When he started on the Hong Kong cinema scene, Jackie was being tailored to become the next Bruce Lee. But, like the immortals of Highlander, there can be only one Bruce Lee (despite what the phone book may tell us), so Jackie didn't fly nearly as well as the powers-that-be guiding his young career had intended. Instead of continuing the facade, Mr. Chan opted for his own avenue: physical comedy and planting his ass in the director's chair. Under the directorial helm, Chan was able to become the kung-fu clown that had been biding it's time deep in the recesses of his personality. Fearless Hyena was Chan's debut behind the camera and that fateful first step to becoming the furniture hopping icon of martial arts comedy enthusiasts the planet over.

I first came upon this movie in the bargain bin of my local Eckerd's Drug™. For $2 I got a bootleg VHS copy of the film with horrible audio and a "blurry as looking through the eyes of a porn queen" transfer tucked away in a cheap cardboard sleeve probably printed on the manager's home computer. I loved the movie though, and soon sought out a commercial DVD version, discovered as part of a "Jackie Chan Collection" set... only the set was broken down into it's separate components and sold at a grocery store down the block for $5 each. What I paid and where I paid for it are invalid concerns right now though, because the only thing that matters is my review for Fearless Hyena, despite what the rest of the world may tell you. Yes, I'm important and demand your undivided attention! Forget Iraq, forget your mom's birthday, forget that copy of Big Black Cocks With Pearly White Cum sitting in your VCR and forget the escaped asylum inmate wielding an axe and dressed as Santa Claus who's prowling outside your window as you read this, All eyes here.

The movie begins with two students of the arts that are martial, running through the countryside with their ailing master. This is no Sunday afternoon frolic though, because this trio is high-tailing from a small posse of evil kung-fu terrorists, bent on world domination their destruction. The students send their sensei off in another direction while they try to draw their pursuers away, giving him time to escape. Splitting up of course leads to violent deaths for both naive youngsters, one at the blades of three guys in black pajamas, the other at the lung perforating fingers (and polka-dotted bathrobe?!) of their evil master, as noted by his bushy moustache and eyebrows, and the sinister Old Navy™ Tech-Vest he wears into combat. Meanwhile, at the Bat Cave, a certain multi-billionaire industrialist in grey spandex forebodes over recent photographs of a tryst with one Boy Wonder, presented to him as blackmail by a disgruntled butler! That's not really a prominent factor to our present story though, so we'll leave Michael Jackson's latest legal problems to himself and continue on instead with Fearless Hyena.

At an otherwise unassuming shack elsewhere in the world (though I imagine it's at least within 100 miles of our previous scene with the lethal poking and armpit gouging), a third elderly man (likely also well versed in the arts of butt kicking) chastises his grandson Shing Lung ("Jacky Chan" as he's listed for this flick) for making trouble recently and bringing them shame in their new social surroundings. As punishment for this (and for having a really whiny British accent thanx to a cheap dubbing budget), he forces his unruly offspring to practice his kung-fu stances. After knocking the clown down a few times and further tongue lashing him for not being focused enough, he puts his young grandson into a headstand position with his legs spread, places a bowl full of hot tea on the guy's "fertile valley" and leaves him to hold it there until he returns from the bathroom... and seeing as how the Better Shacks & Zen Gardens swimsuit issue came today, chances are he'll be in there a while...

Later, as Grandpa's selling homemade dolls (or as the boys in town no doubt try to pass them, "action figures") in the town square to try and make the month's mortgage payment for their shanty, Shing goes out to seek employment, i.e. he's out for a round of swindling! When he beats a trio of con men at their own tea cup game though, they attempt taking back their losses with some highway robbery in the literal sense. But, Stony Egg, Iron Head and the Great Bear learn they're better off as cheaters than as fighters when Shing breezes through them, making stooges of the trio and then returning on his path home. When he uses his winnings to buy a few jugs of fancy wine as a gift for Grandpa, the old man's curious as to where he got the spare change for such posh libations, to which the youngster eventually admits to gambling to acquire the cash. Not one for Shing's methods of "earning" his moneys, Grandpa initiates a round of "training" with his grandson that results in pain and humiliation for his relative until his grandson agrees to get a proper job and never use their special brand of kung-fu around strangers again. Not to burst your bubble Grandpa, but it's not exactly "cornering the market" on your martial art if the only market available is yourself and your grandson! There's money to be had in handing people their asses on a platter! To Hell with selling dolls old man, I think it's time to hold expensive classes so rich people can send their genetically defective blue blood kids to learn how to solve problems by throwing fists at them instead of money.

