Lao Movie Reviews

Basically, a master has taught his pupils 5 deadly arts of Kung-fu all of which fit the the title 5 deadly venoms because the styles mimic animals that are poisonous. The centipede, snake, toad, lizard, scorpion. Hence the name "poison clan". The master teaches all of these to pupils at different times and is only explained by the master as a sort of flashback but more of a background builder. Each pupil mastered a specific style within the clan but do not know anything besides that style. However, they know their own style very well. Each style has it's own weaknesses but if one can know how to do them all they essetially complement each other and then one can have no weaknesses. The master is telling this story to his pupil Yan Tieh who actually has a small role in the film even though his role is rather important because it actually sets things in motion. The reason is the master has taught all of the tecniques to Yan but he doesnt know anyone technique very well and therefore he can be easily beaten by anyone of the 5 previous pupils. His mission is to check up on the 5 pupils to see if they are doing good deeds with their skills. As the story unfolds there are 2 who are obviously bad and are after a treasure and killing people left and right. Only they screw up and use their skills and leave death marks of special kung-fu on the people they killed. PLus to add to all the fun some innocent bystander witness thee murders. 2 others are less noticeable but are good and one later reveals himself who is actually an officer of the law (but you kind of figure this out because he get the lead role in the film). The officer hides himself by using the Toad who is his friend to help caputure the bad guys which are centipede style and later the snake who actually has a feels sorry for his murders and centipde who could careless and wants to keep using his skills to kill people for money and status. They succeed and a chain of events leads to an ultimate battle at the end because the scorpion actually finds the map to the treasure and later reveals himself as the wild card of the stack and plots to kill all of the clan members so he can be the most powerful and have all the gold. Yan teams up with the officer who has the lizard skills and teaches Yan his style. The toad is tortured to death because Snake and Centipede styles are behind the whole thing and have semi-control over the governing body.

Toad: strengths are iron skin style (it does exist in real life but well over dramatic in the movie of course). The iron skin does not allow weapons and hand to hand combat strikes to cause damage to the person who trained toad style. His weakness is his temples.

Lizard: Strengths are able to do wall kung-fu. Able to strike like a lizard while standing on the wall.

Centipede: Speed of attack is best of all the techniques and rest of the styles.

Snake: It's awkward floor (fighting while on the ground) and hand speed and cunning is its strengths.

Scorpion: Able to smash objects with great efficiency. The powerhouse of the techniques.

You can tell putting all these together makes you basically invincible.

The wall-to-wall action makes the pace of the film fast and furious. The unique kung-fu is fun to watch and the coreography is brilliant. The best thing is the actors are very talented and very fast with their fighting. Everyhing here looks very well done.

Acting: B
Actor Performance: A+
Action: A+
Coreography: A+
Entertaning value: A+
Replay value: A+
Storyline: A-
Directing: A

Overall: A

It's not clear whether Max takes his advice or not, but Max seems to solve what the number is, only to be attacked by a number of people that want the number. Eventually he is able to escape from all of these attacks only to succumb to his own insanity.

My Comments:
Two friends highly recommended this movie. As was the case with Donnie Darko, it was described as a 'mind trip'. And, as was the case with Donnie Darko, I think this movie fails to fully realize its potential. Yes, the idea that pretty much everything in the universe can be represented mathematically is cool. Also cool is the idea that perhaps there is a single number that holds the key to unraveling all of the mysteries of the universe. But the story used to explore this idea just doesn't cut it.

The story isn't necessarily full of holes, it just doesn't make much sense. The biggest problem is Max's headaches, if that's what they really are. I'm guessing they are supposed to be hyper-severe migraines that result in him hallucinating at times. Max also seems to be somewhat paranoid, though his paranoia seems to be somewhat based in reality. In the end, the headaches just turn into an excuse to kill Max off without actually dealing with what the consequences would have been if someone had actually discovered the 'almighty number' that solves everything. It was really disappointing and much shallower than I think most people want to believe. Yes, it had potential, but all of that potential rested in Max actually doing something with the information he discovered. Instead, Max takes a drill to his head and kills himself. Whoopee.

I'm sure defenders of the movie will turn around and say, "But consider the budget. They really couldn't do much beyond what they did." Well, that's probably true. But if they had a better story, they could have gotten a better budget.

As for the acting, Sean Gullette was pretty good. Once again, the big problem here is the headaches. Even though Sean Gullette plays a convincing, introverted mathematician, I don't think even he really knew what to do with the headaches. They don't seem to have a basis in reality (i.e., no one has ever had anything like this before), which make them hard to portray convincingly. So, yes, Sean's performance was pretty good, but considering the story didn't make a lot of sense, he didn't have much to work with. The rest of the cast was for the most part bearable, with the exception of Pamela Hart (Marcy Dawson from Lancet Percy). I'm guessing she only has minimal experience acting, because she didn't seem to be doing it in this movie.

Overall, the concept was cool, but the delivery was wanting. The incorporation of the migraines, if that's what they were, was a copout for a story that wasn't going anywhere. Whether this was because of a non-existent budget or a bad story doesn't matter to me. Perhaps I was expecting a real 'mind trip', but what I got was just a dull, throbbing in my temporal lobe. Not recommended.

If you like number patterns buy a book by Wolfram, and if you are interested in religion read the Bible.

Not to mention his increasing drug problems. Then the Kaballah come in. They want a number to unlock theit text. Max finds the number for *both* and finds that he is wanted by both. And his life is at stake. These people will stop at nothing to get the number. Then he does something drastic to make sure no one ever knows...

This independant black and white film is masterfully done. Well acted and well scripted. You will get chills and thrills when watching this movie. The commentary tracks are very informative as well.

See it today!!! NOW!