoretically he was absolutely in a place to do so. Stupid movie. It doesn't make sense because it's not supposed to- it's just plain dumb. When Bruce Lee said Kung Fu movies at the time had pointless fighting that was explained with no real reason he sure was right- and movies like this and My Young Auntie prove it. That movie too was dumb. At least The Crippled Avengers had a very good reason for fighting but again that had bad choreography like this one and the story got very weak by the 2nd half. Save yourself time and watch another Shaw Brothers film. - Mad Monkey Kung Fu is a good one. And Clan of the White Lotus is a good one too.
sword_boy
I rarely write reviews for IMDb.com, but I feel compelled to warn potential viewers that this movie is terrible. Just terrible. I like Shaw Bros. movies (I'm not a hater.), and I had high expectations for this one since I found it listed on many "10 Best Kung Fu/Martial Arts Movies" websites. (I'm now convinced that those 10 Best lists are all cut-and-paste jobs.) First of all, there's barely any action in the film. Most of the movie consists of talking about the plot, which is an amazing feat because it's thin at best. And the action itself may have been impressive back in 1978, but it's routine by today's standards. A special warning to Netflix users: the DVD they ship is terrible; the picture is horrendous and it's not even 16:9 enhanced.
Mr_Shaggs
This movie is really good. The plot, which works like puzzle forces viewer to think and guess, what will happen next. Such a trick brings a lot of surprises and makes a viewer really looking forward to solution of a riddle. Fighting scenes are very good. There's a lot of different combat styles (although one of styles was a bit unreal for me, but it's only my opinion) to watch and it's fascinating show. The only thing which may be irritating is actors look. A bit too effeminate (at least for me). Hong Kong was always good at kung-fu movies especially in the 70's and 80's, so "Five Venoms" (or other its versions) is great choice.
