Moustroll
Good movie but grossly overrated
Humaira Grant
It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.
Ariella Broughton
It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
Paul Magne Haakonsen
As much as I enjoy Jackie Chan's movies, acrobatics and martial arts, and despite how much people keep saying that "Fearless Hyena" is a martial arts classic and gem, then I found it rather difficult to sit through this movie and take it seriously.First of all, the version I got was an English dubbed version, without the option to switch to the original language. And as if that wasn't bad enough, it sounded like a single, constipated guy was making all the voices for all characters in the movie. It was just awful.But the movie was also incorporating a bit too much slapstick comedy and really bad sound effects in an attempt to emphasize on the comedy on the screen.Despite the above-mentioned things, then there are good things to the movie as well. The main thing being the acrobatic and physical performance that Jackie Chan delivered. It was just impressive. And you also get to see Jackie Chan dressed up as a woman, which was just hilarious, and that scene alone makes it worth to sit through the entire movie.Story-wise, then "Fearless Hyena" ("Xiao quan guai zhao") is fairly simplistic and easy to follow, even as the movie doesn't require any real brain activity from the audience.This is not amongst the best of Jackie Chan's earlier movies in his otherwise impressive movie list. And I must admit that I thought this movie would be more than it turned out to be, as I had heard nothing but praise and great things about it.
Shawn McKenna
Jackie Chan had just established his Hong Kong popularity with Seasonal Pictures Snake in Eagles Shadow and the sublime Drunken Master. With the success of those films Lo Wei, who lent him out to Seasonal, let Jackie have complete control over his next picture. Fearless Hyena would be Jackie's directorial debut – though he would be working with a much smaller budget than his Seasonal experience. He would also stunt coordinate and write this film too. This movie would out gross the stellar receipts of Drunken Master and help earn Jackie 6000 HK dollars (his pay was 3000 per film; though he made over 50000 on Drunken Master). This measly pay helped exacerbate the rift between him and Lo Wei which led to his departure and the infamous sequel. Jackie reprises his goofy student role that he played in Drunken Master. This time he is Shing Lung, a talented but capricious student and grandson of Chen Ping Fe (the ubiquitous James Tien). Lung would rather gamble or goof off then study his forms. Little does he know that his Grandfather is marked for death by Yen Ting Hua (the underrated Yam Sai-kwoon aka Yen Shi Kwan) who is trying to destroy the Sien Yi clan founded by Hiu Fei (I just love keeping track of these names, I do not know why). Though Shing is forbidden to teach (or show) the Kung Fu his grandfather teaches him he (of course) does it anyways.Shing tries to make his grandfather proud by getting a job selling coffins. The coffin dealer played by Dean Shek is an unscrupulous merchant who even sells secondhand coffins. This cameo plays to the strengths of Dean and is quite an interesting and hilarious scene. Hapless Shing blows this opportunity by trapping Dean in one of his favorite coffins. He runs away and while walking the public he is confronted by three ruffians (Great Bear, Stony Egg and Ironhead) he beat up earlier. They want him to teach them Kung Fu.Shing meets their Master Ti Cha who is in charge of the Everything Clan who has no actual skills except for scheming. Ti offers Lung a position and lots of money to help there school learn effective fighting techniques. Ti uses him in the old ploy as a lowly laborer to fight heads of other schools (so if the lowly laborer is that good, just imagine how good Master Ti is.) This leads to several excellent fight scenes that are incredibly fun to watch. I especially like when Shing fights the Lu Ying and the Willow Sword (using the Pink Panther theme as background music) as a cross-eyed beggar. He then fights a large albeit slow man as a woman (yes, Jackie in Drag and no he is not cute).Shing then makes a huge mistake by naming the facility under the Sien Yi name. Now the rest of the film is very predictable with the ultimate showdown between Shing Lung and Yen Ting Hua. The way it is handled though is quite sagacious. The training scenes are Jackie at his masochistic best. With him pulling huge sacks, doing amazing upside-down sit-ups with his new trainer the Unicorn having a sadistic gleam in his eyes. Shing is even taught Emotional Kung Fu (which Jackie made up for this film) using Joy, Anger, Sorrow and Happiness to focus on one's enemy "emotional" weak spot.One of my favorite scenes is the Dueling Chopsticks scene in which the Unicorn prevents Shing from eating by using his chopsticks (of course.) Unfortunately it has influenced me to be quite annoying and apply this whenever applicable.I would not rate this film as highly as Drunken Master. There are problems with the plot that takes too much from Drunken Master. However, I feel that this is an unheralded martial arts piece that is funny and exciting with excellent ideas and stunt choreography by Jackie Chan. This is also a must see if you want to watch Jackie in drag.
smakawhat
Well what can I say about Jackie.. he is a total clown in this film. The movie that i saw was dubbed get this... by ENGLISHMEN! So everyone had a British accent and it was a scream it was like watching Monty Python. The film quality however is pretty poor, and the fight scenes even though well choreographed, don't come out spectacular. However, there is the classic humor of Jackie, which even involves himself dressing up as a woman and beating a guy up with his breasts, and an unbelievable chopstick battle for a piece of meat between Jackie and his teacher (THIS WAS AMAZING HOW THE HELL DID THEY DO THAT you'd HAVE TO SEE IT TO BE BELIEVED!!)Martial Rating 6.5 out of 10Overall rating 5 out of 10
Blitz-5
Not only are the martial arts techniques executed with skill. The humor is also top notch. Iron Head, The Great Bear and Stoney Egg are classic! If you like martial arts flicks at all or are a fan of the 3 Stooges. This is a must see for you. I'm already on my 3rd copy:-)
