09-08-2009, 10:02 PM
I think I better behave myself on this board for a while. Maybe a looooong while.
I watched this on late-night TV in the early '80's, and Netflix gave me an opportunity to revisit it -- with Lady Cranefly. As DM scolded her a couple days ago, "How can you be a kung fu aficianado if you haven't seen Five Deadly Venoms?" Or words to that effect. DM can correct me.
Five minutes into the movie, Lady Cranefly turned to me and said, "This is a classic?" Okay, so it's not that good. It really isn't. The acting is stilted and poor. The costuming is cheesy. The five venoms wear these cheap opera masks with their "totem" animal perched on their forehead. The fight sequences are of the old school where they pace their exchanges evenly with loud sound effects if not shouts. Still, they are all superb athletes, and I recognize their names and have seen them dozens of times in other movies.
Despite the movie's faults, there's something incredibly appealing about it. I think it's a case of the concept far exceeding the execution.
Here's the plot in a nutshell. A dying master wants his last student to check up on 5 earlier students. These students were taught, respectively, snake, scorpion, centipede, toad, and lizard. The master is concerned that they might be using their powers for bad. There's lots of subterfuge about who knows whose identity, and I can't say I followed much of it. But there's lots of dark intrigue, double-cross, and suspicion throughout. The mood is similar to that of The Flying Guillotine (starring Kuan Tai Chen, who, amazingly, I met in a Hong Kong bar in the late '90s. BTW, ever notice how all the UFOs of that time period resemble the flying guillotine?).
The movie is surprisingly dark, with some really nasty tortures. For instance, the toad is virtually indestructible, but the bad guys find ways to defeat his impenetrable skin. These gruesome scenes are what I remember most from my early '80s viewing.
While I can't say it's a great movie, it comes from Shaw Brothers, and when you see their logo and hear their music kick in, how can you possibly shut it off?
The DVD I got from Netflix is definitely NOT one of the remastered Shaw Brothers releases. It is thankfully letterboxed, but there is noise in spots, and the movie is dubbed -- without options for native language or any extras whatsoever.
After the movie ended, Lady Cranefly poked me in the stomach and said, "You're certainly not the toad."
Indeed...
I watched this on late-night TV in the early '80's, and Netflix gave me an opportunity to revisit it -- with Lady Cranefly. As DM scolded her a couple days ago, "How can you be a kung fu aficianado if you haven't seen Five Deadly Venoms?" Or words to that effect. DM can correct me.
Five minutes into the movie, Lady Cranefly turned to me and said, "This is a classic?" Okay, so it's not that good. It really isn't. The acting is stilted and poor. The costuming is cheesy. The five venoms wear these cheap opera masks with their "totem" animal perched on their forehead. The fight sequences are of the old school where they pace their exchanges evenly with loud sound effects if not shouts. Still, they are all superb athletes, and I recognize their names and have seen them dozens of times in other movies.
Despite the movie's faults, there's something incredibly appealing about it. I think it's a case of the concept far exceeding the execution.
Here's the plot in a nutshell. A dying master wants his last student to check up on 5 earlier students. These students were taught, respectively, snake, scorpion, centipede, toad, and lizard. The master is concerned that they might be using their powers for bad. There's lots of subterfuge about who knows whose identity, and I can't say I followed much of it. But there's lots of dark intrigue, double-cross, and suspicion throughout. The mood is similar to that of The Flying Guillotine (starring Kuan Tai Chen, who, amazingly, I met in a Hong Kong bar in the late '90s. BTW, ever notice how all the UFOs of that time period resemble the flying guillotine?).
The movie is surprisingly dark, with some really nasty tortures. For instance, the toad is virtually indestructible, but the bad guys find ways to defeat his impenetrable skin. These gruesome scenes are what I remember most from my early '80s viewing.
While I can't say it's a great movie, it comes from Shaw Brothers, and when you see their logo and hear their music kick in, how can you possibly shut it off?
The DVD I got from Netflix is definitely NOT one of the remastered Shaw Brothers releases. It is thankfully letterboxed, but there is noise in spots, and the movie is dubbed -- without options for native language or any extras whatsoever.
After the movie ended, Lady Cranefly poked me in the stomach and said, "You're certainly not the toad."
Indeed...
