The 5 Deadly Venoms Review
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The 5 Deadly Venoms Feature
- 5 DEADLY VENOMS (DVD MOVIE)
One of the loopiest kung-fu movies ever made, a garish masterpiece of martial kitsch by the hard-boiled master of the genre, Chang Cheh. The five muscle-bound paragons of the title have fighting skills so hyperdeveloped that they border upon the occult, each modeled on the behavior of a different venomous beast: centipede, snake, lizard, toad, and scorpion. This "poison clan" is embroiled in a complex plot to lay claim to an ill-gotten fortune, but the story line feels like an afterthought. The nonstop wall-crawling action sequences, which match up the cast members in every conceivable combination, are the be all and end all here. This is late, decadent Chang Cheh, without the poise and sweep of earlier epics like
Blood Brothers and
Vengeance (the noble David Chiang-Ti Lung team ups that inspired John Woo), but it's great fun on its own terms. The painted masks worn by the Venoms, which make them look like berserk extras in a wrestling film, are based upon the belligerent warrior face paint of Chinese opera.
--David Chute
The dying master of the powerful Poison Clan assigns his final martial arts student one last, epic quest find his 5 most mysterious and dangerous disciples, each trained in a different fighting style, and bring them together to root out a conspiracy that could divide and destroy the entire clan.
Stills from The 5 Deadly Venoms (Click for larger image)
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Aug 08, 2011 11:07:04
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