Movie Review: The Return of the Five Deadly Venoms (1978) directed by Cheh Chang, aka Crippled Avengers
Tao (Kuan Tai-Chen) once used his Tiger-style kung fu for good, clearing out bandits and such, and became prosperous as a result. Unfortunately a gang (coincidentally also called “Tigers”) decided to strike back at Tao, and when they found he wasn’t home, murdered Tao’s wife (they’d only meant to cut off her legs) and remove his son Tao Sheng’s hands and forearms. Tao arranged for his son to get metal prosthetic hands that had positionable fingers and other nifty features (but not fine motor control). He tracked down the members of the Tigers gang and slaughtered them, capturing their sons. When Tao Sheng (Feng Lu) came of age, Tao set the gang’s sons against his son to be likewise crippled. Which is gruesome, to be sure, but allowed under the rules of vengeance in play at the time.
Unfortunately, during the intervening years the father and son had grown bitter, arrogant and cruel. They now ruled their town, sneering at others, and over-reacting to the tiniest slights. When Wei the blacksmith (Meng Lo) called them out on this behavior, he was tossed out of the inn, but a street peddler, Hu Ah-Kuei (Chien Sun) agreed with Wei and was blinded for this effrontery. Wei is then tracked down, deafened and muted. Chen Shun (Phillip Chung-Fung Kwok), a random person, bumps into Tao Shen in the street, and has his feet amputated for this offense. Not content with handicapping these three, who huddle together as a result, the Tao clan orders that no one patronize Wei’s smithery on pains of having worse happen to them.
Wandering swordsman Wang Yi (Sheng Chiang) learns of the Tao clan’s cruelty and confronts them. While he’s good at kung-fu, he’s no match for the father and son, plus their ball and chain-wielding bodyguard. For fun, they crush Wang Yi’s skull, causing permanent brain damage.
The three previous men with disabilities discover a letter letting them know where Wang Yi’s master is. They take him there, and once the master hears the story, he agrees to train Wei, Hu and Chen in the martial arts so that they can get revenge. While Wang Yi has become childish and erratic in behavior, he is still proficient in kung fu so only needs to keep up his training.
During three years, Hu learns how to use heightened hearing to substitute for sight in combat, Wei uses reflective surfaces to extend his peripheral vision, and Chen is outfitted with iron feet and relearns how to not just walk, but leap and kick with them. At last, the four crippled avengers are ready to take on those that harmed them.
Meanwhile, Tao is about to have his 45th birthday party, and has invited several other martial artists to assist him in controlling the territory as its warlord. Getting vengeance won’t be easy against this many skilled opponents!
This Shaw Brothers film reunited several of the actors who’d appeared in The Five Deadly Venoms (see earlier review), who worked together on other films as well and became known as “the Venom Mob.” Thus the misleading American market title, since it’s not a sequel or even related beyond some of the same actors. The “Crippled Avengers” title is more descriptive.
Good: Some excellent combat scenes in the back half, good use of sound design to represent Wei’s deafness and Hu’s heightened hearing. Tao Sheng’s artificial hands are cool, and there’s a variety of martial arts styles on display. There’s smart use of having Chen stay back until his deadly kicks can be be put to best use as a secret weapon. Likewise, once the villains catch on to the heightened senses, they compensate well.
Less good: The ableism is kind of baked in to the premise. Prejudice against people with disabilities is a running thing in the story, and is implied to be one of the reasons the Tao father and son are so quick to take offense. There’s also some of the “super sense to make up for ordinary sense” trope going on. Wang Yi’s antics are meant to be funny most of the time, which sends mixed messages.
Content note: In addition to the ableism, the mutilation scenes are fairly disturbing and may not be suitable for younger or more sensitive viewers. The one female character in the movie is immediately killed to motivate Tao’s revenge.
Overall, this is an old-fashioned martial arts revenge movie that will hit best if you are familiar with the storytelling conventions of the genre and time period. Pop some corn, invite a couple of buddies, and enjoy. (If you can find a copy with the Crippled Avengers title, so much the better.)
