This film from 1979 marked Jackie's first venture behind the camera as director. FEARLESS HYENA is a traditional, period-set kung fu flick that closely resembles other Jackie Chan films made around the same time: the focus is on comedy followed by revenge, and these elements, in combination with the sheer screen presence of the young star, make it well worth watching. It begins with a chase scene in which the ruthless Yen (who half resembles Christopher Lee) murders a number of rivals using his kung fu skills. The story then cuts to more familiar territory as we are introduced to Lung, Jackie's character. Lung is learning kung fu skills from his grandfather (played by the familiar and reliable James Tien).The first hour of the film follows the comedy-kung-fu mould as we watch Lung train his kung fu as well as interact with various characters in the village. These range from a crazy undertaker (a cameo from Dean Shek) to three gamblers, who eventually persuade Lung to come and work at their kung fu school. Jackie proves his worth by beating a number of rivals. The final half hour of the film concentrates on revenge as Lung discovers a new mentor (a crippled beggar nicknamed 'the Unicorn') and undergoes some gruelling training before taking on the bad guys in a violent showdown.Essentially FEARLESS HYENA is a film made up of two separate parts, with the first hour concentrating on comedy, and the latter part building up to a vengeance-fuelled showdown. The comedy is of the slapstick variety that Jackie loves, and there are some obvious nods to the likes of THE THREE STOOGES as our hero joins up with a trio of gamblers and engages in some cartoonish battles with them. Love it or hate it, this type of slapstick comedy was beloved by Chinese audiences and always pops up in these types of films.Better still are the 'comedy fights' in which Jackie battles his opponents in various amusing ways. These fights are centred at the kung fu school, as Jackie dons a variety of disguises to battle a series of hardened kung fu masters. It's easy to dismiss these scenes as childish or time-fillers but in fact they display some highly impressive acrobatic skills from the star, whose split-second timing is impeccable. The scene where he dresses as a cross-eyed janitor and fights an opponent using benches and a table, for instance, is wonderful, expertly choreographed and full of fluid action that only seasoned performers could have pulled off.This wouldn't be a traditional kung fu film without any training sequences, and these are also some of the best put on camera. Jackie proves himself to be at his physical peak as he performs upside-down sit-ups over and over again and drags weights across a field, every muscle and tendon on his body straining. The opening and closing fight scenes get pretty violent – the blood runs freely – and the finale in particular is edge-of-the-seat stuff. A new type of kung fu is introduced into the film; it focuses on the emotions (happy, sad, angry, etc.) and with it Jackie is able to take down his opponents in various painful ways.Watching Jackie fight in new, unique ways is always a pleasure and the fights here are no exception; trust Jackie, he's even able to inject some humour into these moments, with his 'sadness' kung fu resembling drunken boxing as he falls over and against his opponent. As the villain, Yen, Yam Sai-kun may not be as skilled as Hwang Jang Lee, but his kung fu skills are pretty spectacular, especially his deadly 'eagle claw' strike. The film ends on a real high with Jackie excelling both in front of, and behind the camera. His fellow cast members all put in good performances and the martial arts is tremendous as usual.

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.

This movie was fun. I really thought it was TOO much like Drunken Master, but not as good. I just felt that Jackie was desparate to recreate the success of that classic, so he just did pretty much the same movie over again with some changes included. But at least he picked Drunken Master to rip off, because that movie is awesome. I make it sound like this movie is bad, but that isnt the case. Its a good movie, very enjoyable, just not original.

I'm a huge fan of Jackie Chan, and I've seen over 25 of his movies, and The Fearless Hyena is definently one of the best. Though the humour is pretty dumb, and lots of the characters are un-necessary(Like Stoney Egg, the Great Bear, and Iron Head)the fights are staged beautifully. Especially the ending fight scene!The story isn't so bad either.Even though it's your usual: guy's family memeber gets killed, guy trains, guy gets revenge type of movie, it's still good.Please don't get Fearless Hyena 1 and 2 mixed up. I've heard Two is really bad. So, I definitely suggest that you buy The Fearless Hyena part 1!