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The 5 Deadly Venoms

Presentation

The cover art is among some of the best stuff Dragon Dynasty has done, and the DVD is packaged in a nice locking case with a cardboard cover. But why 5 Deadly Venoms? Couldn't their photo editor fit Five Deadly Venoms on the front? Anyway, there are trailers at the beginning of the disc that auto-play for The Rebel, Fist of Legend, and Dragon Dynasty's Shaw Brothers releases. Thankfully, you can just skip through them to get to the main menu. The menus themselves have a nice stylish design, and are easy enough to navigate around.

The Movie

Basically, Dragon Dynasty has just taken the Celestial version of the movie and released it to the US market. Celestial's versions of Shaw Brothers films have becomes well-known for looking and sounding great, and this one is no exception. The picture is colorful and sharp, and even though the Mandarin soundtrack is just in mono, a Dolby remix was done, so it sounds great as well. The subtitles are translated accurately and easy to read, though there is an option to turn on the old-school English dub if you feel like reliving the Kung Fu Theatre days of yore. If you weren't able to pick up Celestial's version before it went out of print, or don't have an all-region player to watch it on, this version is definitely the way to go.

The Extras

Commentary with Bey Logan: The lone extra on the DVD. Bey Logan is one of the few foreigners that has had a long-term career working on Hong Kong films, as well as being a noted historian of them. He is Dragon Dynasty's usual go-to guys for doing commentaries -- perhaps not surprisingly, since he works for the company -- with his output ranging from incredibly dry to informative and interesting. Thankfully, his commentary here falls into the latter category, and stands among some of his best work he has done for Dragon Dynasty in this department. Even dedicated old-school fans will be able to pick up a few new bits of knowledge, and he even throws in a drinking game, if you're so inclined as to watch this DVD with a few adult beverages by your side.