The Five Venoms

A dying master gives his last student a task: find the five students he trained before him. Each specialised in a different animal technique: scorpion, snake, lizard, centipede and toad. Nobody knows their faces or who they are, and some of them are after the school's fortune. The young student has to work out which are friends and which are not. Chang Cheh directs, for Shaw Brothers. What the film opened up in the genre is design. The five techniques are not merely names; each is built as a separate fighting language and the fight scenes are written on those differences. The centipede is known by speed, the lizard by movement on walls, the toad by hardening his body. The narrative works unusually like a detective story. Most of the film is investigation rather than fighting; the identities are hidden and you are guessing alongside the character. Chang Cheh brought forward a new generation of actors with this film. The group known as the Venoms made many films together afterwards and became one of the last great troupes at Shaw Brothers. In the West it became known largely through the Wu-Tang Clan and hip hop culture, and most of its cult status comes from there. Who it is for: viewers who like kung fu cinema, choreography driven films and the Shaw Brothers period. Who it is not for: there is no character writing, almost no female presence, and the dubbed versions damage the film badly.