It was the music of Wu Tang Clan, the Staten Island-based rap crew, that turned me on to the campy bliss of turn-of-the-1980's martial arts movies. The sampled dialogue from various films that Wu Tang used in their music triggered me to seek out key films from the era. That led me down a seemingly endless rabbit hole of kung fu movies, not unlike the Thai poster rabbit hole that I'm sliding down at present.
Among the films that I came to love from the era is the cult classic Shaw Brothers film FIVE DEADLY VENOMS. Needless to say, when I came across this poster last week, I danced a little jig.
The artist for the is poster signs his work "Uncle," or so that's what a trusty collector friend of mine tells me. I'd have never been able to read his Thai signature otherwise. Beyond that, I know very little about the man himself, other than his poster art is quite good and also quite stylistically varied. Some of his pieces have an extreme realism feel to them. Others are cartoonish, and some quite impressionistic. All are good to look at.
Many movies that made it to Thailand were given multiple releases over the years. FIVE DEADLY VENOMS is one of them. The Uncle poster seen here is for the second release, circa 1983. That doesn't detract from the originality of the poster art, however. The original 1978 poster is cut and paste style - also really good.
Some day I'll find it.
"Poison Clan rocks the world!"
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