Chong xiao lou

Featuring a booby-trapped house and starring the Venoms, this early-'80s Shaw Brother's flick sounds all kinds of cool, but is let down by a plot that is incredibly hard to follow at times and a lack of memorable martial arts action.

The plot has something to do with a prince who is organising a rebellion against the emperor, enlisting some of the top fighters in the land; he keeps a list of all his rebels, and a collection of stolen imperial treasures, in the house of traps, a building protected by a series of automated devices designed to kill intruders.

It doesn't take long for the convoluted narrative to confuse, with the introduction of numerous characters who are difficult to tell apart, and matters get more and more bewildering as loyalties come into question. I gave up trying to keep track of the story, hoping that the inventive booby traps, the gore, and the fighting would be adequate, but they weren't: the same traps are activated each time, the bloody stuff is wholly unconvincing (funniest moment: a guy is tortured by being pushed onto a bed of rubber nails) and the kung fu not all that impressive (this is the Venoms - I expect more).

Admittedly, the initial activation of the house is fun, the intruder losing a foot before being impaled on a floor of spikes, and a later scene involving some crazy umbrella fu is entertainingly silly; also rather amusing are those phallic protrusions on the roof of the house, so handy for attaching a grappling hook to (or grappling hand, in this case). But as a whole, this is a disappointing effort from director Chang Cheh and his usually reliable troupe of performers.

I watched the dubbed English version (I usually prefer the original cantonese or mandarin soundtrack) but some Kung Fu-movies are obviously meant to be enjoyed like this. The dialogue is outright hilarious, unprecedented by any Kung Fu-flick I've ever seen so far (probably about the hundreds). The story is impossible to keep track of, I honestly still, after watching the whole movie, don't know who I was supposed to root for or who was bad and who was good. But in this movie, it just adds to the chaotic watching experience it is from start to finish. As usual with Chang Che's venom movies, there are so many characters introduced to us, and many of them look deceptively identical to one another that knowing who's who unless you are a die hard fan is pretty much impossible. That being said, the movie is practically devoid of fighting scenes, which came as a surprise to me. I read that a large proportion of the movie had to be cut out during the restoration, something that might explain the lack of action, but I honestly didn't mind, since the end fight (roughly 10 minutes) is amazing, and probably one of the absolute best fights in any venom movie. Just fast forward to that one if you're only in it for the fighting and marvel. The story? Eh.. well.. Chinese king (sic!) has many men, prince wants.. a throne..? Someone built a house of traps because someone died.. something is stored in there.. and the prince recruits men.. somehow, they fight! The end. Watch it for the laughs and the superb last fighting scene.

I saw this movie on videotape. The copy of this film is terrible. Most of the time, I couldn't read the dialogue or saw what was going on. The most intriguing thing about the movie, as the the title suggest, is the house itself. Apparently, some royal king decided it would be best to hide a valuable artifact in a house filled with traps. Not only with bodyguards of swordsmen but with grounds that popped out with long spears and stairs that chopped off legs. The artifact is on top level of the house. I still don't get why anyone who knows about the trap insist on going up that way. Why couldn't they just go on top of the house and drop in from there like Tom Cruise did in Mission Impossible 2. The only reason to see this movie are the traps but you have to sit around for a long time to see that. It could've been more interesting if I knew what the characters were talking about. I couldn't tell why they were fighting each other. Anyone who has a better copy of this please tell me where they got it.

HOUSE OF TRAPS is a typically flamboyant early 1980s outing for the Shaw Brothers studio. It marks the final outing for the popular Venoms mob, who had so memorably appeared in THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS and so many films after that. This time around they're involved in a tightly plotted mystery thriller which doesn't skimp on the martial arts action, which is inventively gory and remains a highlight as always.

I found HOUSE OF TRAPS to be a slightly lesser work due to the plot being a little convoluted and confusing, particularly in the first half. It all works out well in the second but until then I was scratching my head a few times. It's one of those films where every character seems to have an ulterior motive or hidden agenda so you're never quite sure where the loyalties lie. The titular location hangs heavily over the production and is an impressive design, a little like those booby-trapped temples that Joseph Kuo always had in his movies. I was a bit disappointed that the traps are limited to a single room but the set design is very inventive and heavily stylised.

There's not a wealth of action in this film but that doesn't really matter when the costumes, props, and set dressing are all so beautiful to look at. The actors inhabit the roles well and as always they excel in the fight scenes, which are the more dramatic for being kept relatively brief. As is usual, the large-scale climax never fails to disappoint.

One of the last of Chang Cheh's long line of films for the Shaw studios. This is one of his all- male cast films, no women ever show up! It's also considered the last of the "Venom" films despite the absence of Lo Meng and the fact that the later "Ode to Gallantry" has three Venoms in it.

The plot is convoluted and requires a narrator to set up the film but the parade of characters makes it hard to keep up with. If there is a central character it could be the assistant judge played by Sun Chien who is investigating the rebellious plans of a prince out for revenge over his father's death. Along the way numerous "heros" show up and align themselves with the prince or the judge. Kuo Choi shows up halfway thru the film and steals the film with his comic acting and remarkable acrobatic skills. Chiang Sheng appears even later as a hero posing as an acrobat to infiltrate the prince's palace.

Without the story clarity of classic Venom films, like "5 Deadly Venoms" or "Crippled Avengers" this film is hard to enjoy as much. The promised House of Traps is fun but the final break in to the house is a let down. The final fight is a different story with good 10 minutes of excellent Shaw style action. THe costumes are very odd and seem to have sprung from director Cheh's mind instead of history. One character wears a Scottish style hat and Kuo Choi never takes off a strange fur hat that make it look like he has a toothache. Sun Chien never enters the action.

All in all, a comic book style film. If you know the Venoms already, you'll probably like this.