Shaw Brothers Classics Vol. 3 Blu-ray Review: Guillotines and Venoms and Swords, Oh My

By the third Shaw Brothers Classics set, you know if you’re in or out. I can confirm Vol. 3 maintains the high standards of Shout! Studios and this set includes entries in the Flying Guillotine and Venoms franchises.

Killer Clans is full of cool contraptions that took me by surprise in fights, and I’ve seen hundreds of these. Maybe none of them are an 8 diagram pole or a flying guillotine but they’re not bad prototypes. Unfortunately this one is a little rapey and overly bloody too.

Shaolin Avengers is a more traditional martial arts movie about different schools and their styles. But it’s bare hands fighting from the beginning with its opening demonstration against dark sets. The training methods seem to come down to mostly endurance, withstanding elaborate beatings.

Web of Death may be a precursor to Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain. It opens with magic and optical effects but becomes a more traditional swordplay movie. There is a temple full of booby traps too.

The Vengeful Beauty is the third Flying Guillotine movie. It’s odd that they took the words “flying guillotine” out of the title but rest assured, there are flying guillotine galore in it.

Death Duel is the first movie in this set that lost me but it still has a lot of sword fights.

Life Gamble has a lot of unique characters with different styles and weapons. It stars the Venoms and centers on a simple iron smith who just wants to do his job, but keeps getting drawn into fights.

Soul of the Sword is a better sword fight movie than Death Duel about swordsmen and women battling to be the best. They sure do whittle each other down to the end.

The Deadly Breaking Sword has a fighter who breaks off an inch of his sword every time he kills someone. Don’t worry, it’s a very long sword. It would take more than the entire cast of this movie to whittle it down to a nub, but means lots of unique fighters challenge him.

Clan of the White Lotus is a good old warring clans movie where each demonstrates different styles. Gordon Liu learns a cool new training techniques requiring a light touch, not force, and it’s pretty feminist learning the value in women’s activities. It’s a great companion to The 36th Chamber of Shaolin when you’ve already seen that one 100 times.

Shaolin Abbot is full of fun training montages and plenty of fights in the market and restaurants with weapons and impressive acrobatics. It’s also the second film in this set to use the same gimmick of a well with a secret portal.

Shaolin Rescuers is more comedic in a post-Jackie Chan way. The Venoms are back fighting with props in the kitchen and a restaurant, amazingly balancing on logs and overturned tables and an insane 15 minute battle Royale finale.

All of the films look as clean as the major releases like 36th Chamber and Five Deadly Venoms. The bright colors on the soundstages and costumes are clear in HD.

Every disc except for one has some bonus features featuring the usual experts on Hong Kong martial arts films. I wish David West were on more films but it probably takes him a long time to prepare those detailed commentaries I like. I’m glad he did Vengeful Beauty to delve into the Flying Guillotine films.

James Mudge and Frank Djeng are back too. Brian Bankston and Ian Jane were new to me but they’re also well researched and packed with information for an entire movie. Jane brings in a lot of other sources he reads from including Jackie Chan’s social media and Marvel’s Iron Fist.

Interviews explore the histories of the filmmakers and the actors who are still around or archived from previous DVD releases.

Author Ric Myers goes for 75 minutes, almost a feature film. He has an in-depth, coherent thesis about the different styles at play in the films in this set. He addresses individual directors and performers and concludes with the Shaw Brothers influence on John Wick 4!

Victor Fan takes things back to ‘20s silents that are lost now but points out their influences in the Shaw films. Without a film to accompany West gives a retrospective on director Lo Leih and Gordon Liu with just as much context and knowledge.