Five Deadly Venoms (1978) Sheng Chiang, Chien Sun, Phillip Chung-Fung Kwok, Meng Lo Movie Review

Five Deadly Venoms (1978)   4/54/54/54/54/5


Five Deadly Venoms (1978)

He is the Antivenom

Realising his attempts to cure himself have failed a dying teacher requests that his final student seek out five previous students all experts in special styles of kung-fu The Centipede, Snake, Scorpion, Lizard, and Toad to see what these students are using their skills for. With each skill being deadly when these 5 former students unite they are invincible. But with some of these skills and with the aid of another former student they set down to discover whether these former students are using their martial arts skills for good or evil.

Comedy, mystery, strange fighting skills and curious powers along with quirky characters an much more. I may not be an expert on the kung-fu movies which came out of Hong Kong during the 70s I do know that "Five Deadly Venoms" ticks many of the boxes when it comes to what went in to making these moves. And even as someone who admittedly knows little about this genre I can sat that even if you are new to 70s kung-fu movies "Five Deadly Venoms" will entertain and more than likely end up one of those you will watch again.

Now I would be lying if I said I managed to follow exactly what was going on in "Five Deadly Venoms" but it is easy enough to follow at a basic level for those who don't want to be concentrating on reading the subtitles. We have an inexperienced pupil with some skills going on a quest to find the five former students with venomous skills and finds out what they are using their skills for and of course preventing bad from happening. I am sure there must be more to this than just that but it is enough as a basic vehicle for those who as I said don't want to spend all their time reading subtitles.

But then we get all the ingredients which made these old kung-fu movies what they were and so we have the action which often seems out of this world as people not only manage to fight many people at once but they can also break the laws of physics by clinging to walls or hanging in the air for a long time. And the outrageousness and sometimes daftness of the action works because it is impressive but also a little comical which works with not only the quirky nature of the characters but also the playful soundtrack. Basically if you remember the old slapstick movies of the 1930s where the comical nature of the music combined with the characters own quirky mannerisms made you smile well you get plenty of that in "Five Deadly Venoms" but with the fantasy action on top of it.

What this all boils down to is that "Five Deadly Venoms" is undeniably entertaining with its mix of action and comedy. In fact I would love to say it is the ideal example of these movies for those just embarking on the Hong Kong kung-fu movies of the 70s except it is so entertaining that others may not compare so well with it.


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