Following the assassination of Manchu official, a top diplomat is sent to a stronghold along the Chinese-Russian border to negotiate for a supply of arms. Guarding the stronghold is the bearded (and treacherous) Captain Koo. Together with his aid, who wears an unconvincing grey wig, Koo manipulates the situation with the Russians to his own benefit. A group of 5 Anti-Manchu rebels team up to destroy the fortress and battle Captain Koo.
The audio and video are both poor quality, but are watchable. The film opens with plenty of action and slows down towards the middle of the story, but the big fight at the end is a lot of fun to watch (as is usual for this type of film).
Not to be confused with the 5 Venoms film of a similar name, Shaolin Daredevils (1979).
When vampire begin to walk in the sunlight and hunt the lesbian of Ottawa, the Catholic Church turns the only one they can: Jesus Christ himself (played by Phil Caracas, who also starred in Harry Knuckles and the Pearl Necklace).
After being recalled to duty by the church, Jesus updates his image with a shave and haircut, pierced ears and a new wardrobe. Then he battle mobs of atheists, lots of vampires, and the mad scientist Dr. Pretorius using his awesome Kung Fu and sidekicks Mary Magnum and El Santos.
El Santos & Jesus Christ
Even though this movie's budget was probably too low for it to be even a B-movie, it's got everything a good B movies should have: a ridiculous premise, fun music numbers, and lots of action. Nevermind the poor film quality, this movie's brilliant.
If you enjoy this you might check out the similar movie, Ultrachrist.
This ridiculously fun Shaw Brothers movie features the perfect mix of action, comedy and kung fu. Just about the only kung fu movie I've seen that comes close to this one in terms of pure fun is Iron Monkey (1993).
When the local gangster Tuan finds the beautiful young actress, Miss Chen, he must have her in his brothel. The only problem is that her brother Chen (played by martial arts choreographer Lau Kar-leung) is a Kung Fu master known for his monkey style and his powerful Monkey Fist. This problem is easily dealt with, as Tuan tricks Chen leading to his disgrace and Miss Chen volunteering to work in Tuan's brothel. Before letting Chen go, Tuan breaks Chen's hands so that he ca
n never use his Monkey Fist again.
When we next see Chen, he is a broken man working with his trained monkey as a street performer. To add insult to injury, street thugs shake him down every night and take all his earnings. Chen is befriended only by the orphan and petty thief, Monkey (Hsiao Ho). When the street thugs kill Chen's monkey, Monkey seeks revenge against them, only to get beaten up by them. Monkey convinces Chen to teach him his monkey style to him and if you've seen only a few examples of the "master teaches a protegee" sub-genre of kung fu movies you can get a pretty good feel for how that goes.
After a good deal of physical training Monkey returns to town and solidly humiliates the street thugs in a hilarious fight in the streets. Forcing them to take him to their boss, the street thug leads him to Tuan's brothel where he is attacked by the army of hired muscle he finds their and barely escapes with his life (thanks to the aid of Miss Chen). He returns to Chen for even more kung fu training. In the end Chen and Monkey return to Tuan's brothel for the final confrontation, but if you want to find out how that goes, you'll have to watch the movie for your self.
This is why he's called Monkey.
As I said at the beginning of this article this movie is pure fun. While it lacks the layers of intrigue of The Five Deadly Venoms, or the eccentric cast of exotic characters of Master of the Flying Guillotine, and sticks to the formula of it's own particular sub-genre, this movie is an excellent example of the 70s Kung Fu genre. If you have an interest in the genre, you should definitely add this one to your must watch list.
