Was a similar practice used for the big Shaw Bros stars?
Talby and Angel Face,which Venoms films would you recommend outside of THE FIVE VENOMS?
For some of them, yes. The Shawâs werenât about to let their box office draws get hurt. Although it did happen several times. Fu Sheng got injured several times and some movies had to be postponed because of his near fatal injuries. He had moved into Bruce Leeâs house and a lot of CHinese say thatâs why he had so much trouble leading up to his death. Bad Feng Shui.
The venoms did all their own acrobatics and stunt work save for Lo Mang and Sun Chien. They were real martial artists, but werenât acrobats like the three other venom actors.
For me Iâd say CRIPPLED AVENGERS, MAGNIFICENT RUFFIANS, SHAOLIN RESCUERS, MASKED AVENGERS, REBEL INTRUDERS and FLAG OF IRON.
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[quote=âFrank Talby, post:140, topic:368â]Hey AF how is the Sword Stained With Royal Blood? Being a fan of the Venoms does it stack up to their better movies?
Two Champions of Shaolin and Invincible Shaolin are two of my favorite Venom movies[/quote]
I wouldnât put it in the same category as those two. Lo Mang and Sun Chien had left the group by this point. I like it, but itâs not in the same league as those two you mention, IMO. Chiang Sheng is a villain here, too as he was in LEGEND OF THE FOX.
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Oh, and INVINCIBLE SHAOLIN as well. Forgot about that one!
Beat me to itâŚ
Lasky the ones that Angel Face listed are tops. Crippled Avengers to me is the best of the bunch - I actually prefer it to Five Deadly Venoms (I am a huge Chiang Sheng fan and his role in CA is excellent).
I also enjoyed Naval Commandos.
[quote=âFrank Talby, post:147, topic:368â]Beat me to itâŚ
Lasky the ones that Angel Face listed are tops. Crippled Avengers to me is the best of the bunch - I actually prefer it to Five Deadly Venoms (I am a huge Chiang Sheng fan and his role in CA is excellent).
I also enjoyed Naval Commandos.[/quote]
I must admit, I dislike NAVAL COMMANDOS. Some of it is good, but if you liked that, youâll go crazy for SEVEN MAN ARMY. That one is miles above NAVAL COMMANDOS, IMO. Chang Cheh was slowly losing his grip on the audience by this point after a couple failed experimental films and the budgets for his movies were declining as audiences were growing tired of the big pictures and wanted something a little less serious and more compact.
Thanks Talby i have the first three but will look out for the rest.
I like Seven Man Army actually too. Not my favorite but I enjoyed it.
My favorite Venom movies are their costume onesâŚ
oh forgot Ten Tigers from Kwangtung and The Kid With The Golden Arm⌠two of the more well known Venom movies and their recent releases on import dvd make them great (the dubbed versions were really confusing esp Ten Tigers)
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[quote=âFrank Talby, post:150, topic:368â]I like Seven Man Army actually too. Not my favorite but I enjoyed it.
My favorite Venom movies are their costume onesâŚ
oh forgot Ten Tigers from Kwangtung and The Kid With The Golden Arm⌠two of the more well known Venom movies and their recent releases on import dvd make them great (the dubbed versions were really confusing esp Ten Tigers)[/quote]
TEN TIGERS was put on hold for several reasons which is why thereâs that flashback scenario. There were a lot of fight scenes that were scrapped after Fu Sheng got hurt on another movie and by then, Wei Pai had left Shawâs for Golden Harvest, and since he was one of the ten, something had to be done. The movie was shot over the course of two years between 1978 and 1980.
Thanks for the update - I never knew that. Thatâs crazy.
I have a couple of books on Chang Cheh that I plan to write and I am slowly accumulating a lot of info about the makings of the movies just need to get a lot of this stuff translated. I want the books to be more than just reviews.
Very best of luck with that Brian. 
You are certainly not going to be struggling for illustrations! 
Aaaah⌠now your talking my language. Top 20 anyone
- 8 Diagram Pole Fighter
- Fist Of The White Lotus
- 5 deadly Venoms
- Crippled Avengers (not to be confused w/crippled masters w/ real handicapped fighters⌠creepy!)
- Avenging Eagle
- Executioners from Shaolin
- Killer Army
- Masked Avengers
- Master Killer
- Return To The 36th Chamber
- Shaolin Challenges Ninja
- 10 Tigers Of Kwang Tung
- 2 Champions Of Shaolin
- Martial Club
- Chinese Super Ninjas
- Deadly Mantis
- Death Chambers
- Kid With The Golden Arm
- Legendary Weapons Of Kung Fu
- 3 Evil Masters
Long live Run Run & Runme Shaw, Mona Fong , Chang Cheh, Gordon Liu, Fu-Sheng, David Chiang, Ti Lung & Wang Li
I went through the same troubles looking for these movies for years. Finding SWâs on dvd can present similar challenges.
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As you may know, thereâs 540 of them on DVD on region three disc now as well as on many other labels around the world. A bunch of them are available legitimately on region 1 from 4 different labels.
Not an expert on the genre, but Iâd say The magnificent butcher is one of the best Iâve seen.
Over the last few weeks Iâve seen The mysterious footworks of kung fu, 99 cycling swords and The six directions of boxing. They were all ok, but nothing great.
Beach of the war gods is my favourite SB production, but Oily maniac is great too (though hardly a martial arts flick).
BEACH OF THE WAR GODS is a Golden Harvest movie. As you said, OILY MANIAC is an ace film. One of the best bad movies Iâve seen. Director Ho Meng Hua directed some serious quality swordplay movies early in his career but around 1976, he was content to churning out entertaining exploitation flicks.
Yeah, youâre right about Beach of the war gods. Donât know why I remembered that wrong. Great fucking movie nevertheless.
Itâs not hard to confuse things like that especially in the HK martial arts genre considering thereâs literally thousands of those movies and also Wang Yu worked for both of those big studios. 