Don’t let the title fool you. While some of the actors from the earlier “Five Deadly Venoms” do indeed turn up in this bit of vintage 1978 Hong Kong action cinema from the Shaw Brothers — the Warner Brothers of Eastern exploitation cinema — this movie is not a sequel and was originally titled “Crippled Avengers,” which was more accurate but also a bit politically incorrect for the current market. I’m sure “Disabled Avengers” or “Differently Abled Avengers” didn’t have quite the same ring. Still, differently abled our heroes truly are as one by one they are wantonly dismembered, blinded, rendered deaf and dumb and, in one bit of impressive kung fu, deprived of roughly 50 IQ points. Naturally, working as a team, these avengers are able to overcome their disabilities for, really, the only good reason there is to overcome one’s disabilities — avenging! The action here doesn’t have quite the finesse and artistry of the Bruce Lee films or the great costume extravaganzas of the late 80s and early 90s, and director Chang Cheh allows the often comically melodramatic story to lose a lot of steam, but the action is consistently well staged and delivers the ass-kicking goods. The main bad guy — himself a disabled avenger of sorts — even sports some kung fu gadgetry that appears to have come out of the 19th century Chinese equivalent of Q branch.
