THE FEARLESS HYENA
A film review by Christopher E. Meadows
Copyright 1997 Christopher E. Meadows
Starring Jackie Chan
Written and Directed by Jackie Chan
MPAA: Not rated (Though I expect it would get a PG, for martial arts violence and language)
My rating: 7/10 (*** 1/2 out of *****)
Long before Jackie Chan rumbled through the Bronx, he was rumbling through ancient China in low-budget kung-fu movies from the 1970s and 80s. Sometimes referred to derisively as "chop sockey" films, films in this genre often featured most of the same plots, most of the same settings, most of the same actors...in short, they were mostly the same movies, and most of them weren't all that great.
Still, when done well, these films are enjoyable and fun to watch. Even the badly-dubbed versions for sale in Wal-Marts and video stores across the land for under $10 have their redeeming selections. One such film, which bad dubbing doesn't completely manage to ruin, is "The Fearless Hyena".
In "Fearless Hyena", Jackie Chan plays a cocky, lazy kung-fu student, who is in hiding with his grandfather from the chief of a clan who all but wiped his grandfather's clan out. Despite his grandfather's warnings not to show his kung-fu to anyone, Jackie starts fighting for money at a martial arts school...which soon draws the evil clan chief's attention.
The story is nothing unique--in a sense, it's a reiteration of almost every other kung-fu movie of its day, including a better Jackie Chan film also from 1979, "The Drunken Master". In some ways, the so-called plots from these films are little more than excuses to string comedy and fight scenes together. Still...the comedy and fight scenes are good enough that a little plot flimsiness can be overlooked. After all, you know going into it that you're not exactly watching "Casablanca".
In "Fearless Hyena", as in most Jackie movies of the period, Jackie Chan was the fight director and choreographer. However, Jackie also wrote and directed the picture as a whole. In both cases, it shows. Jackie's sense of humor is quite evident, in scenes where he takes humiliating beatings at the hands of his martial arts masters, or hands out beatings dressed as a mentally-deficient drudge or even as a woman (predicting the scene in "City Hunter" thirteen years later where he appears briefly as Chun Li from the "Street Fighter II" video game). There's one particularly humorous scene in a coffinmaker's shop, where Jackie has gone to seek employment, finds the coffin seller...isn't the most honest of people, and accidentally upends a heavy coffin onto him.
The hilarity of these scenes, and of similar scenes that pop up in other Jackie movies, is what sets Jackie Chan's pictures apart from other kung-fu movies of the era. Why see martial arts alone when you can see martial arts and comedy together? Jackie's sense of humor is one of the things that have made his movies constant top box-office draws in Hong Kong, even in an era when Hong Kong's other movies aren't doing so well.
The other big draw is the fight choreography. Jackie Chan is a master of the fighting art, and was so even back then. Seldom is this so evident as in "Fearless Hyena". Fairly early in the movie, Jackie bests three street thugs with his kung-fu, making utter fools out of them while barely even breaking a sweat. Then he goes to work for their master, defeating tough opponents for money in the best fight scenes of the entire film, comparable to those in "Drunken Master" and easily better than anything Jean-Claude Van-Damme's ever done.
Dressed as a kitchen drudge, Jackie Chan uses his surroundings (most notably, the small benches used in place of chairs at the eating tables--also used in fight scenes in "Drunken Master" and "Drunken Master II") to devastating effect. He soundly thrashes a swordsman, first with his bare hands and then with a staff, and goes on to defeat a big bruiser of a thug while dressed as a woman.
Toward the end of the film, Jackie learns a secret new kung-fu technique based on playing on the opponent's emotions, and, after fighting his way through three henchmen armed with naginata-style sword-staves, uses it in his final fight against the film's main villain. These fights are, of course, everything you'd expect from the final fight scenes of a martial arts picture, but they don't have as much of the "use your environment" fun that runs through those earlier scenes.
On the negative side, the cinematography isn't particularly great, the film is shot on inferior-quality stock, the story is kind of slow and drawn-out (you may get bored a few times while you watch it), and the dubbing is pretty bad. Still, this movie is a lot of fun to watch, even with its bad dubbing, and it's cheap enough--you can get it in a 2-pack along with its sequel, "Fearless Hyena II", for just $10. At the price, and for the entertainment value you'll get from it, I recommend this film. For great humor and amazing martial arts, I give it a 7 out of 10.
This review is copyright 1997 by Christopher E. Meadows. Permission granted for free distribution over Usenet and associated archival, and for archival and display associated with the Internet Movie Database (http://www.imdb.com). All other distribution requires permission from the author.
-- Chris Meadows aka | Author, Team M.E.C.H.A., Crapshoot & Co. Robotech_Master | on the Superguy Listserv (bit.listserv.superguy) robotech@jurai.net | With a World Wide Web homepage located at robotech@eyrie.org | http://www.jurai.net/~robotech/index.html
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