To go along with pappy's wishes, our hero seeks employment in one of the few industries that will always have an income and will always benefit from his unique conning abilities: funeral homes. Don't think there's a lot of opportunities for a cheapskate in dealing with the dead? Three words: second-hand coffins. Too bad for Shing though, as his bumbling leaves his potential employer trapped under one of his own products and the unemployed kung-fu-er still looking for work. As he's heading home, our goofy good guy is confronted once more by the trio he'd just finished pounding the day prior. Seems the three were so impressed by the man's martial arts that they're inviting him to have dinner with their boss Tea Char, as the brains of the operation has a get-rich-quick-scheme in the works and Shing's the perfect man for the job. The g-r-q-s in question? With the use of an abandoned kung-fu school grounds, Tea intends to offer kung-fu classes to the public. The martial art being taught? Everything.

Yes, though he lacks any and all manner of self-defense, Tea promises to offer training in ever skill of kung-fu for his students... for a hefty price of course. Obviously his lack of ability hinders this plan, hence the need for our Fearless Hyena to join his group, not so much to teach any classes as you might guess, but just to act as bodyguard, bouncer and martial arts eye candy for their pseudo place of learning. Tea Char himself would act as, well, the teacher, giving counterfeit lessons on kung-fu with Shing popping up to quell anyone who might contest the "master"'s credentials as a professor of the martial arts, disguising himself as a janitor, woman or vagrant and thus beating said rebel rousers under the illusion that even he, disguised as the most pathetic of students at the school, could beat the best fighters of any other school in the area. It isn't long before the plan's raking in the silver pieces as the wily Mr. Lung takes down the leaders of those competing schools, thus bringing their students (and in turn their money) to Tea's academy. Many a zany Chantastic fight ensues!

While all this is going on, that master of finger-fu from the opening beats on another victim in his pursuit of the kung-fu master who continues to elude him. After dealing with this latest simp, his goons bring him news of a new kung-fu school that's opened in town... three guesses on which school they're talking about... and the first two guesses don't count. As for Shingy-Shing-Shing though, he's got new problems to concern himself with, as grandpa's found out about Junior's extracurricular activities and isn't the least bit happy about it. Does this spell an unhappy ending to Tea's scam and our protagonistic shyster's ill-gotten gains? Either way, immediately after Shing runs from the school to evade Grandpa's wrath, the evil old guy with the big eyebrows and moustache appears to ask questions. But, since the young con artist isn't around, Tea directs the villain to Grandpa's shack, as it seems this bad dude's been after Chen Peng Fei (Grandpa) for some time. This of course leads to a retirement home brawl between the two, from which Cheng doesn't walk away. The sad part is that Shing was forced to watch his pappy's subsequent demise from some nearby bushes, held down by the fleeing old master who white hair's been chasing since, well, at least some time before the opening of the movie.

The impetuous young martial artist takes offense at the geezer's restraining him while his kin was getting fingered to death, only to be restrained further by the guy as he reveals that he is the Unicorn: a member of Grandpa's old clan and the man who Grandpa's been searching for for years as he and his grandson wandered from town to town. He also lets our hero know that it's his fault his Grandfather's dead now, thanx to all his show boating at the school. But, he promises that our hero will have his chance for revenge... after a whole lot of Unicorn's special training techniques, including extreme kung-fu chopstick dinner dueling! You know, standard kung-fu flick protocol.

And sure enough, while Shing and Unicorn are in town picking up supplies, who should happen to pass through but the mysterious bad guy and his mini-entourage. Still possessed by his thirst for vengeance, Shing Lung attacks the antagonist outright, getting his ass handed to him by his third senior citizen of the movie. Before the protagonist can succumb to the villain's doomsday armpit pokes and nipple tweaks of death, Unicorn interjects, beating around Shing himself and apologizing to Mr. Fancypants as he drags the hero away. Luckily the bad guy must be coming down with Alzheimer's, as it isn't until one of his goons makes mention of it that the impetuous young attacker's "grandpa" looks an awful lot like the Unicorn... Old age: preserving the young for centuries!

