Kung! Pow!: The Five Deadly Venoms (1978)

Directed by:

Chang Cheh

Written by:

Chang Cheh, Ni Kuang

Cast:

Chiang Sheng, Kuo Chui, Lo Mang, Sun Chien

Cinematography:

Cho Wai Kei, Kung Mu To

Goes best with:

A serving of chofan rice, a serving of chop suey, a couple of spring rolls.

 

So, okay: There are two types of “Chinese” martial arts movies, and those quotation marks will make sense pretty soon.

 

There’s wuxia and there’s kung fu, also known as “chop-socky,” also known as “chopsocky.”

 

Wuxia is strongly related to Chinese folklore and it’s stories they’ve been telling for centuries; you recognize them on the screen because characters fly and stop a hundred arrows by kicking them in the air. Meaning, wuxia has its feet in fantasy, these guys have superpowers and the feats they do are pure fuel for fake martial artists thinking they can kill people with their minds.

 

Chop-socky still looks incredible, but this is at least stuff you can actually do. People kung-fu the fuck out of each other, and kickbox, and judo, and they’re very well-choreographed with classic subjects of Asian narrative (honor, vengeance, and so on). Which one’s better? That’s like asking if Metallica is better than Guns N’ Roses, or if Alien is better than Aliens. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is wuxia, Enter The Dragon is chop-socky. Which is better? Both. Both are better.

 

Five Deadly Venoms is an interesting case, because it’s right in the line between. There’s kung-fu here, there’s wuxia, there’s comedy. What you won’t find is many females; most of the cast is male, which is a bit rare because these movies (not really made in China, remember, Hong Kong was an administrative entity of the UK) broke the mold for the female action hero, it’s perhaps the field of old action movies where a woman could make a living. Not here, though, Five Deadly Venoms is the stuff of the Venom Mob, a group of very talented martial artists and acrobats who specialized in these pictures, were all guys, and didn’t pay much attention to female characters. A world without women sounds like a very sorry place to be in, and perhaps that’s why these guys are so eager to beat the crap out of each other.

 

But that’s not the official excuse; the old master of the Poison Clan—he really doesn’t look that old, but maybe aging worked different in ancient China—is really concerned about five of his pupils going evil. There’s:

 

The Snake, who moves very quick with his back to the floor and can hit with the deadly precision of a viper;

 

The Lizard, who can walk on walls (besides fighting real badass kung-fu);

 

The Toad, who’s impervious to physical damage and can even bend metals with his fists;

 

The Scorpion, who uses the pincers and deadly tail technique, fatal with a single strike, and;

 

The Centipede, who fights so fast that you’d swear he has a hundred arms and legs.

 

Well, the old master believes that some of these guys may try to rob Mr. Yun, a treasurer of sorts who holds the fortune that the clan has amassed so, to check that everyone is behaving, he sends Yang Tieh, his zany last pupil. There’s a catch, though: these “Five Deadly Venoms” go around with secret identities even to each other. Some of them may know the identity of one or two, and figuring out who these guys are is part of the fun, even if it’s not that much of a mystery—the Snake, for example, has a silver serpent coiled around his forearm, and the manipulative Scorpion’s identity is almost clear from the get-go. Trust me, you’re gonna know who he is the first five minutes after you meet him.

It's like the Backtreet Boys, but with a lot more of murder.

 

And boy, are they evil. The bad guys of this bunch, and this isn’t a spoiler because you find out very early in the flick, are the Snake, the Centipede and the aforementioned Scorpion. Yang Tieh isn’t much of a fighter by himself—he’s told by the master that he can indeed defeat the Venoms, but only if he’s cooperating with one of them. Who’s there to help him? The Toad and the Lizard, and what a task they have; I don’t know what is it about bad guys in Hong Kong movies, but these three evil jerks really earn your hate.

 

Now, when we’re talking about some fellows who can kill with one hit, and can fend off stabs like it’s nothing, that’s the wuxia element right there. If you watch Drunken Master, that’s something you can emulate and bring to an actual fight (judging by MMA tournaments, it won’t help you a lot, but I mean, you can try). But you can hardly imitate the Lizard kicking at suckers from the wall without a deadly amount of hallucinogens, and even then it’s all gonna be in your head. There are moments where fights are pitched in the middle of a street, and everyone stands by while the warriors settle their issues. It’s not very realistic, but boy is it flashy. The Venom Mob not only were pretty good choreographic these fights, they also knew how to work for the camera. Our main hero, who I’m not gonna spoil for you, is as likeable as the Scorpion is an asshole piece of shit, and by that I mean “a lot.”

 

But this is the thing: Five Deadly Venoms works because it knows what type of movie it is. The Venoms have what’s pretty much superhero outfits to protect their identity (and the Toad’s mask has an actual little toad on top), and there’s a comical music cue whenever Yang Tieh does something silly. You know the very serious tone of The Big Boss, and even Bloodsport? That’s not here. Yes, this is a very violent movie, but the bloodshed is cartoony and the gore isn’t terribly effective so, taken with some of the acting (by guys who know you’re here to watch some fun fights, and also smile a little bit), you’re taken into the vibe of a flick that’s too smart to take itself seriously.

The "secret identities" thing doesn't work that well, but you won't mind.

 

Which isn’t to say this is silly or something made for kids; there are themes of revenge and corruption, and some of the shit that the three bad guys pull off makes you stare at the screen agape. Maybe that’s why the cruel moments work, because in the context of an adventure movie like this, you don’t see the dark twists coming. This could crash with an inferior director at the helm, so Chang Cheh is juggling here with all these elements that shouldn’t mix well. You may start watching Five Deadly Venoms a bit too eager to laugh at the costumes and at the premise, and the silliness of some of the moments, but trust me you will find yourself entranced by the characters, and after the first half of the flick, you’ll want to see the rest just “to see these three dipshits get what they deserve.”

 

You know, when you’re into grindhouse and the uncanny, the odd and the incredible, you usually find movies with great premises (or cover art) that fucking crumbles in the first five minutes of footage. Five Deadly Venoms is not one of them. If you wanna have a good Sunday afternoon, order some Chinese takeout and go to town with Yang Tieh’s quest for justice and payback. And if you’ve never seen a Hong Kong martial arts flick that doesn’t have Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan in it, I can’t think of a better place to start.