...but I finally located and identified the full theme from Five Shaolin Masters: the title is “Omertà”, from Gianni Oddi’s 1974 album Style. The main frisson point is the tense shudder of strings at about 0:50-0:55.
(Old-school Kung Fu flicks shamelessly snagged soundtrack material from whatever happened to be lying around; for example, a lot of Godzilla and spaghetti-Western music got repurposed in Shaw Brothers’ films. At the risk of more than you really cared to know about the subject:
I realize it’s three-and-a-half years after the fact...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7MZohtjtGD8
(Old-school Kung Fu flicks shamelessly snagged soundtrack material from whatever happened to be lying around; for example, a lot of Godzilla and spaghetti-Western music got repurposed in Shaw Brothers’ films. At the risk of more than you really cared to know about the subject:
http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-63823.html)