Masked Avengers

If your knowledge of Avengers movies begins and ends with the exploits of Captain America and company, you really should check out The Masked Avengers: they haven't got 'superpowers' as such, but their moves are just as awesome, and all executed without the aid of millions of dollars of CGI.

The film follows a group of highly trained martial artists dedicated to hunting down a gang of vicious masked killers for hire whose weapon of choice is the trident. After tracking the masked assassins to the town of Jingyang, the brave fighters find themselves attacked and killed one-by-one. Will they uncover the identities of the gang's three leaders (whose golden masks come with fancy coloured beards) and make them pay before it is too late? Of course they will…

To be honest, there are just a few too many very similar characters to keep track of to make this a wholly satisfying martial arts classic, but with so much impressive kung fu, and lots of bright red blood (gory impalements and slashing aplenty), the film still qualifies as an essential slice of Shaw Brothers chop-socky madness.

After much mystery and murderous martial arts mayhem, the whole thing boils down to an absolutely stunning showdown between the baddies and the surviving good guys (who get a little help from an ex-leader of the gang turned hero, played by Philip Kwok), the fantastic finale taking place at the villains' booby trapped temple, which comes equipped with acid jets, arrow traps, and deadly spiked doors.

After watching this movie for the first time yesterday, I was debating with myself as to how to rate it. Then I slowly started to realize that it is without a doubt one of the best martial arts movies I've ever seen! Even though I was dead tired, I couldn't keep my eyes off the fight scenes for even a second, and that goes for pretty much all the fights, not just the last one.

The story is actually a bit refreshing, and at least tries to be a little bit more original than usual, and I must say it kept me hooked for most parts throughout, and that's not bad for a Kung Fu-movie. However, it suffers from the same flaws as all venom movies; so many characters who look and act alike are thrown in our faces and they die like flies. There's no way you can keep track of who's who and who does what, just as usual. Chiang Sheng sums it up pretty perfectly when he dines with Lu Feng in the beginning: "I must introduce you to my men, but still with so many I can't introduce them all". That's exactly how I feel too. Lo Meng and Su Chien are absent from this movie, but it's actually forgettable since the "substitutes" make a really good job and the extras are just as good as ever. Lo Meng and Su Chien are, as we all know, usually killed of halfway in most movies anyway, so Masked Avengers doesn't really suffer from it.

The fighting is outstanding, and simply flawlessly choreographed. The venom mob really got their fighting choreography together in the early 80's and the result of their hard work can be seen here. The end fight is epic with tons of lethal traps, outrageous deaths and slick editing.

A movie that you can watch a 100 times and not get tired of. Watch it immediately!

With possibly no more than three exceptions, I never met a movie by Run Run Shaw I didn't like. THIS one I Like - it's got the Venom posse, it's got the tried and true formula - betrayal, murder and revenge - that works, it's got awesome moves (WHO GIVES A RIP IF THEY USE WIRES), and most of all, the villans get theirs in the end.

Works for me.

Man, if this movie isn't the stone coldest flick I have ever seen, I don't know what is. Most of the venoms, with maybe Wei Pei as an exception come back, and the final fight sequence in the villians hide out, is one of the most amazingly choreographed martial arts sequences ever filmed. Kicks, flips, and clashing steel tridents all over the place, if your a martial arts movie fan it don't get better than this.

Action god Chang Cheh is the untarnished gold standard for heroically plasma-packed, bone-shatteringly brutal Kung Fu carnage! Versatile filmmaker Cheh audaciously earns himself a glisteringly gory golden trident for his gruesomely rib-wrecking, sternum-skewering martial masterpiece 'Masked Avengers'. A visceral, blissfully blood-spattered, brain-bogglingly bonkers example of his unrivalled mastery of majestic martial arts mayhem!!!! Featuring an exemplary cast of preternaturally agile, fiercely fleet-footed Shaw Brothers warrior icons, sumptuous set design, and a memorable score. Prepare yourself for a gory plenitude of outstanding panther-paced fight choreography, guaranteeing that no jaw shall remain undropped by the trident-thrashingly tumultuous conclusion of 'Masked Avengers'.

There are only ONE true 'Avengers', and they are genius action impresario Chang Cheh's magnificently muscular Manchurian martial arts madmen 'Masked Avengers' (1981). A deliriously dazzling, skull-shatteringly brutal, freakishly kinetic Kung Fu spectacle without peer! The venomously villanous 'Masked Avengers' actively remains a meticulously mental, stylishly sinuous, ferociously fearsome fight-flick that will righteously kick a Buddha-sized hole in your reeling cerebellum, and let the heroically healing light of Shaw Brothers movie magic rush right in! A scintillatingly savage showcase of inimitable Shaw Brothers bellicosity, maestro Chang Cheh's Grindhouse grisly 'Masked Avengers' is, perhaps, his very own, admittedly Wilder Bunch!!!