Review: By 1974, writer/director Chang Cheh had already established himself as the leading martial arts filmmaker in Hong Kong with a string of hits, mostly swordplay and contemporary martial arts actioners. Of course, much of this success was due to the masterful kung fu choreography of Lau Kar-leung and Tong Gaai, and also two of Chang's first-generation superstars Ti Lung and David Chiang. But in this year, Chang practically reinvented himself as a filmmaker by turning his attention to the subject of Shaolin kung fu. Films like The Savage Five, Men from the Monastery, and Shaolin Martial Arts began a new trend that betrayed the growing influence of Chang's prized action director Lau Kar-leung, himself a real martial descendent of Shaolin kung fu.

Five Shaolin Masters is one of Chang's last and best Shaolin films produced in '74. It's an epic kung fu classic featuring an ensemble cast of traditionally heroic and villainous actors representing Chang's first and second generation of favored talent. But most importantly, the film is specifically engineered to fill the screen with phenomenal martial arts action from start to finish with a wide variety of actual Shaolin kung fu styles.

Shaolin Temple, released two years later, is a direct prequel to Five Shaolin Masters and it's therefore recommended that viewers consider watching that film first. It's Chang's version of the destruction of Shaolin Temple by Manchu forces and the birth of five heroes who emerged from its ashes. Five Shaolin Masters begins with the scattered heroes, all senior students but not actual monks, fleeing from Manchu forces. The noble Tsai (Ti Lung), the child-like Ma (Alexander Fu Sheng), his chiseled rival Li (Chi Kuan-chun), the quiet Fang (Mang Fei), and their leader Hu (David Chiang) split up to meet with several independent groups of anti-Qing rebels in order to bring them together.

Hot on our heroes' trail are the Manchu led by seven kung fu fighters with unbeatable skills. There is Pao Yu-lung (Choi Wang) with his deadly Flying Axe, Chen Wen-yao (Kong Do) and his twin assistants wielding 'police' batons, Mantis Fist expert Chang Chin-chui (Fung Hak-on), the powerful Chien San (Leung Kar-yan), and Shaolin traitor and master of the Plum Blossom Palm Ma Fu-yi (Johnny Wang).

After a daring rescue of Chao-hsing, who had been captured by the traitorous Fu-yi, the five Shaolin students go into hiding for a year in order to master their own styles. They emerge with a plan to trap and isolate the Manchu fighters in order to defeat them and rejoin the rebellion against the Manchu government.

If there was ever one film more rewarding for fans of Shaw Brothers and old school kung fu than Five Shaolin Masters, then someone please enlighten me. Chang Cheh is at his very best on this one, which possesses the big production feel of his older films and the group camaraderie among kung fu screen legends that dominated his later films starring his third generation of talent, the Venoms. And what Chang really offers his audience is a dream team challenge with some of the era's top screen-fighting heroes pitted against the top screen-fighting villains. The whole film is entertaining and saturated with great action scenes, but everything is a lead-up to the final match, a supreme battle of the masters that is pure, unadulterated bliss.

Rather than run through the entire film, it should suffice to layout what can be expected in the big showdown at the 'SB' corral. The setting is a picturesque riverbank with a shallow body of water and an adjacent, grassy field. Seven fierce Manchu warriors emerge to face our heroes, all dressed in white. The perfunctory exchange of taunts precedes a rush by the Shaolin masters who quickly target their desired opponent and draw them apart.

Ti Lung wields a short staff against Choi Wang, who has been shredding luckless victims throughout the movie with an axe blade tied to the end of a rope. Choi's handling of the difficult weapon is superb, but Ti has a few tricks to counter it.

Alexander Fu Sheng has been playing a bit of a fool up to this point, but having mastered the Tiger and Crane style, he is charged with the important task of subduing the traitorous Johnny Wang. It's payback time following an embarrassing defeat suffered by Fu Sheng earlier.

David Chiang has mastered the chain dart, another difficult-to-wield 'soft' weapon capable of piercing multiple bamboo stalks and any bodies that get in the way including Kong Do and his twin goons, assuming they let him.

Chi Kuan-chun has the difficult task of challenging Fung Hak-on and his Mantis Fist, a style the actor frequently employs in his films. Kuan-chun's answer comes in the form of not one, not two, or even three styles, but a whopping ten.

Last up is poor old Mang Fei who is sorely underused in this film, but still has to contend with 'Beardy' himself, the great Leung Kar-yan. Both their characters and kung fu seems like more of a sideshow attraction compared with everyone else, but Mang manages some good, ground-level legwork while Leung is certainly no slouch.

Lau Kar-leung student Gordon Liu deserves special mention for what amounts to a cameo as a long-haired rebel who comes to Mang Fei's aid by taking on Leung Kar-yan. Taking this and all of the other battles into account, this film is a smorgasbord of celebrity match-ups almost too good to be true.

Five Shaolin Master: own it, watch it, love it. If kung fu, old school with a screen full of talented and charismatic martial arts legends trading expertly-choreographed blows with fists and exotic weapons sounds like something worth seeing, it is. Even it if doesn't, it is. Chang's direction is spot on, the soundtrack is zesty, the camerawork delivers long takes and dynamic motion, there's lots of bare-chested hunks for the ladies, and the action from Lau Kar-leung and his brother Kar-wing is relentlessly outstanding. There's nothing worth complaining about and everything to like in this masterful classic.