Five Deadly Venoms (1978) dir. Cheh Chang
Many years ago, the Poison Clan used its powerful martial arts techniques for evil. By this means, they amassed great wealth, but also many enemies. The remaining members had to move into the remote wilderness to keep their lore alive. Now the last teacher of the Poison Clan (Dick Wei) is dying. He instructs his final pupil, Yang Tieh (Chiang Sheng) to go out into the world to check up on the five previous students, Centipede, Snake, Scorpion, Lizard and Toad. Some of them may be using their martial arts for evil; if so, Yang will need to ally with one of the less evil ones to defeat the more evil ones.
This won’t be easy–each of the former students always wore a mask during training, so that no one, either the teacher or each other, knew who they actually were. In addition, Yang’s training was incomplete, so he won’t be a match for any one of the Venoms in their special skills. But there is a clue that might help. Years before, one of the teacher’s colleagues had absconded with the clan treasury. His true name and appearance aren’t known either, but clues suggest a particular town he’s hiding in. The Venoms will certainly converge on that town to find the embezzler and the treasure, and thus Yang should be able to find them.
Indeed, some of the Venoms have come to the town, and Bookkeeper Yuan and his entire family are murdered in an attempt to find the treasure. Police officers Meng Tianxia (Kuo Chui) and Chief Constable Ma (Sun Chien) are assigned to the case, and Yang gives them some behind the scenes help, but political corruption and dirty cops stand in the way of justice.
This is one of the classic kung fu films, with exciting action, well-staged fight scenes with distinctive style use, and just enough mystery to keep the audience guessing. No time is wasted on romantic subplots or other distractions.
Mind, this also leaves little time for subtle characterization–the scene where Snake (Wei Pai) admits that he’s discovered he has a conscience too late for it to do any good is about as much nuance as we get.
Content notes: there’s some torture in a judicial context (both historically accurate and highly dubious versions), blood, and a couple of the murders are more wince-inducing than others.
This film is referenced a lot in other films and martial arts stories, so is a must-watch for martial arts fans.
