I watched Shinobi No Mono and The Heroic Ones so far. Here are some thoughts:
Shinobi No Mono (SNM) is a good film. It is not an action film, so anyone expecting lots of fights and fancy choreography may be disappointed. Luckily, I wasn't expecting that, so enjoyed it. It deals mostly with the intrigue in the world of the ninja. The ninja portrayals are realistic, as is the violence, which might have been a bit of a shock to any Westerners had they seen this movie in the early '60s (which I doubt many Westerners saw it then). Though by today's standards it's not shocking. None of the fights are 'great' by today's standards, but they're certainly closer to what probably really happened. And the ninjas moved with stealth and agility. Compare that with the bumbling id!ots called ninjas in Norris's The Octagon.
It's clear that this movie was an inspiration, or at least was very much known to Hong Kong filmmakers. Some of the music used during the early fights was lifted from SNM and used in some '60s-era Shaw Bros wuxia films. Also, a scene with a sleeping man, a wire through a ceiling, and poison brushed down that wire, was copied in Yuen Woo-Ping's Miracle Fighters. Many of Chang Cheh's David Chiang/Ti Lung-era films have scenes that seem inspired by the final battle.
I had seen part 2 on sale but wanted to see if I liked the first one. So at some point I may pick that up, too.
The Heroic Ones looks to have been made around the same time as The Deadly Duo. It starts off like it'll be a good movie. It's actually pretty boring. David Chiang has the best role, as the youngest of 13 brothers under their "father/king" Ku Feng. The movie becomes monotonous, and scenes begin to look alike after awhile. At 2 hours, it's about 35 minutes longer than it should have been. Others in the cast include Ti Lung, Wang Chung, Nan Kung-Hsun (Korean actor James Nam), Chen Hsing, and a bit part by Bolo Yeung (Yang Sze). The sets are great, they employed a lot of extras for a big-movie feel. But IMO Chang's movies really improved a bit later (around 1973). However, even in many of his Venom films, he still had a tendency, esp. around the beginnings of films, to expect his audience to remember who's who as the names of countless characters are mentioned. Mostly a good buy if you like collecting Shaw titles.
So far, I've only watched about 10 minutes of Journey of the Doomed, and it has a feel that's different from other Shaws. For one, I haven't noticed any of the familiar stock music used by Shaws in the '80s. I'll be curious to see how it plays out.