The Five Masters, ready to live up to their names. Cue showdown for glory! note
Five Shaolin Masters, also known with the even cooler foreign title Five Masters of Death, is a 1974 Martial Arts Movie released by Shaw Brothers, directed by Chang Cheh and starring Chang's Venom Mob and his best players, in a kung-fu fighting epic with an Ensemble Cast playing the five.
After the destruction of the Shaolin Temple (see The Shaolin Temple (1976)),the Qing Imperial Court is determined to have all members of the Shaolin sect massacred for their participation in the resistance. Only five novice warriors escaped, them being flail-wielder Hu Te-Ti (David Chiang), staff fighter Tsai Te-Chung (Ti Lung), rookie Ma Chao-Hsing (Alexander Fu Sheng), brawler Li Shih-Kai (Chi Kuan-chun) and trainee Fang Ta-Hung (Meng Fai). Double-crossed and hunted by assassins at every turn, the five patriots return to the ruins of the Shaolin temple to perfect their training and take their revenge.
Five Shaolin Tropers:
- Badass Crew: The titular five, a quintet of Fire-Forged Friends seeking to avenge the fallen Shaolin temple and capable on taking down General Chen's best warriors single-handedly.
- Balls of Steel: In the final fight, Fang Da-hong managed to score a Groin Attack on his opponent, Chien-san. It barely slows him down, Chien keeps on attacking despite visibly bleeding between the legs.
- Co-Dragons: General Chen's bodyguards, a pair of tonfa-wielding expert fighters who tags behind their boss. They fight and act in unison, and gives Hu De-di a hard time in the final battle.
- Epic Flail: Hu De-di's preferred weapon is his chain dart. There's also Flying Ax, General Chen's dragon who uses a heavy ax-head attached to a rope.
- Eye Scream: In their final duel, Ma Chao-Hsing defeats the traitor, Ma Fu-yi, by blinding him with a kick that crushes his eyeballs.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: Ma Chao-Hsing, Li Shih-Kai and Fang Ta-Hung fights unarmed and are more than capable of kicking all sorts of ass with their bare hands.
- A Handful for an Eye: A variant; when the battle between Tsai Te-Chung and Flying Ax culminates with both of them taking the fight into a muddy stream. Remebering part of his training, Ma improvises a strategy involving twirling his staff while submerged, causing the water to catch Flying Ax off-guard allowing Tsai to gain an advantage.
- Improvised Weapon: During the battle between Tsai Te-Chung and the villain Flying Ax, Tsai managed to disarm Flying Ax of his weapon by separating his ax and rope dart apart. Cue Flying Ax picking up his ax-head and a wooden pole, turning these into an improvised halberd.
- Mutual Kill:
- The duel between Fang Da-hong and his designated opponent, Chien-san, ends with Fang crushing Chien's guts with a kick, but Chien at the same time uses his bare hands to crush Fang's skull. In his dying throes, Fang deliberately drags Chien into a nearby stream, ensuring that both of them drowns.
- Li-Shih-kai's battle against Chin ends with both men mortally wounding each other at the same time, respectively via giving each other the Neck Snap and Agonizing Stomach Wound simultaneously. Chin goes down first, and Li survives long enough to see Hu De-di, Tsai Te-Chung and Ma Chao-Hsing arriving as he succumbs.
- One-Hit Polykill: In the final battle against the twin bodyguards, Hu De-di managed to defeat both of them at the same time by sending his flail's tip through both their chests as they're standing in a straight line.
- Prehensile Hair: A variant, where General Chen's long braid ends with a hidden blade embedded in it's tip, which can be used as a deadly whip to great effect.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: This is General Chen's reaction after Hu De-di killed both his elite bodyguards via One-Hit Polykill. He didn't get far when Hu catches up with him and executes him with the same flail.
- Slow-Motion Fall: For most of the villains, who takes at least 18 seconds each to collapse and fall upon their deaths.
- Sworn Brothers: The Five Shaolin Masters are not born of the same family, but after being the only survivors of the Shaolin Temple's massacre they swore to be brothers and to go through thick and thin together, at all costs.
- Training Montage: The five titular characters doesn't start immediately as masters, and need to go through a lengthy training scene to reach the peak of their skills.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: With the exception of Hu De-di, the other four of the titular five are often bare-chested, exposing their abs and muscles during their training and fight scenes. On the villain side, Chien-san and Flying Ax fights shirtless as well.
