Some time ago I was in FYE with some money to burn with a friend of mine trying to decide on which martial arts movie I wanted to get: Five Deadly Venoms or The 7 Grandmasters. I had heard both were classics but ultimately I was won over by The 7 Grandmasters because, well, 7 is a lucky number and the quality of the DVD case was well designed. Yeah, I fire with all pistons when it comes to logic.7 Grandmasters was a phenomenal martial arts movie and is now probably one of my favorites. Not only did it provide some awesome martial arts work it has a story and characters you actually cared about. It was a movie that broke the "kung fu movie stereotype" that gets these old school films so little of the respect they deserve.Just like Five Deadly Venoms.The plot of the movie begins with the master of the Poison Clan on the verge of death. His last request of his final student is to search out 5 of his deadliest students and for him to make sure that what the master taught them isn't being used for ill. The former students are The Snake, The Centipede, The Lizard, The Scorpion, and The Toad and yes, they are all named after the respective styles they were taught...each with particular advantages the others don't have. These are totally unique styles with particularly bizarre (and not coincidentally, entertaining) attributes: The Scorpian primarily uses his legs and has a superhuman grip while The Toad is just plain indestructable to name just a few.Since these students were all taught wearing masks the master himself has no clue as to their identities. The final student of course agrees to the mission and our movie begins...What follows is a rather unpredictable, well-directed, and well acted martial arts film.While later, not as well crafted martial arts films poured on cliche after cliche to the point where almost nothing was surprising Five Deadly Venoms swerves and pivots with unpredictability. Compared to the films I was used to Five Deadly Venoms defies convention in a few areas. Here are just a few...1) The hero of the film isn't all powerful.2) There is no MAIN villain...but the ones there are are hardly comical and you will even find yourself hating them character-wise.3) You actually empathize with the emotions of the characters.And I actually watched the DUBBED version.The only caveat I have in regards to the film is that the actual martial arts works isn't over astounding (though there are a few moves I found to be rather surprising) if they are pretty unique (The Lizard's ability to cling to walls is surprisingly well done.). This, all in all, is a really small gripe. The choreograpy in the film is actually very well done and fast paced as opposed to the slow, more methodical style of less impressive movies. The story itself is so engaging that I actually wouldn't care if the fighting was limited to shadow boxing.The point is: if you love martial arts films you owe to yourself to check out Five Deadly Venoms. You won't be disappointed.
Nice
Movie not translated to English. Can't understand.
One the best Kung Fu films ever!
When i purchased this i did it with the intentions of watching the movie 📽️🍿🎬🎞️🎦and reading the English subtitles because in language on the description it says Mandarin. I was surprised that when i put the disc 💿in my player the (set up) had English audio 🎉🎊. This movie brings so many childhood memories to me watching it @ the Times SQ NY cinemas and on the Saturday TV 📺Drive cinema hour! The Blu-ray is super clear and this disc allowed me to put my 25 year old DVD version away because it was so blurry, that i just couldn't enjoy the movie causing me to buy this Blu-ray version and be totally satisfied with it and recommend it to any other Kung fu/SB fan! I would just like to repeat it has English audio and is worth every penny!