Takes itself way too seriously

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A curious thing about Shaw Brothers movies is that when they played in theaters the average ticket buyer was a married woman between the ages of 34-65. I cannot imagine myself sitting in a theater in Hong Kong watching "The Venoms" and being the only guy in the audience in the 1970s. Before the golden age of martial arts movies a common theme was the suffering self-sacrificing female protagonist who often went to her death or worse endure life-long torment to do the right thing, whatever that might be. This movie is a throwback to those days. I would not recommend this for the average kung fu movie fan though it does have a respectable amount of action. It is certainly not action driven but female sacrifice driven. I liked it respecting that context.