Q: When I was very young,on a local tv station,they would show kung fu movies of all kinds on Saturdays.I saw lots of Kung Fu movies on weekends.I remember lots of them.I saw great flicks like Crippled Masters,Blind Fist of Bruce,Kung Fu Zombie,Shaolin Drunken Monk,Rage of the Master,Tattoe Dragon,and...Five Deadly Venoms.I remember the day clearly.Me and my dad had just gotten lunch at Burger King.We were racing home to see what movie it would be this saturday.We ran in the house and jumped onto the couch,turned on the set and flicked it onto 56.The usual intro of many kung fu movie clips in the background with the words Kung Fu Saturday over it.Then under that was the Title of the film.It said Five Deadly Venoms.Then the movie began.I bit into my burger amused with the pre-credit sequence.I loved this movie the minute it came on.My favorite character was the Toad Venom.The plot was hard to follow at that age but that wasn't what lured me...it was the fighting.The fights were so...amazing.I moaned every time a commercial came on and soon the 2 hours of the best movie i have ever seen ended.
A: positive
Q: Please Note: I see from the various posts that there was an original silent version and also a sound version of this same film. I saw the sound version and it was esthetically yicky. Considering some indicate that the original version was LONGER and without crappy dubbing, my review must be read with this in mind.

Although I know that Rene Clair has a lovely reputation as a film maker and Louise Brooks has a bit of a cult following as well, this is in many ways a technically poorly made film. While Hollywood had already pretty much switched to sound mode around 1929, up through the early to almost the mid-30s, a lot of famous French films were essentially silent films--with some dialog and sound effects very poorly slapped over top the film. The lip movements in many, and in particular this film, don't even come close to matching what is being said and this would explain why an American like Ms. Brooks could do a French film. This is just sloppy and I would have preferred they had just made a silent film--and as a silent film this is would have been an average film--with excellent camera work (at times) and some decent silent-style acting.

The problem I also found with the film was the overly simplistic plot. For a silent morality play circa 1920, it would have been fine, but by 1930 standards the plot is a bit hoary (that means "old"--not "slutty"). A lady wins a beauty contest and her macho fiance can't handle it. She gives it all up, temporarily, but is lured back to the fancy life and this spells her end! A tad melodramatic, huh? And also a bit simplistic and underdeveloped.

Finally, the character of the fiance's friend(?) I found very disturbing and unreal. He looked like Harold Lloyd and spent much of the movie being abused and picked on by the friend and everyone else. As he just took it throughout the movie and no resolution came about, his character seemed superfluous and the treatment he received mean-spirited. Were audiences supposed to laugh as he was abused? This seems to me that's what is implied and I don't like it at all.

There are FAR better French films of the era (Le Million, La Femme du Boulanger, Fanny, Regain, and others) as well as better silent films. I just can't understand this film's high rating.
A: negative
Q: 1st watched 12/7/2002 - 3 out of 10(Dir-Steve Purcell): Typical Mary Kate & Ashley fare with a few more kisses. It looks to me like the girls are getting pretty tired of this stuff and it will be interesting what happens to them if they ever decide to split up and go there own ways. In this episode of their adventures they are interns in Rome for a 'fashion' designer who puts them right into the mailroom to learn what working hard is all about(I guess..). Besides the typical flirtations with boys there is nothing much else except the Rome scenario until about way into the movie when it's finally revealed why they are getting fired, then re-hired, then fired again, then re-hired again. This is definetly made by people who don't understand the corporate world and it shows in their interpretation of it. Maybe the real world will be their next adventure(if there is one.). Even my kids didn't seem to care for this boring 'adventure' in the make-believe. Let's see they probably only have a couple of years till their legal adults. We'll see what happens then.
A: negative
Q: A huge disappointment from writer Hamm and director Dante. Their previous collaboration on the first season's "Homecoming" was twisted and darkly hilarious in all the right ways. This poor handling of an intriguing premise left me bewildered. The supposed "payoff" showing generic aliens extracting something from the brains of the infected psychopaths was completely unsatisfying and explained nothing. If the point of the story was an extraterrestrial "cleaning" of the planet of it's human infestation, why did they go about it in such a gratuitously sadistic and misogynistic fashion? Why not just unleash a completely lethal virus a la Stephen King's "The Stand" instead of having the male population butcher the females? I kept hoping the episode would improve as I kept watching but it just got more pretentious and preposterous. The religious subtext simply seemed forced but it was clear Sam Hamm must have thought it was profound by the weight he gave it. I like a lot of both Dante and Hamm's work but this was just unwatchable.
A: negative