Most of the time, The Savage Five feels more like a Spaghetti Western than a kung fu flick, which is probably intentional. It doesn’t help that a lot of the “borrowed” soundtrack contains snippets of Ennio Morricone’s score from Giulio Petroni’s 1968 flick “Death Rides A Horse.” Plus, you got the whole Western themes going on: small peaceful town disrupted, a locked safe, and a main bad guy, whose weapons of death is not his hands, feet, knife or sword, but a pair of pistols. Also, gun power plays an explosive part of the film’s climax.

For the most part, The Savage Five is pretty straight forward as far as the plot goes. Nothing unusual or no real surprises are uncovered. One thing that is refreshing about the film is none of the five men are good at kung fu; this is why courage, from more or less average men, is probably the main focus of the film.

As far as the action, those who are familiar with Chang Cheh’s work will get what they expect: lots of bloody violence and heroic deaths. Lau Kar-Leung’s choreography is solid, and is not the typical “swinging arm” bullshit we get with most pre-1975 martial arts flicks. Of course, this is what makes most Shaw Brothers projects so special: the ease of creating an all-round quality piece of entertainment.

Chiang Tao heads a band of thieves on the run after a bank robbery where they took off with the safe and apparently murdered some of the bank workers. They find refuge in a peaceful seaside village where David Chiang (a small-time village thief that the people like so much that even though they catch him stealing, they can't bring themselves to punish him), Ti Lung (a former martial arts master who has gotten a bit lazy but still fancies himself as a master), Chen Kuan Tai (a hard working restaurant owner along with his girlfriend), Danny Lee (a blacksmith), and Wang Chung (an acrobat who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time) happen to all reside...well actually Wang Chung is just passing through. The bandits decide to stay at this village because the police are days away and they need the blacksmith to open the safe.

What makes this film so good is that the heroes are ordinary people...you and me.

The bandits kick a sick Wang Chung out of the inn and hang him outside after he tries to resist them. The scene where Ti Lung decides to go and try to cut Wang Chung down is just wonderful. You see this man (Ti Lung), who is very afraid because he has obviously never really had a true life and death fight, but he digs down deep and finds the courage to go and help this man he doesn't even know. Chen Kuan Tai goes along with him and try as they might they are simply no match for the knives the bandits use. Soon, Ti Lung and Chen Kuan Tai find themselves tied to a wagon and whipped as they are forced to drive the bandits through town to serve as an example of what happens to people who try to fight. Ti Lung and Chen Kuan Tai are about to be executed in front of the town when the bandits decide that if the women of the town are willing to entertain them, they will let the two men go. Eventually, Chen Kuan Tai's girlfriend (played by Linda Chu) steps forward. She tells the eight bandits that she can handle all of them if they just let the men go and leave the young girls of the village alone. A very sobering scene as Chu walks away with the bandits and Chen Kuan Tai and Ti Lung watch her go, knowing there is nothing they can do about it.

There are a few twists and some rather brutal and emotional fights in this movie.

Simply put, this is a very good film with wonderful characters.

Chang's stable of action stars fit their roles perfectly:

The plot is given a further twist by the introduction of a character who fights with 'modern' weapons. He arrives just in time to turn the tide decisively agianst the town. I don't want to give away too much, so let's just say it's a novelty that owes a small debt to Kurosawa, in my opinion.

In the post-9/11 world, the themes of this movie are especially relevant. All people suffer cruelty, violence, and terror in this film, but none suffer so much as the youths who confront the evil bandits directly.