Customer Reviews

Sword Masters: Brothers Five *Shaw Brothers*

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you have seen Shadow Whip, then get ready for more of the same. Long fight scenes, and lots of them. Directed by Lo Wei, once again the story is about as simple as it gets. The beautiful Cheng Pei Pei is on a quest for revenge. She wants to gather the 5 Gao brothers so that they can take revenge on the all powerful villain played by Tien Feng. The Gao brothers are played by Lo Lieh, Yueh Hua, Chang Yi, Chin Han and Kao Yuen. So the story is simple, and boring at times. But, the action is pretty awesome, especially for 1970. There are sooooo many fight scenes. And on top of that, some of the fights go on for so long that you actually begin to wonder if they are ever going to end. If there is one thing I didn't like about the fights it's that some of them go on too long. And I thought the final fight was a bit disappointing, but that's only because I like some of the other fights so much. So why are some of the fights so good? The first thing that struck me is how long they go without cutting. And the cinematography is as good as it gets and makes the fights way better than they would be in most low budget movies. The Shaw Brothers really went all out on this to please fight fans. And Chang Yi is magnificent in this movie, and you can tell that he is way more skilled than the other 4 Gao brothers. He has some amazing fights. And I have to mention Cheng Pei Pei. I love the scene where Lo Lieh rescues Kao Yuen and Cheng Pei Pei steps in front of like 50 guys so that they can get away and she slices them up like butter.

One more note on the action. The undercranking is distracting at times, but for the most part I thought it was well done and helped the fight scenes. And in case you are wondering, the action was done by Simon Chui and Sammo Hung. Sammo has a cameo as an escort. The minute or so of fighting that he does is pretty decent, and he gets a great death scene. And Ku Feng, Wong Hap and Lee Ka Ting star as villains. And look for a cameo by Unicorn Chan at the start of the movie. He uses this huge gold flying fork thing as a weapon.

3.5/5

Picture quality on the Well Go USA DVD is great. The audio is a problem though. They decided to use the Celestial 5.1 remixed audio instead of the original mono. The sound effects are horrible. I almost turned the movie off because of the sound effects, but the worst of it seems to occur in the first few fights, and it isn't as bad the rest of the movie.

I finally rec'd my movie and couldn't wait to watch it. This movie played with great clarity and sound quality. I remembered this movie as started to watch it and this had spectacular fighting skills and the story line was good. It is very entertaining and should be watched by all Shaw Brothers fanatics. Very good movie.!!!!!!

The movie was great, but we had to restart it because of the subtitles. The sound is all in Chinese, but when you choose English subtitles, you get the Chinese subtitles, and when you choose Chinese, you get the English subtitles. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up that buys this. The movie was really good though!

One of many films he directed prior to helming Bruce Lee's first two movies for Golden Harvest (though many suggest BRUCE did most of the directing himself on those), this Lo Wei Shaw Brothers film is most notable for bringing the leads from "Come Drink With Me" (Cheng Pei-Pei and Yueh Hua) together again. Despite a screenplay by Ni Kuang (better known by his scripts for Chang Cheh movies), the straightforward action overwhelms the plot, but the "thread" of a story is strong enough to keep one watching until the end. (Cheh might've directed the story better. Heck, he'd probably REWRITE most of the script to make it more cohesive and not drag in-between the action scenes!) In short, the five brothers are reunited after many years, thanks mainly to Pei-Pei's character, to seek revenge on the man who killed their father. Getting to this finale FEELS longer than the actual 102-minutes running time the movie is; most of this blame falls upon the film editor's shoulders, in addition to Wei's. Sped up--or at normal speed--most of the fight sequences (well choreographed by Sammo Hung, who has a bit role here, also) go on too long; a balance of plot with the fighting would make for a better presentation. Happily, the actors can take even the thinnest bits of dialogue and wring feeling out of them; you can't help but root for the brothers and Pei-Pei. (Her headgear in "Brothers Five" looks utterly silly, and one has to wait until near the picture's end for her to remove it and display her long, sexy hair!) Among those actors are many familiar faces (to Shaw fans): Lo Lieh (wasted here like Yueh Hua is, but a welcome prescence), Chin Han, Chang Yi, Unicorn Chan and Tien Feng (the last two easily recognized from Wei's "Fist Of Fury"), to cite a few....I found my copy (likely overstock) at a discount pharmacy chain for $4.23 (that's with tax); one should not really grab this at RETAIL price because it's not WORTH it! It's a decent way to pass part of one's afternoon away with, but one WON'T go to this Well Go USA DVD release over and over again the way they WILL with "Come Drink With Me"! It's that clear cut...like by the sharpest sword. Best for Cheng Pei-Pei completists than the casual viewer; otherwise, buy CHEAP or RENT! (If any of you are wanting this in Blu-ray, wait for the BD release on April 6, but don't expect more than a rehash of the DVD's contents with a SLIGHTLY better picture!)....All the best, Brother Fang.

This movie really had potential of being a gud 1.The storyline sound Kool & the action was IGHT as well. WHAT pissed me off,other then it being almost 3 hrs long, is that the WHOLE movie is repeatitive!All,i think there were 5, brothers all fight long 10-15 min fight scences at the same exact location. Another reason this film sucked was because of the anticipated "Secret" technique the brothers learn IS LAME!!!Do your self a fav & dont buy this if U must see it rent it or youtube it

this movie was terrible. don't waste your time with this one it is sub-standard compared to a lot of the other shaw brother films. if someone gave me this as a gift i would burn it