Fearless Hyena 2, The (1983)

The slapped together final collaboration between director Lo Wei and Jackie Chan is only mildly more entertaining than its star would like to admit, despite an obvious attempt to insert previously shot footage and a double for Jackie after he quit the film early on.

Before going into the plot, it must be understood that Jackie Chan walked out on the original production of this film in 1979, thus breaking his contract with Lo Wei who had been milking the success of his rising star’s popularity ever since New Fist of Fury in 1976. Disgruntled over the extremely low budgets and lack of creative control, Jackie left Lo to finish the film on his own without a star. Despite his many faults as a filmmaker, Lo was certainly resourceful and managed to splice in unused footage from the original Fearless Hyena (1979) with the few scenes Jackie did shott for the sequel with newer scenes employing a double in place of Jackie. The result is a frequently choppy film with a meandering plot that far more resembles many of the other inferior B-grade kung fu movies filling up screens.

The story boils down to the common scenario of a wicked martial arts master hunting down old colleagues to prove himself to be the best. The hunted escape to raise young pupils who eventually avenge the death of their masters after the baddies catch up with them. In this case there are two villains that include Heaven (Yen Shi-Kwan) and Earth (Kwan Yung Moon). Their gimmick is the not-so-impressive ability to run in front of each other with the camera undercranked as they approach their opponent to confuse them.

Lung (Jackie Chan) and Tung (Austin Wai) are cousins who are separated as their fathers’ flee. Years later, Lung has grown up to roam around the countryside stealing farm animals and generally getting himself into trouble. Meanwhile, Tung has become so lazy he spends his day inside a house rigged with a series of levers, gears, and pulleys that bring food and a portable urinal to his bedside. Of course, this easy living is upset once Heaven and Earth catch up with them. After their fathers are killed by Heaven and Earth, Tung resorts to setting traps to compensate for his lack of practiced martial arts while Lung helps him finish off the two villains.

Straight up, The Fearless Hyena 2 should only appeal to viewers interested in seeing Jackie’s unused footage from the first film. A few entertaining highlights include a series of bets that leads Jackie to perform an elaborate trick where he ends up reversing the direction of his jacket without taking it off. Jackie’s fight with members of a Bandit’s Guild in a teahouse features some excellent choreography. Beyond that, Jackie’s remaining scenes are superficial and its up to the rest of the cast to fill out the story. Unfortunately, they’re not up to the task and Chan’s early trademark mega-fights are sadly absent.

On top of that, an inferior stand in is used for many of Chan’s later appearances in the movie. Lo Wei passes this off with a variety of cheap gimmicks including having the actor wear disguises or only shot from a distance.

James Tin, Yen Shi-kwan and Dean Shek return after appearing in the first film (no doubt some of the scenes with them are recycled) and Hon Gwok-choi appears as Little Frog, who basically replicates his role from Tiger vs. Dragon (1973) as the clown who becomes a martyr.

This leads to another fault with the film which is the tone that goes from serious, to funny and back to serious again. For the most part, the funny scenes were directed by Chan and feature him prominently while the whole tiresome revenge shtick with hokey shades of wuxia belongs to Lo Wei. Some of the other humor was right out of a Karl Maka film such as the scene with Chan and Dean Shek, who plays a restaurant owner. At one point, Shek whips out the world’s smallest abacus, an object he points is an early electronic calculator, to calculate how much Chan owes him for breaking his dishes and earlier praises his restaurant’s close proximity to subway access as a benefit. Great stuff, but not enough and Lo obviously has no idea how to use it.

Much of The Fearless Hyena 2 is forgettable and this ranks as one of Jackie Chan’s worst films although its certainly not his fault. Stand this film up to Drunken Master (1978) or The Young Master (1980) and there is no comparison. Chan knew what he was doing and Lo Wei was an opportunistic fool who was unable to adapt to the changing face of martial arts film. This film should never have been completed or released.