| DVD Released by : Celestial Pictures | |
| Player reviewed with : Malata 520 | |
| Receiver reviewed with : Sony 925 | |
| Features: | |
| Mandarin and Cantonese Soundtracks | |
| English, Chinese, Bahasa Malaysia, and Bahasa Indonesia Subtitles | |
| Enhanced for 16 x 9 TVs | |
| Old and New Trailers | |
| Behind the scenes, Color stills, Original Poster, and Production Notes | |
| Audio Commentary By Bey Logan | |
| Running Time : 97 mins. | |
| Region 3 | |
THE FIVE VENOMS (AKA SHAOLIN DEADLY POISONS) is the movie that has started many on their journey into the world of Kung Fu movies. What appears simple enough, a dying master asking his student to check on five pervious students to make sure they aren't doing evil, seems to have evolved into a phenomenon. The student is pretty powerful himself, knowing the five styles, Centipede, Snake, Toad, Scorpion, and Gecko, but he would not be able to defeat somebody who has trained in just one of these disciplines. While looking for the other venoms, he is also to meet with a colleague of his master and ask that he donate his treasures to charity.
The student (Chiang Sheng), masquerades as a beggar to try to track down his Master's associate. He hangs around town trying to also spot the other Venoms. Two Venoms, Centipede (Lu Feng) and Snake (Wei Pei) find and kill the associate and his family because he doesn't tell them where the treasure is. After the Venoms leave, a masked Venom (Sun Chien as Scorpion), appears and finds the map to the treasure. Only a beggar sees who has committed the crime.
One of the policemen assigned to the case is actually the Gecko Venom (Phillip Kwok). He and Toad (Lo Meng) have been also trying to find this person. The beggar tells the police what he sees but Snake threatens him to lie and blame Toad. He does this and Toad is killed in prison, as Gecko is sent away to deliver a parcel. When Gecko gets back, the Mater's student reveals himself and the team up to take on Centipede and Snake.
Director Chang Cheh really created a magic formula with this movie. There is intrigue and action as well as some really good performances. This movie has held up well overtime and is definitely recommended.
This is bar none the best I have seen this movie look. The print is beautiful with barely a speck on it. The colors are rich and vibrant. This movie looks so good it's hard to believe it was filmed in 1978. The anamorphic transfer is also very well done. It was a real treat watching this on the 47 inch TV. I literally have DVD's of movies that have come out recently that do not look this good. Even darks scenes looked good without getting grainy looking.
There is a Cantonese track as well as a Mandarin track. Both are Dolby Digital and sound good. The Mandarin dialogue is just a bit bass heavy compared to the Cantonese track. Since the voices were dubbed after filming, they sometimes don't sync up perfectly. I don't think this is an issue with the DVD but it's worth a mention. Sound effects and music never drown out the dialogue and for an older movie, there isn't any hiss or distortion in the soundtrack. Overall the sound is very good. There is no English dub on this DVD. I prefer the original language but I could understand wanting the English dub just for the sake of nostalgia for those that caught this on a Saturday many years ago.
Overall, I wholeheartedly recommend this DVD if you are a fan of the movie or old school Kung Fu movies in general. If you like the more modern Kung Fu films, you may find FIVE VENOMS lacking but you have to put it in its time and place and realize how groundbreaking it was at the time.
Reviewed 9/25/2004
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