The Five Venoms
Dan Martin Selects • Action, Drama
1978 • Hong Kong • Directed by Cheh Chang
After over a decade of discovering some of the hottest talents in Hong Kong action cinema, director Chang Cheh outdid himself with the formation of the all-powerful posse of kung fu experts known to fans as the Venom Mob. Though the members of the group had appeared in other Chang films like Chinatown Kid, nowhere did they make a bigger impression than their official debut, first released in America as The 5 Deadly Venoms.
Young disciple Yang De (Chiang Sheng) is given the task of tracking down five former students of his master. Each student is trained in the deadliest kung fu techniques and adopts the disguise of a venomous animal – the Centipede, the Snake, the Scorpion, the Lizard and the Toad – to hide their identity, not only from the outside world but from one another. As Yang searches for the five Venoms, a deadly battle of wits takes place between his prime suspects (Sun Chien, Philip Kwok, Lo Meng, Wei Pai and Lu Feng) to root out one another and claim a hidden treasure.
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