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Fearless Hyena II
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - 88 Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (22nd July 2024). |
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The Film
 After their elder brother is killed by the Luk Hop Bagua Klan's Heaven and Earth Devils (Once Upon a Time in China's Yen Shi-Kwan and Miami Connection's Best Kwon Yeong-Moon), Ching Tsun-pei (Raining in the Mountain's Chen Hui-Lou) and Ching Tsun-nam (The Big Boss's James Tien) flee with the former's two sons Ching Lung and Ah Tung but they get separated and Tsun-nam and Ah Tung are sheltered by Master Siu (The Killer Meteors' Ma Chiang) of the Beggar Clan who finds them a safe place to hide while promising to find Tsun-pei and Ah Tung. Fifteen years later, Tung ('s ) is a wastrel who uses his family's martial arts style to make money while his uncle has not given up looking for his brother and other other nephew. Tsun-pei despairs of his son Ah Tung's (The 36th Chamber of Shaolin's Austin Wai Tin-Chi) laziness, but pushing him out the door only gets him into more trouble with Frog (We're Going to Eat You's Hon Kwok-Choi) who gets by scraping up money on odd jobs to pay off gambling debts only to incur more. When the Heaven and Earth Devils stumble across Lung demonstrating his skills, they recognize the style; however, by the time they find Tsun-nam's farm, he and his nephew have already headed off in search of Tsun-pei after receiving word from Master Siu about his whereabouts. After a fight with his uncle, Lung storms off, returning to find that his uncle has been murdered. When the Heaven and Earth Devils attack the Beggar Clan's school searching for Tsun-pei, they are doubly suspicious of Lung when he also comes looking for Tsun-pei. Not realizing that Tsun-pei is his father, Lung nevertheless agrees to help protect him and the man's son in memory of his uncle, teaching Lung and Frog fighting skills that they decide instead to utilize in money-making schemes that eventually lead the Heaven and Earth Devils and their men to Tsun-pei's doorstep and pave the way for a final deadly showdown. What started out as a sequel to one of the few Lo Wei (Fist of Fury)/Jackie Chan box office hits in Fearless Hyena, Fearless Hyena II was meant to be more of the same with slight variations – including recasting Dean Shek (A Queen's Ransom) from the first film's dodgy coffin-maker to a zany restaurant owner in an overlong sequence where Lung goes out looking for work – but Chan threw a spanner into the works when he walked out on his contract to sign with Golden Harvest with the help of actor Jimmy Wang Yu (Master of the Flying Guillotine) who smoothed things over when Lo Wei tried to cause trouble for Chan on his new film. Faced with yet another unfinished Chan project, Wei utilized a combination of recycled footage – along with what might be unrecognizable footage possibly from other unfinished, undocumented Chan projects including the temple fight sequence which pairs Chan with a sidekick (Enter Three Dragons' Chiu Lo-Kong) who vanishes from the rest of the film with no explanation – and obvious doubles to bring the film up to feature-length (the plot element of Chan and his uncle disguising themselves in public does not hide the use of a double in some shots). There are many examples of this type of cinematic surgery in exploitation genres – ranging from the various uncompleted Bruce Lee projects and Brucesploitation knockoffs to the amusing machinations of filmmakers like Al Adamson, Sam Sherman, Fred Olen Ray, and Jim Wynorski (along with the far less satisfying Charles Band cannibalization efforts) – but Fearless Hyena II is only entertaining on the level of pointing and laughing at its execution. The familiar plot becomes incoherent, Chan's characterization and athletics are watered down by the intercutting of doubles, the attempts of the elder performers to bring some gravitas is also undercut by the listless pacing and muddy plotting, and even a thankless role for a female who seems at first like the usual window dressing love interest for Tung (Dragon Fist's Im Eun-Joo) who then demonstrates superior martial arts skills and turns her fight with Lung into a strange flirtation. Whereas perfectionist Chan would have been unlikely to release such a film himself had he any creative control, Lo Wei was going to push this one out regardless of the quality, and it has truly earned its lowly reputation to the point where some Jackie Chan fans have avoided it altogether believing it to be a complete mashup of recycled footage. 
Video
While Fearless Hyena II secured a British theatrical release, it went straight to television and video in the United States in a cropped, dubbed master – the only alternative being the cropped Ocean Shores Hong Kong import laserdisc and its stateside Tai Seing port which featured dual English/Chinese subtitles – on VHS from the likes of Simitar Entertainment who also put that version on DVD. Fortune Star remastered the film and the Hong Kong DVD was English-friendly, but the master was also used for Sony's U.S. DVD, and a 1.85:1-cropped anamorphic DVD in the U.K. While Region A-locked viewers can make do with the 2K remaster included in Criterion's Jackie Chan: Emergence of a Superstar set, 88 Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray utilizes the same master in a package with extras devoted to the film itself. The film looks as good as it possibly can given the patchwork construction. The variations in sharpness and color are most apparent in the various exteriors – some of which may be in South Korea while others might be Taiwan along with different film stocks, lighting styles, and the possible age-related or archival issues – while most of the interiors look sharper and more colorful including the restaurant sequence which definitely appears to have been shot for the film specifically. The final showdown is most obvious in mismatching footage, with some possible exaggerated grain from enlargements to isolate Chan in the frame for cutaways using recycled footage. 
Audio
Audio options include the original Cantonese dub in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono dub as well as both the "classic" English dub and an alternate English dub (although the difference appears to be the volume levels of the score compared to the dialogue and effects). Optional English subtitles are provided for the Cantonese track.
Extras
The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by film historians Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto in which they discuss the film in the context of the breakup of Lo Wei and Jackie Chan. Djeng clears up the rumors about the film's reputation as being entirely recycled and points out the sources of several scenes while also noting which ones were likely shot for the film while DeSanto suggests that the lack of cutting in many scenes suggests that Lo Wei utilized every single scrap of Chan footage shot for the film. They are both at a loss to determine where the temple fight sequence was shot and whether it was intended for this film, another released one where it was unused, or another unfinished film. DeSanto also suggests that Lo Wei might have intended to recycle the coffin-maker sequence with Shek in full for the film due to Chan – playing an entirely different character from the first film – doing a double take when he sees Shek at the restaurant.  "Fake Shemps: How Fearless Hyena II was Completed Without Jackie Chan" (16:23) is an interview with film historian and filmmaker Steven Lawson (Hellriser) who discusses the practice of building films around surviving and recycled footage of actors who either died or left productions and goes into detail about the steps Lo Wei took in the film, noting where a little more thought and planning might have cleared up confusion and even complementing those sequences where the doubling is skillfully-executed. The disc also includes the export opening credits (1:58), the Japanese end credits (2:19), the Hong Kong theatrical trailer (3:42), a Japanese theatrical trailer (1:35), and a stills gallery (2:40).
Packaging
The first pressing includes a slipcase with new artwork by Kung Fu Bob O'Brien and booklet notes by David West (neither of which were supplied for review). 
Overall
Lo Wei's follow-up to one of his few box office successes with Jackie Chan, Fearless Hyena II should have been more of the same but Chan leaving the production and Lo Wei's attempts to cover that up created a car crash of a film Chan would probably rather not include in his filmography.
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