This Shaw Brothers Kung Fu flick from director Chang (Ten Tigers of Kwangtung) Cheh is reminiscent in some ways of The Magnificent Seven (right down to the title). The big difference here is that instead of being hired guns, the five freedom fighters take it upon themselves to defend a village from a merciless gang of ruffians against impossible odds. Because of that, there’s a bit of a High Noon flavor in there too.
While the pacing is uneven, the film remains a solid vehicle for David Chiang, who is quite funny as the smooth-talking chicken thief (more movies need those if you ask me) who brings the team together. Rounding up the titular titans is the town badass (Ti Lung) who finally says enough is enough, an injured acrobat (Wang Chung), a surly woodcutter (Chen Kuan Tai), and a young safecracker (The Killer’s Danny Lee). It’s just a shame that it takes so long to come together.
Which leads me to the biggest issue I had with the flick: Even though the movie is called The Savage Five, the five stars never appear together on screen at the same time. In fact, one dies early on and another leave town for a good chunk of the running time. I guess The Savage Three (and Sometimes Four) just didn’t have the same ring to it. It doesn’t completely derail the film, but it would’ve been nice had our heroes put up a united front.
The Savage Five also suffers from a lack of action. Then again, it wasn’t only till after the movie was over that I realized that it didn’t really have a whole lot of action. I guess that’s kind of a moot point when the cast is stacked with great performances and colorful characters. The action we do get is solid for the most part. For die hard Shaw Brothers fans, that will be plenty. It just wasn’t quite enough for me to put this one into the win column.
AKA: Five Tiger Generals.
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