Five Shaolin Masters or Executioners From Shaolin?

[Iron_Leopard]

Which legendary director did it better? Both films picking up immediatly after the burning of the temple. My vote goes to Five Shaolin Masters. One of my favorite movies of all time. Executioners just dosent hold my attention all that well. Don't know why. I know it's considered one of the best but I just cant agree.

What's your vote?

[Monk Sante]

Dude, both of these films are classics! XD

[Yakuza954]

I think these two films don't really have much in common other than being Shaolin films, but I easily prefer Five Shaolin Masters. Catchy theme song and Fu Sheng, Ti Lung, David Chiang, Chi Kuan Chun, Wang Lung Wei, Leung Kar Yan... seriously, almost all my favorite martial arts actors kicking butt.

[Guest Markgway]

Slightly I'd go toward Five Shaolin Masters.

Both are good, neither are great.

[Shaolin Patriot]

Although I enjoy both, I prefer Five Shaolin Masters. Excellent cast, solid martial arts/training, absorbing story.

[TibetanWhiteCrane]

Not a big fan of either. But if I try to block out the boring first half and Wong Yu's girly appearance, I guess EOS inches slightly above FSM.... not by much though!

[Iron_Leopard]

I've never seen an uncut and subbed version of Five Shaolin Masters and I want to real bad. But I think the english dub is very tolerable.

[HAZ]

I liked Executioners better, if only for Lily Li!

[NoNiceTime]

5 Shaolin Masters is a better film IMO. Like a previous poster said the first half of Executioners bores me and Wong Yu and his pony tails beating Bai Mei defeating Bai Mei just does not cut it for me.

[Iron Boat]

5 Shaolin Masters, because it has sentimental value, it was the first Shaw Film I ever remember seeing, way back in the early 80s on Black Belt Theater. Also, the ending is satisfying, and you root for the heroes. Wang Yue, with the pony tails, and girly looking fighting nearly ruins the film for me. You killed off Chen Kuan Tai's character for Wang Yue to avenge, aaarrrgghhhh

[SamuraiDana]

I'd have to go with FIVE SHAOLIN MASTERS. I recently re-watched EXECUTIONERS (on the IVL R3 disc) and it doesn't hold up as well as some of Lau Kar Leung's other films (e.g. HEROES OF THE EAST). I agree with some of the other posters here that Wong Yue is the weak link in that film. Maybe if Fu Sheng had played the part?

[Yu_Xihong]

I think that was a really half assed win Wong Yu got so no way am I voting for Executioners of Shaolin. I think Li Yi Min would have done better. He could be goofy and serious. Wong Yu couldn't really "reach across the aisle." I think Fu Sheng would've been too much star power next to Chen Kuan Tai. You wouldn't think Chen passed the torch you would just be suspending disbelief that Fu Sheng didn't have it already.

[shaolin drunkard]

I agree with some of the other posters here that Wong Yue is the weak link in that film. Maybe if Fu Sheng had played the part?

for each his/her own but not even fu sheng could improve a lot in that.After great opening movie falls into average level while 5 young forest masters keep high standard from start to the end-

[kungfusamurai]

Wow, I can't believe I'm going to be in the minority when I say that Executioners of Shoalin was the better film! I love that movie. I've watched it many times over ever since I got a copy of it back in the late 90s, and before that, whenever it was on TV, I watched it (during the early 80s). I find that Five Shaolin Masters is enjoyable, but it doesn't really stand out for me. It's just another Shaolin Cycle film that isn't even the best one for me. It's not a bad film or anything, but it's not outstanding.

Executioners really was sold for me because of Lo Lieh's Pai Mei character. Honestly, if that character wasn't played that way, I don't think the film would have had as much impact. The intro fight scene with Gordon Liu is also a very memorable moment, not just in the way he dies, but the various animals styles of kung fu he uses as he fights the army.

Executioners actually has a lot of great moments that stand out, whereas Five Shoalin Masters, I really can't think of anything memorable other than the final fight where everyone squares off against the person they trained to fight against. Executioners Of Shaolin has: The intro fight; Lily Li vs Chen Kwan Tai in the bedroom; Chen Kwan Tai's fights with Pai Mei; the training sequence with the dummy; and of course the finale when Wong Yue gets on Lo Lieh's shoulders, breaks his qi, and they tumble down the stairs with that freeze frame ending. The film has a lot of elements including romance; it's not the sausage fest like the Shaolin Cycle films can come across as being.

Executioners Of Shaolin was a great film, with a lot of credit going to Lau Kar Leung, but especially to Lo Lieh for his Pai Mei character. I'd gladly watch it a dozen more times before I got sick of it.

RIP Wong Yue (that's quite a jump he lands from over the wall)

SFhzsdPmJdk

KFS

[crazedjustice888]

I have seen bits and peices of Executioners, but what I have seen, like the ending fight, just couldn't keep my attention.

Five Shaolin Masters on the other hand, I was intuned every minute. ESPECIALLY WHEN CHI KUAN CHUN WAS ON THE SCREEN!!!!

