The Fearless Hyena
| Fearless Hyena | |
|---|---|
| File:FearlessHyena DVDcover.jpg UK DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Jackie Chan Kenneth Tsang |
| Written by | Jackie Chan Kenneth Tsang |
| Produced by | Hsu Li Hwa |
| Starring | Jackie Chan James Tien |
| Cinematography | Chen Yung Shu |
| Edited by | Liang Yung Tsan |
| Music by | Frankie Chan Chen Hsua-Chi |
Release date | 1979 |
Running time | 97 mins |
| Country | Hong Kong |
| Language | Cantonese |
Fearless Hyena (1979) (Hsiao chuan yi chao in Chinese) is a kung-fu film featuring Jackie Chan as the main actor and co-director. The movie was also co-directed by Kenneth Tsang.
The movie features many lengthy fighting scenes, more than would be seen in a typical movie today. At 92 minutes of length, the movie features four fighting scenes of about ten minutes each, along with a few scuffles along the way, still of a few minutes each.
The focus of the movie is clearly on the fighting rather than the plot or character development but there is also a lot of comedy involved. Also, as Jackie was about 25 years old when he filmed this movie, it is quite different from his newer movies in that he was in even better shape, allowing him to perform a faster and more acrobatic fighting style.
The movie also contains many extremely unusual fighting scenes. They include a chopsticks duel, Jackie Chan fighting while pretending to be a cross-eyed mentally retarded man, fighting dressed as a woman and attacking his adversary with his fake breasts and fighting using "Emotional Kung-Fu", a style that involved vividly displaying the emotions of anger, sorrow, joy and happiness to find the opponent's weakness and thus fighting while crying or laughing while being hurt depending on the emotion used. There was also a scene in which Jackie fights three opponents armed with piercing spears one by one, and then all three at once while avoiding simultaneous attacks from all spears using acrobatics. Lastly, he finishes off the main villain by holding him upside down in a handstand, and elbowing him in the groin twice.
Box Office
The film grossed a then-huge HK $5,445,535 at the Hong Kong box office.
Sequel
There was a sequel made up of old footage not used in the first, including an extended final fight scene.