Crippled Avengers

... as it is sometimes called "The Return of the Five Deadly Venoms", this is vintage Shaw Brothers kung fu at it's finest.

Three men show up at a man's house to kill him, only he's not home, so they decide to chop off his wife's legs and hack off his small son's hands. Just then, the father returns home and calmly slaughters the three killers. Unfortunately, his wife perishes from her wounds, but the son survives, and the father sees to it that he is fitted with fully articulated metal hands. After training into adulthood, the son uses his metal-handed kung fu prowess to cripple the grown children of his mother's killers. And all this just in the first fifteen minutes! All of this training and revenge has left the father and son mean and violent. When a traveler makes an impolite comment, they blind him. When the local blacksmith dares speak out, they render him deaf and mute. When a passerby offers help, they chop off his feet! And finally, when a wandering hero promises to avenge these crimes, they defeat him, put his head in a vice, and give him brain damage! The four victims of the original victims band together and travel to a wise old kung fu master who trains them to overcome their handicaps and become The Crippled Avengers! Exciting, colorful and ludicrous in equal measure, this film actually manages to outdo it's more famous predecessor. Highly recommended to fans of the genre and bizarre-cinema buffs. This genre is definitely not up my film alley, but this one I enjoyed.

Just to clear something up, since a lot of people are complaining that it's not a sequel to five deadly venoms... Actually after the movie Five Deadly Venoms, that group of actors became known as "The Five Deadly Venoms" just like "The Rat Pack". So the title "Return of the Five Deadly Venoms" refers to a return of those 5 actors, not the 5 characters from the first film.

I saw this film when it was titled "Mortal Combat" which was actually quite a few years before the famous arcade game Mortal Kombat.

I hate to admit it... but I really do enjoy the dubbed versions. I know they add quite a bit of "cheese" to the movie, just like how ridiculous Godzilla is in English. And normally I would hate that.. but I guess since I grew up with the cheese, I enjoy it.

Either way this is a great film, I finally got ahold of the newly remastered version "Crippled Avengers" and it's worth getting. Much better than my "Return" DVD.

I rated it 10 out of 10 because it was the one movie from way back that stood out in my mind. I'm so happy i finally found it! still it's at least 8 without the happy memories.

Despite the title, this is not a sequel to The Five Deadly Venoms. it has the same actors and director, but the stories are not related. In my opinion this film is much superior to the original.

It is about an evil politician who cruelly disfigures four men. Once disfigured the four go to learn kung fu. After an amazing training montage, the four go back to get revenge. It is a really fun and campy film.

Besides the venoms it also stars Chen Kuan Tai; Chen Kuan Tai is most famous for his role in Killer Constable, another outstanding film. He has great on screen chemistry with the venoms. This is just a fun and violent film.

The films of Chang Cheh form the archetype of the seventies-Kung-fu-flick experience. This film is often titled as "Return of the Five Deadly Venoms" but it's not really a sequel. The five actors who PLAYED the venoms return to work with Chang Cheh for this film. Although as a whole I think this film is inferior to the earlier "Venoms", the acrobatic kung-fu skills (especially the scenes where Philip Kwok and Chiang Sheng work together) are incredible. You can really see their chinese acrobatic training. Overall, the level of artistry in the fight choreography make this one of the classics of the Shaw Brothers Kung-fu genre.

Sorry folks, but for me Crippled Avengers (AKA Return of the Five Deadly Venoms - named so probably for the marketing purposes alone, without any connections to the earlier film, except the director and the cast) was a let down, one of the glorified Shaw pictures I found less gripping than many others shaded by it's legend.

It doesn't take a genius to see that Chang Cheh just let it rip with the script and story instead of trying to make a point or create any menacing moods or great wallowing in traditional virtues (although there's a dose of loyalty, friendship and your regular good old heroism and self-sacrifice thrown in for a spice). The story must be one of the most cartoonish in Shaw history, excluding their pure fantasy adventures, and this time in a bad way.

Although in Kung Fu films, action is what mostly counts, I'd like to see some story development and good characters, and mostly there was neither. Even in my eyes the almighty Chen Kuan Tai is plain and hammy in the role of evil master Dao Tian Du. The sympathetic heroes do their best for what is given to them, which is not a lot, script-wise. And instead of a good story, we have a script that just routinely moves from set-piece to other, culminating in the final, mandatory and satisfactory revenge, and that's it, folks.

Then, after all the complaining and bashing, the good things. And of course, there's the acrobatic skills of the cast, being dizzying at best. There's also something compelling about the brashness of the film's most cartoonish fantasy elements, mainly the iron prosthetics that have unusual kill skills and hidden secrets. These add spice to otherwise routine script. And like mentioned earlier, the main cast do their best, especially Philip Kwok in the role of a blinded man, in my eyes definitely the best performance in the film.

Somehow I feel this movie owes it's status to the nostalgics who have seen it first time dubbed in English in the 70's in some grind-house or Chinatown theater. And I can't blame them for that, being a nostalgic in some matters myself. In my books, however, this is more of run-of-the-mill "Another Shaw production" as they called their flicks themself, with some unique spices added on. Entertaining, yes, but doesn't cut the custard like it's reputation lets you think it would.

This is my truth. What is yours?