[ironfistedmonk]

I'd go with 5 Shaolin Masters too, it's a more epic film and you can feel it throughout, Wong Yue defeating Pai Mei when Chen Kuan Tai couldn't was a bit too much for me in EOS.

[kungfusamurai]

I'd go with 5 Shaolin Masters too, it's a more epic film and you can feel it throughout, Wong Yue defeating Pai Mei when Chen Kuan Tai couldn't was a bit too much for me in EOS.

I'm guessing that Pops' point was that you shouldn't just stick to one static style. That learning martial arts is an ongoing process, and sometimes you need to change to finally overcome adversity. Chen Kwan Tai's Hung Sze Kwan wasn't willing to change and take on Lily Li's Crane Style, and that's what did him in. Hung Wen Ding was not inhibited by structure and specific form, and even made up some of his own moves. He got lucky and won because he thought outside of the box. Bruce Lee basically taught that philosophy as well. Five Shaolin Masters is a great 'punch-em up' film, and it is interesting seeing the various guys learn styles that can counter-act the fighting styles of the villains, but as overall story goes, EoS is just deeper and more memorable (at least for me). And I grew up watching both films back in the 80s.

KFS

[Yakuza954]

For me, Executioners of Shaolin is a film that does have a select few memorable scenes, perhaps even "great", but the film is uneven as a whole. For example, take Gordon Liu's kung fu scene at the beginning, where he's desperately fighting for his life -- it has a lot of speed, intensity and desperation in it, but that scene is never again matched again in the film. Even though I find white-haired bad guys with invincible kung fu really badass, more often than not their style eventually ends up being a detriment to the movie's choreography. In this film, because of the 'invincible kung fu', the choreography involves Chen Kuan Tai just endlessly hitting random parts of Lo Lieh's body trying to find a weak spot. It's also hard to get emotionally involved when most of Executioners of Shaolin involves Chen Kuan Tai and Lo Lieh slowly going at it, with Lo Lieh never really being in danger. Compare that to Five Shaolin Masters, with its many kung fu styles, plentiful group fight scenes, and villains and heroes that are more evenly matched. There is just more intensity to its fight scenes.

Also, when Lo Lieh finally does bite the dust, its at the hands of Chen Kuan Tai's son, who barely got any character development before hand. Sure, I understand the martial arts message LKL is getting across; thinking openly and mixing different martial arts styles was the answer, but when you spend almost an entire film showing a single character endlessly training and fighting, only to have another minor character whom the audience has no emotional attachment to kill the main guy, that is sloppy film making. Thats what happens when you try to fit a storyline about an entire guy's life in 1 hour and 30 minutes, you get loose ends like that. LKL has done better work, and even though Five Shaolin Masters was made a few years earlier, its a better movie.

btw, did I mention the main theme song for FSM? Best theme song in a Shaw ever..

[kungfusamurai]

I can't remember where I read the critique (I hope it was Ric Meyers' book! , but the fact that LKL killed off the hero early on was done on purpose, his way I suppose, of breaking kung fu film conventions. I'm sure the audience who first saw their hero die before the end of the film was shocked, but this unexpected turn of events is what makes EoS so great. Also, the emotional attachment one feels for Hung Wen Ding isn't the fact that he's fighting to avenge his shaolin masters and brothers at the hands of this hard to kill villain, but that he's avenging his father. I don't even think the son would even play a part in rebuilding the temple, at least if the EoS storyline was to continue onward.

Lo Lieh's Pai Mei was never 100% protected. That's an assumption you'd make if you already know how the film ends. But for someone just watching the film, and hopefully not checking the running time on the DVD or figuring out how far into the movie you are, you'd hope that Hung Sze Kwan in his second battle would somehow triumph, even if he was outnumbered because the army was ready for him. In typical kung fu film form, you'd expect all those years of training to have made him a hard killing machine, and while he did train to kill the Pai Mei of 10 years earlier, he was so focused on that task, he didn't plan for Pai Mei moving or better controlling his weak spot. So again, that was Hung Sze Kwan's downfall, being stubborn in not learning his wife's kung fu, and not being ready for Pai Mei to have increased his Qi Gong skill as well.

EoS definitely isn't wall to wall kung fu fighting. Neither was Five Venoms, and yet a lot of people rate that movie higher as an overall flick, as they do 36th Chamber (which also doesn't have as much fighting as the typical martial arts film). EoS is a drama with fighting, as far as I see it.

KFS

[Bravery]

I watched Executioners before I watched 5 Masters, and even though I like Executioners, I agree with thos who have said it was kind of boring. The story wasn't enough. 5 Masters for me is a great film, while Executioners is just a flick.

[Li Ho]

I've never seen an uncut and subbed version of Five Shaolin Masters and I want to real bad. But I think the english dub is very tolerable.

I have a celestial subbed version of 5 masters.Actually thats where I found out what 'Lee diga'means.Im refering to "no retreat,no surrender."The scene where the bruce lee character says," Call me Lee diga!"I found out by watching 5 shaolin masters that it means brother lee.