Following his new pupil's defeat, 'Corn decides it's time to teach the lad their clan's ultimate fighting style, which plays on emotions and looks like the fighter's just broken out of the asylum for an afternoon out without his straight jacket! But, after a big of solo training in his new techniques, our hero returns home to find 'Cornhole getting triple teamed by Finger Guy's three lackeys! However, where his master seems to have failed, Shing succeeds, fending off all three attackers, weapons and all, with less effort than it takes for the dancers in a Justin Timberlake video. Things go from playtime to life-or-death in the blink of an eye though, as young Mr. Lung chases the last standing thug into a clearing, where who should be waiting but the head honcho in his shiny gold fighting togs. Time to put that final technique to work boyo, otherwise there won't be a Fearless Hyena 2!

By utilizing happiness, melancholy, fear, and what I'm guessing to be all out insanity, in coalition with leaps, bounds, kicks, punches, a little kung-fu Lamaze and some elaborate fight choreography, Grandpa Chen is avenged, evil is defeated and Shing kills the bad guy... by punching him ferociously in the jewels... I'm not kidding, he brutally bashes the baddie's balls repeatedly, killing the man instantly... ?!?!?!?! I know a guy who had lost his cajones to cancer, and one who had his yarbles stomped by high heels and had to have them amputated, but neither of them perished, let alone immediately! How does that work!? Sure, I don't think I could go through life without my little roommates, but that'd be a suicide type of death with a noose or a bullet or a running car in a locked garage or taking a job as Jayson Williams' chauffer, not an instant ceasing of any and all life functions as seen here. Eh, c'est la guerre... er, la vie.

For Chan's first creative accomplishment, Fearless Hyena is a shining example of the man's future works. Though not nearly as brave in it's utilization of the Ikea™ catalog as Jackie's later flicks, simple benches and tables serve as an oracle of things to come when Chan puts his athleticism to use against his many challengers. Sadly though, much of the movie still plays out to be very formulaic with the whole "carefree young martial arts student must avenge his dead sensei with additional training by a second master before disposing of the villain in the movie's final scene" plot line. Then again, for the man's directorial debut you've gotta expect some cookie cutter work before the chef can truly find a recipe to call his own. Plus, the role of Chan as the con man kung-fu school master along with his goofing off cohorts adds the comedy that the otherwise bland tale needs to escape total martial arts movie obscurity... not that there aren't other elements that serve to bog the movie down aside from it's 30% stale tale...

Auditorialy speaking, what's the fucking deal with Chan's horrible piss ant limey voice-over?! Though his grandfather was Chinese, was his dad (never eluded to once in the film's 90 minute run) a British tourist?! As if the voice given Chan wasn't bad enough, the sounds are side-splittingly bad, with weird Tinkerbell noises, computer bleeps, a library of Looney Tunes sound effects and samplings of the Pink Panther's theme music littering the audio track and making the Godzilla Lip seem all that less an offense. I know Jackie's gone back and used his newly expanded Engrish vocabulary to re-dub some of his old movies for new re-releases, and Fearless Hyena seems to be sadly overlooked every time for favors of the same kind. It only saddens me further to know this, since at this rate the mainstream will probably never even hear of Mr. Chan's directorial debut, let alone get to witness it with a reputable soundtrack. Anyway, you take the good with the bad, blend 'em all together and the flavor you're left with is better than crap, not as good as gold, but cuddled comfortably between skim milk and peanut butter cup ice cream, all the while smoking Junior Mints™ in a corn cob pipe. What's that mean? Check out the ratings kids, that's what they're there for!

From these humble beginnings would not only come Fearless Hyena II, but a landmark career for Jackie Chan that would span from his Hong Kong hits like Rumble In The Bronx, Police Story and Drunken Master to cult US flick Canonball Run and mainstream successes with Chris Tucker in Rush Hour, Owen Wilson in Shanghai Noon and in the Jennifer Love (to cream her coffee) Hewitt vehicle The Tuxedo. None of which are on any "serious" critic's Top 100 list, but all of which carried Chan's irreverent brand of physical humor and the Tomb Of Anubis seal of approval. They may never spell O-S-C-A-R for Jackie, but they all spell E-n-t-e-r-t-a-i-n-m-e-n-t... note the capitalization of the letter 'E', eluding to that old "with a capital (insert letter of choice here)" saying... just wanted to make sure everybody got that one. Meanwhile, I've got a dead sensei to avenge and some giant fuzzy caterpillar eyebrows to kick, so work on your finger exercises and keep on truckin' or something...