Five Shaolin Masters

Five Shaolin Masters (Shao Lin Wu Zu) (1974)

Runtime: 110 minutes

Directed by: Chang Cheh

Starring: David Chiang, Ti Lung, Alexander Fu Sheng, Chi Kuan-Chun, Mang Fei

From: Shaw Brothers

It’s been over half a year since I’ve experienced any Shaw Brothers action; that was a grave mistake so it was time to finally return to see one of the studio’s movies that are on Arrow’s streaming service. Yes, they did add some more just a few days ago, and before the end of the year I’ll see one of those, promise.

For a brief amount of time, director Chang Cheh had his own sub-studio where he got to make films in Taiwan and they were released by Shaw; this was one of those efforts. The opening scene is a Shaolin temple burning to the ground. Various people escape, only a quintet of which survives so they team up and join forces w/ other rebels against the bastards that rule the area, not to mention the turncoat that allowed for the temple to fall. As the long finale features each of the five heroes in a one-on-one battle with five enemies, many characters are present and most of the villains you don’t get to know that well.

Even then, this movie is still a lot of fun. If you want a plethora of different martial arts scenes-all thrilling to watch-then this movie delivers as you’d expect for a product from that studio. There seemed to be even more fights than typical-thankfully all were shot well and exhibited a wide variety of different styles in a different setting where there's more outdoor shooting than typical; a lovely musical score was an added bonus. Even if it isn’t my favorite from Chang Cheh, that is more due to all the very good movies he did so it only suffers by comparison.