[Yu_Xihong]

I just watched Executioners From Shaolin again and I'm still disgusted by Wong Yue's win... he was practically dead and to make that sort of comeback is ridiculous. Now Hung Xiguan went out like a G! That was the best part IMO. Even though Pai Mei is the master of nonchalance, as a character he saves the movie from being complete ZzzzzzZs. I didn't care at all for the "quality time" character building. Wong Yue is actually tolerable in the subbed version (my first time seeing it was just now) I had only seen the dub (w/ missing sound effects) before.

Something interesting I hadn't noticed before though that Tong Qianjin (Gordon Liu/Lo Meng) and Gao Jinzhong (Kong Do/Lu Feng) were also in 2 Champions of Shaolin. To this day I'm still not sure if Pai Mei's group is Wu-Tang (could be mistaken for a Zen cult maybe?), but if it is then it completely coincides with Gao Jinzhong being a Wu-tang officer (governor?/general respectively) in both movies.

Anyway, about 5 Shaolin Masters... let's see... all 7 villains put together aren't as cool as Pai Mei, but "flying axe" and "beardy" are cool as hell in their own right. When I first heard "flying axe's" real voice I thought wow he really does sound like a scumbag and that put him over the top. As for the heroes, they're like Voltron with David Chang as the head. I thought the code system was pretty cool/interesting. It's negligible in the dub but better explained in the sub. Red boats have nothing on that. Ma Fu Yi... the guy you love to hate. Kong Do is not on his level in EFS. Xiaohu was a bit funny but not as funny as Fu Sheng and he didn't die as good as Bruce Tong.

As for training, it's no contest. I'll give it up for Gordon because he was a G in both movies. His dying while standing up was on par with the other 2 great dying while standing uppers Fu Sheng (Boxer Rebellion) and Wang Yu (Blood of the Dragon). BTW, Chi Kuan Chun was not a good DWSU in 7 Man Army. Anyway, what else...? 5 Shaolin Masters was episodic with a nice dose of action in each branch of the story and even had black/white/blue? flashbacks while EFS was as linear as it gets. EFS had a cool intro, I admit, but cmon... red rooms are cool and all, but 5 Shaolin Masters intro was on location. The characters had instant personality, even the guy everybody forgets (ground style). Chen Kuan Tai didn't have his usual charisma and I'm not a fan of Lily Li so like I said if it wasn't for Pai Mei this movie would be overflowing with ZzzzzZs. And lastly, dare I say... 5 Shaolin Masters music > EFS music.

[ironfistedmonk]

I can't remember where I read the critique (I hope it was Ric Meyers' book! , but the fact that LKL killed off the hero early on was done on purpose, his way I suppose, of breaking kung fu film conventions. I'm sure the audience who first saw their hero die before the end of the film was shocked, but this unexpected turn of events is what makes EoS so great. Also, the emotional attachment one feels for Hung Wen Ding isn't the fact that he's fighting to avenge his shaolin masters and brothers at the hands of this hard to kill villain, but that he's avenging his father. I don't even think the son would even play a part in rebuilding the temple, at least if the EoS storyline was to continue onward.

Lo Lieh's Pai Mei was never 100% protected. That's an assumption you'd make if you already know how the film ends. But for someone just watching the film, and hopefully not checking the running time on the DVD or figuring out how far into the movie you are, you'd hope that Hung Sze Kwan in his second battle would somehow triumph, even if he was outnumbered because the army was ready for him. In typical kung fu film form, you'd expect all those years of training to have made him a hard killing machine, and while he did train to kill the Pai Mei of 10 years earlier, he was so focused on that task, he didn't plan for Pai Mei moving or better controlling his weak spot. So again, that was Hung Sze Kwan's downfall, being stubborn in not learning his wife's kung fu, and not being ready for Pai Mei to have increased his Qi Gong skill as well.

EoS definitely isn't wall to wall kung fu fighting. Neither was Five Venoms, and yet a lot of people rate that movie higher as an overall flick, as they do 36th Chamber (which also doesn't have as much fighting as the typical martial arts film). EoS is a drama with fighting, as far as I see it.

KFS

All good points mate, and I get the whole Wong Yue adapting his style and winning whilst Chen Kuan Tai's unwillingness to adapt from Hung Gar leads to his defeat, these kind of kung fu motifs LKL has in his films are why he is the best KF movie director of all time IMO. It's just that this film did drag in many places and as someone else mentioned, Wong Yue comes from nowhere, trains in his moms style for 5 minutes and then beats the guy his dad couldn't beat after years of training.

5 Venoms is a very well thought out film even if it does have more than a little "chop sockyness" about it, I love the secret murders and the different clan members hunting each other out. It doesn't drag like EOS for me

EOS is still a good film tho, I just preferred 5 SM

[gravedigger666]

Hell,as CKT was not strong enough to spread legs of lily li no way he had chance to beat pai mei ever:cry:.

[Iron Boat]

5 Venoms is a very well thought out film even if it does have more than a little "chop sockyness" about it, I love the secret murders and the different clan members hunting each other out. It doesn't drag like EOS for me

EOS is still a good film tho, I just preferred 5 SM

Did you just confuse 5 Shaolin Masters with 5 Deadly Venoms?