One Paragraph Movie Review: Five Deadly Venoms

One hundred and fifty-first film: Five Deadly Venoms, a kung fu film from 1978, the golden era of both kung fu films and number one Bee Gees singles. It is a significant state of affairs when I don’t get bored halfway through a kung fu movie, and in this particular instance I got interested halfway through a kung fu movie because that’s roughly the point at which I figured out what was going on. Five warriors, four of whom are named after venomous animals and one that the writers just went lizard I guess? at, all try to identify each other after being trained by the same dude. A dude who takes a bath in a kettle and sends a sixth dude to check that none of them are corrupt. Following? Happily the storyline is irrelevant because of five great things: orange-coloured paint for blood, absolutely terrible fake sideburns, unbelievably fancy hats, a Snake Guy trying to hide his identity by having snake motifs sewn onto his silver outfit, and extremely excellent dubbed-on thwack sounds. There is not a single woman anywhere in this movie, evident not only in the lack of women visible, but also by the obvious evidence that nobody nearby has told these dudes to stop their macho bullshit and calm down. Look. It’s not bad, but it’s still a kung fu movie. Two rice paper death plots out of five.