Customer Reviews

5 Fighters From Shaolin [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The kung fu action is pretty good with all the acrobatic moves, fast hand and leg combat.

The storyline is about a group of bad guys trying to steal a scripture from the shaolin temple for its own evil intention. Then there is a rebel monk who got himself out of the temple to live with his own terms. Soon the monk recruited 5 students. They defend the shaolin temple from the evil group and for their own revenge.

The action is fast and great, the comedy is on point, and u have your typical martial arts storyline. My only complaint is the dvd version. Xenon company says that it is digitally restored but after seeing the movie it seems that the film was just copied straight from a VHS tape without restoration at all except for the sound. The fight scene at night is dark that u have trouble seeing the action. Overall, I still give it 4 star despite the dvd's fail restoration of a classic 80's kung fu movie.

This is without a doubt, the greatest kung fu movie ever! The action is fantastic, and the training sequences are long and quite inventive. This movie has a great cast of likeable heroes, and impressive villains that all fight like kung fu superheroes. The master is the greatest character in movie history, and is not someone you would want to mess with. This is one of the first kung fu flicks i saw, and it still is my favorite. Everyone needs to see this movie at least once, so dont let the dull box discourage you, pick up this lost gem today!!!!....END

Now I have 100's of fu movies. And I have seen 100's upon 100's more than I have. And this is easily a top 100 for me. Probably a top 50 but it is only slightly better than The Ninja Hunter, a.k.a.-wutang vs. ninja(I think). It has literally ALL my favorite stars in here except hwang lee and jet and bruce themselves. EVERYONE. I will throw some names at you in a sec.

First off, you will be much benefited watching this movie after seeing a number of similiar ones and some others starring the same actors and characters for that matter. Now this I would say is a cross between iron rooster vs. centipede, a.k.a.-last hero in china, a.k.a.-claws of steel(the version I have), a.k.a. dedly china hero, and The ninja hunter. Well the cast from ninja hunter is back. Chen Shan(chang shen)plays a good guy again(2nd time I've ever seen it) and is one of teh five fighers. Jack Long(lung)is back as the evil white brow. He's the pai mei practicioner in 7 grandmasters, yeah, that guy. And mark lung takes up his crazy drunken monk role from shaolin temple strikes back again. Though he doesn't seem to be quite as drunk and has an ugly hair do. But this is one of my fav. roles from him. Ching kuo-chung is anothre 1 of the 5 and has the best fat man jump kick I have ever seen. And he provides some great comic relief(as if the movie wasn't funny enough). He is the fat tall guy from shaolin vs. lama and many others. he's fat but like sammo, he can actually fight. But don't buy this expecting to see a guy as good as sammo, just for the 6 guys that are probably better than him, maybe. Chiang shieng(6th venom, the hybrid), and william yen(lo rei's little kid acrobatic friend form shaolin vs. lama) come along for the fide. And alan chui, a.k.a.-alan hsu(white haired #10 looking baddie of all time from 7 grandmasters). You know him the siinister dude with the white braid wrapped around his neck who stole the last 3 pai mei stikes. 7 grandmasters was the first great fu movie i had ever seen. And it took a while to appreciate the genre after seeing that. Then I found Shen chan, Hwnag Jang Lee, jet and bruce, billy chow, etc. But I still can't find nothing to match corey yuen's action in 7

grandmasters. Not to leave anyone out, Wong chi sang(small fighting roles in hell'z widstaff and secret rivals 3) is good in his usual bad guy role. And Lau yau-bun plays his same big(but not fat) bad guy role. He plays a huge unstoppable general in shaolin strikes back. He is another big man who can move.

Now, I can honestly say that I named everyone important(except that kid with the mullet, lo rei's brother in ninja hunter. Dang).

ALSO THE GREAT ROBERT TAI(choreographer from crippled avengers(a.k.a.-return of five venoms).

Now like I said above, I have a lot of these and knwo actors pretty well, but shen chan is my fav. ever and hwang lee my 2nd. The difference between them is 3 things: shan's fistwork is SECOND TO NONE, his legs aren't quite as limber as hwang's(who's are though?), but in power can only be compared to billy chow. And I know of like a hundred movies with hwang and like 5 with chen shan. Hopefully somebody who knows kung fu will read this and give me at least 1 more movie with him in it or comment on one you have seen. I have always thought he's the best, but man it is sad he didn't star in more movies, and it's also tough to find his stuff cause he only did independent taiwanese kuo and tso-nam stuff. But you will CERTAINLY know him as the baddie form shaolin vs. lama and shaolin temple strikes back.

