Leofwine_draca Another epic-looking kung fu flick from the Shaw Brothers empire. This one is familiar to many others in that it pits five good warriors against five evil warriors. That's the plot. The first hour and twenty minutes of the film consists of lots (and boy, do I mean lots!) of action and minor bouts, characters dying tragically, the bad guys doing evil things, and training in preparation for the event. While the final twenty minutes offers up some top-notch martial arts fight sequences in a variety of scenic settings (a wood, a river, a field, a mountain), the truth is that at an hour and three-quarters, FIVE SHAOLIN MASTERS outstays its welcome, and it is the prolonged running time that stops this from being a classic of the genre.Typically I prefer my action film to be short and snappy, and with an emphasis on the action itself. Whilst FIVE SHAOLIN MASTERS achieves the latter, there are simply too many extraneous characters in the plot who keep dying and killing each other a lot, so much so that its hard to keep track of - let alone care - about what's going on. The only reason I mention this is because it is the film's sole flaw. Otherwise, it's well-filmed stuff with some of the genre's top martial artists (Gordon Liu, Ti Lung, David Chiang et al) strutting their stuff, plenty of stunts, fun plot elements (the finger and cup (!) signs that the Shaolin use to communicate with each other) and heroism.The truth is that the five bad guys in this movie have all of the coolest fighting techniques! There's one guy who swings a huge axe blade around on a rope to chop up and slice apart his enemies, another who whips people to death with his long ponytail by breaking their necks! Another baddie uses Bruce Lee's "fingers of fury" technique from THE BIG BOSS to unpleasantly dispose of another hapless victim. After losing their fights for the entire movie, the good guys decide to train for a year (!) at the end of the film and finally manage to win out against the baddies (but not without loss). Baddies are blinded with weapons, two are impaled on a spear, and a massive pole fight takes place in a river which is spectacular stuff. The film doesn't skimp on the violence either with plenty of people dying bloody deaths and a high body count. FIVE SHAOLIN MASTERS is a typical kung fu flick from the Shaw Brothers studio, and it makes for an action-packed way to spend an evening.

SHAGGSVII Chang Cheh´s Five Shoalin Masters is perhaps the Best Kung Fu Movie ever, besides the Bruce Lee Masterpieces. Ti Lung, David Chiang, Chi Kuan Chun and of Course Alexander Fu Sheng are just great in this Movie I hope this One (and the other great Shaw Brothers Movies) comes on Dvd sometime !!!

Slaphammer1 Back in the mid-1980s, when was around 10-14 years old, there was a show on one of the basic cable channels called either Black Belt Theatre or Kung Fu Theatre...I can't remember which (whenever they came back from commercial, they would quote from Confucious before resuming the film). They played lots and lots of Shaw Brothers films from the 1970s, among other martial arts films. I remember trying to tune in every Sunday afternoon to get my fix of kung fu action.Anyway, these days I barely remember anything about the movies I saw in those days...I remember a scene here and there, but nothing major. One movie, though, burned itself into my brain and I've never been able to forget it -- that film was Five Masters of Death (aka Five Shaolin Masters). About six months ago, after not having seen this movie for well over a decade, I decided to see if it was still as great as I remembered so I hopped on the internet and found a place where I could buy it on VHS.This movie is still excellent. My VHS copy is of understandably poor quality, but the film is still a joy to watch. Each of the five protagonists specializes in a different style of fighting, as do the opposing five antagonists, so the film is chock full of great kung fu. I also find the story to be more engaging and epic in feel than most martial arts movies I've seen (however, I am far from being an authority on the genre). The theme music which plays repeatedly throughout is great...it helps give the film its epic feel and is very catchy--I find myself singing it in my head for days after watching this movie.At any rate, I love this movie. I wish there was still something like Black Belt Theatre (or Kung Fu Theatre) on cable so I could catch some more of the Shaw Brothers era of kung fu film. Martial arts films of today use undercranking and especially wirework far too much--I find myself more impressed by films like Five Masters of Death which rely on "natural" skills.

Brian Camp Chang Cheh's FIVE MASTERS OF DEATH (aka, FIVE SHAOLIN MASTERS, 1974) is an all-star kung fu film with five stars playing survivors of the burning of Shaolin Temple and five others as the villains who pursue them and track them down. The heroes split up and travel the Chinese countryside rallying the people to support the faction opposing the Manchus and then reunite about an hour into the film to re-train at the burned-out temple. Then the five villains, joined by three henchmen, arrive for the sprawling final brawl, all staged on a series of Taiwanese locations.Unlike the same director's SHAOLIN MARTIAL ARTS (1974, listed on IMDb as SHAO LIN MARTIAL ARTS) and SHAOLIN TEMPLE (aka DEATH CHAMBER, 1976), this is a fairly low-budget production and offers no shots of Shaolin or the burning of the temple. At one point, the heroes return to the charred 'temple,' which looks more like a burned-out storefront. This film forms a trilogy of sorts with SHAOLIN MARTIAL ARTS and SHAOLIN TEMPLE, although it takes place immediately following the events depicted in SHAOLIN TEMPLE.The five heroes are played by Alexander Fu Sheng, Chi Kuan-Chun, David Chiang, Ti Lung, and newcomer Meng Fei. Fu Sheng and Chi Kuan-Chun starred in SHAOLIN MARTIAL ARTS. All but Meng Fei returned for SHAOLIN TEMPLE. The five villains are played by Liang Chia Jen (aka Leung Kar Yan), Wang Lung Wei, Feng Ko-An (aka Fung Hak On), Chiang Tao and Tsai Hung. The first four were also the villains in SHAOLIN MARTIAL ARTS, although only Wang Lung Wei returned for SHAOLIN TEMPLE (where he played the same character, Ma Fu Yi). Not yet directing films himself, Liu Chia Liang (aka Lau Kar Leung) was co-fight choreographer on this one with his brother, Liu Chia Yung (Lau Kar Wing).Clocking in at 109 minutes, FIVE MASTERS is not quite as elaborate or full of spectacle as the other two films in Chang Cheh's Shaolin trilogy, but it's got a great cast of fighting stars and nonstop kung fu action and is a cut above the same director's other, lower-budgeted Shaolin films from 1973-76: HEROES TWO, MEN FROM THE MONASTERY, DISCIPLES OF SHAOLIN, and SHAOLIN AVENGERS.ADDENDUM (6/24/12): I finally watched the R3 DVD edition of this film from Celestial Pictures, which is in Mandarin with English subtitles. It clocks in at 105 minutes. I don't know if that's because four minutes were cut or because it was slightly sped up because of the transfer from the PAL encoding system. The latter's more likely. I was pretty amazed at the sheer number of fight scenes in this. It probably has more fight scenes spread out through it than any other Shaw Bros. kung fu movie I can think of. Also, I made a few corrections in my earlier review. I still don't understand why a "spoiler" warning was posted on it.