“The Five Deadly Venoms” by artist Robert “Kung Fu Bob” O’Brien
Wu-Tang Clan member and music giant, the RZA, has created 36 Cinema, a site that streams special screenings of kung fu (and sometimes samurai) classics with special guests doing live audio commentaries.
This coming Saturday, June 12th, at 12 pm PT / 3 pm ET, 36 Cinema will be screening the Shaw Brothers classic The Five Deadly Venoms (1978, aka Five Venoms) with a live audio commentary from the RZA and Dan Halsted (HK Cinema expert, renowned 35mm film collector, programmer for Portland’s Hollywood Theater).
The Five Deadly Venoms was so popular that its stars became known variously as “The Venoms, “The Venoms Clan” and “The Venoms Mob” and many of them went on to co-star together in other highly regarded kung fu films also directed by this one’s helmer, Chang Cheh. Phillip Kwok as “The Lizard”, Lo Meng as “The Toad”, Wei Pai as “The Snake”, Sun Chien as “The Scorpion”, Lu Feng as “The Centipede”, and Chiang Sheng as the last student of the Venoms Master (Dick Wei). Johnny Wang Lung Wei and Ku Feng also show up here as supporting players in this mystery tale of secret kung fu fighters. RZA and Halstad will undoubtedly have some interesting information to impart about this genre favorite.
To promote this event, they had 36 Styles artist Robert “Kung Fu Bob” O’Brien create some Brand New poster art for the film (as he also did for their previous screening, Heroes of the East). O’Brien is known for his illustrations and cover art for DVD, Blu-ray, and books, creating exciting covers for Shout Factory’s The Street Fighter Collection, Germany’s TVP- The Vengeance Pack’s Lethal Panther, Return of the One-Armed Swordsman, UK distributors 88 Films’ 8 Diagram Pole Fighter, Heroes Shed No Tears, lots of special editions of Jackie Chan classics, and Arrow’s The Sister Street Fighter Collection to name a few. He’s delivered yet another winning piece for this event. Posters and shirts featuring O’Brien’s new poster art are now available, including a very limited amount of posters personally signed by RZA himself. Don’t miss out!
To purchase screening tickets for Saturday’s event go to 36 Cinema.