So the movie kicks off with a woman getting murdered, and a guyser of blood coming out. Nothing to do with the movie, till like an hour in and white brow shows up. So the movie starts with mark lung as the crazy monk much like Sun Jung Chi's crazy monk character in shaolin vs. lama. He needs to get some fighters to stop evil white brow from getting the special kung fu book. He takes along mullet guy and chen shan(no mustache!!!) and stops at a rodside cafe. Not your normal eating stop. The waiters come out to serve doing the most wild flips you have ever seen. Be prepared to see some major undercrnaking, wire use, and reversals. Normally too much of this hampers the action, but this one is so insane it works all too well. So they take along 2 of the waiters(william yen and chiang shieng) and go to train. This is a good showcase for everyone. Sadly chen shan is not shown off as the main star, but evryone is too good not to show them, so bravo joseph kuo. They basically have a ton of crazy and bloody fights and the end I would put slightly above the end of ninja hunter. You just can't beat the long's going at it. Not quite a 5, but all AWESOME fights.

The xenon release is decent. But sadly full screened, and this is one you really need to have widened. The picture quality is fine and a small white fuzzy band appears across the bottom of the screen. Many sctatches and stuff but no distortion, so more than watchable. Didn't test out the 5.1, but it would be the 1st one of theirs that has like really good sound. If you ae a true fu fan, you will have no problem with the picture. And if you know of a better version, that's what this site is for. Enjoy, one heck of a fun movie.

A good solid Kung Fu Movie - a monk finds and trains 5 young men
and in doing so knows that they will have to meet eventually
with a group of kung fu baddies planning to destroy Shaolin. The
downfall of the movie is using wires. It would have been a far
better movie if they didn't use the wires.

Five fighters all with differents attributes are taken in as students by an alcoholic, angry monk (mark Long). He trains them in there own specialties so that they can be ready to battle a band of tyrants led by there white hair wizard master (Jack Long). Good practice and fight sequences and a surprisingly entertaining story line, including a great rendission of "this ol man."

A typical "bumpkin" comedy with a story that is basically a Chinese martial arts version of "The Dirty Dozen". Most of the ensemble cast is skilled, acrobatic and fast (particularly Mark Long and villain Jack Long). Disappointing finale emphasizes goofy acrobatics over technique.

The 2 stars go to the fighting monk and that's all; the rest of the movie is really poor. The 5 fighters couldn't fight their way out of a paper bag and you could care less if all of them are sliced into gong bao ji ding (kung pao chicken). Should be renamed "The 5 Paper Tigers and a annoying girl can ruin your evening."

Seriously- go look at my List "Kung Fu for the Sole" for some great movies- all of which happen to be cheaper than this one.

PS I am usually impressed in Xenon's Digitally remastered DVDs (actually made me buy this one)... but this falls well short in quality and selection.

this is a hilarious movie. The master is great. And the students abilities are awsome. With a classic abrupt ending. This has it all.

The box art looks real good, but I have never really taken to those old-school "comedic/slapstick" kung-fu movies. The fighting here is good, but not special. Jack Long has appeared in "7 Grandmasters" and "36 Deadly Styles," both two tiers above this one.

I ppurchased this movie because I am a Jack Long fan. After ,viewing five minutes of the film I thought that I was in for a bonus when I saw the "6th student" from the Venom movies(his only non-shaw brothers film and his last film before his death). 20 no, 15 minutes after watching the movie I was disgusted with it,too many wires no authenthic Kung-fu styles,I could nto believe that Jack and Mark would play in a movie like this .In fact it bothered me so much that I did some research and found that this film was made in a time when the period piece Kung-fu movies were on their way out the door and the ones that were being made at the time were gimmicky and used more wire/camera tricks then authenthic acrobactics. The thing that I found most interesting was that It was also the first movie that the Long brothers had done without Joeseph Kuo from the "7 Grandmasters",and "World of the Drunken masters" fame. I think it was a shame these two actors were great in their time ,unfortunately their time was short . Don't buy this one please pass ....please