Five Deadly Venoms - Review

Directed by Cheh Chang. Written by Cheh Chang, Kuang Ni. Starring Sheng Chiang, Philip Kwok, Feng Lu.

Bottom line: If you love cheesy Kung Fu, it is your responsibility to see Five Deadly Venoms but, otherwise, you can pass on it.

2.5/4 

We open to an aged Kung Fu master, the head of the Five Venoms Clan. He makes a dying wish to his young, inexperienced pupil, Yang Tieh, “Go to my former schoolmate and tell him to donate the ill-gotten treasure to charity.” The master warns that his five other students will undoubtedly seek out the treasure as well. Queue montage of the other students’ styles!

We have the Centipede, also known as “the man with a thousand hands” because he punches and kicks so quickly. We have the Snake, whose left hand and right hand is the head and tail of a serpent, respectively. His fast reflexes make him a dangerous advisory. The Scorpion attacks with precision; his hands grab like claws while his feet strike like the legs of a scorpion (I don’t really know what that means exactly, that’s just the description we get), oh, and he also throws scorpion shaped daggers. The Lizard can stand on walls. The Toad can “bend and break things with his body” which refers to his ability to stop swords from cutting him. Yang Tieh has learned a little Lizard but he is no master it so he must team up with another pupil to take down any of them who have villainous intent.

If you like 70’s Kung Fu, this is a solid choice. The introduction gives you feel for the tone of the movie. It isn’t a complex plot and the characters are pretty basic. The characters are even color-coordinated: red is probably bad, blue is probably good. There is only one costume change throughout the movie so it’s easy to follow the characters. The dialog is equally simple. The set design and lighting is appropriately bare setting the stage perfectly for fight scenes.

The camera is, for the most part, a consistent medium shot or long shot so it’s far enough away for us to feast our eyes on the action. That is one of the best parts about this movie. I remember hearing a number of complaints when Batman Begins first came out. The camera cut too quickly during the fights making the action nigh incomprehensible. You don’t have that problem in Five Deadly Venoms. Sure, the martial arts aren’t quite up to the level of Bruce Lee but it is still satisfying.

The focus of this movie is about Kung Fu and, really, everything revolves around that. The one character says something like, “The toad is strong, he will break out of any iron or chains.” “Oh,” responds the supervisor, “Guards! Put him in the heaviest chains we have!” He breaks out and starts fighting everyone.

I am a fan of Kung Fu so I thought Five Deadly Venoms was fun. It takes itself seriously enough to present a Kung Fu experience but it doesn’t take itself too seriously in that it loses sight of the fact that it is...well, a budget Kung Fu movie. There are bad movies, there are good movies and then there are the bad movies. You want to avoid the bad movies because the quality is just so low, it isn’t worth your time. The bad movies are the popcorn-action-movies. They aren’t too sophisticated but it’s ok because they are just for fun. Five Deadly Venoms is a bad Kung Fu movie that I recommend for fans of Kung Fu. If you aren’t a fan, pass on this. It is like giving a fine scotch to someone who only drinks wine. There isn’t anything wrong with only drinking wine but the experience of the scotch will be lost.

You might also be interested in my discussion post about Five Deadly Venoms